Lute arrives in Cyprus on Sunday, set to meet two leaders on Monday

President Nicos Anastasiades is expected to express on Monday during a meeting with the UN Secretary-General’s special envoy, Jane Holl Lute, his determination to attend the 5+1 informal meeting on Cyprus with the aim of paving the way for the resumption of substantive negotiations for a Cyprus settlement based on UN decisions and resolutions.

Lute is arriving in Cyprus on Sunday evening for meetings with the two sides, in the framework of preparations ahead of the informal meeting which the UN Secretary-General has convened and which will take place in Geneva on April 27-29.  She is set to meet with Anastasiades at 10.30 am on Monday. Lute will also have a meeting with the Turkish Cypriot leader, Ersin Tatar.

Anastasiades is expected to stress during his meeting with Lute the importance for the negotiations to resume from where they left off in Crans-Montana, with a view to finding a viable and functional settlement on the basis of the work that has been done so far, the common understanding reached on November 25, 2019, in Berlin, the UN resolutions and decisions, the EU principles and values and the High-Level Agreements on the Cyprus problem.

He is also expected to stress the need for the EU to be present at the informal meeting, as Cyprus is and will remain an EU member state after the solution.

Earlier on Monday, Lute will confer with the UNSG’s Special Representative in Cyprus, Elizabeth Spehar, and the members of the team on the Cyprus problem at the UNSG’ Good Offices mission, to be briefed on developments and meetings taking place on the ground.

During her stay on the island, Lute is also expected to meet with the two sides’ negotiators.

On Wednesday she will be visiting Athens to hold meetings with the Foreign Minister of Greece, Nikos Dendias, and other officials of the Greek Foreign Ministry.

Dendias will visit Nicosia on Monday for talks in the afternoon with his Cypriot counterpart, Nikos Christodoulides, in the framework of the coordination between Nicosia and Athens on the Cyprus problem, ahead of the informal meeting. They are to also discuss EU-Turkey relations, ahead of the discussions on this issue by the EU Foreign Ministers and the European Council later on this month.