The UNSG’s special representative in Cyprus, Colin Stewart, will hold separate meetings with president Nicos Anastasiades, and Turkish Cypriot leader, Ersin Tatar on Monday.

The meetings take place ahead of Stewart’s his trip to New York where the UN Security Council is expected to vote in a resolution for the renewal of the UN peacekeeping force mandate at the end of July.

The meetings will take place in the shadow of a response letter which Tatar sent to Anastasiades last week in which he claimed that it is essential for the sovereign equality and equal international status of the Turkish Cypriots to be secured as this “will open the door for meaningful and formal negotiations, which will aim at establishing a structured cooperative relationship between the two equal states.”

Spokesperson, Marios Pelekanos, had said that the government expects the proposals, which Tatar says he intends to submit, to abide by the provisions of the UN Security Council resolutions, international law and EU principles and values.