Christodoulides set to meet with Colin Stewart and Rosemary DiCarlo

President Nicos Christodoulides will be holding meetings with UN officials over the course of this week and the next, starting with the head of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (Unficyp) Colin Stewart on Thursday.

This will be followed with a meeting with the UN under-secretary-general for political and peacebuilding affairs Rosemary DiCarlo on March 15.

Government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis said on Tuesday the meeting with DiCarlo was confirmed to take place next Wednesday at 10am. The aim of the meeting is part of the efforts to immediately start negotiations, he added.

Christodoulides will convey to DiCarlo that the Greek Cypriot side is determined to break the deadlock on the Cyprus problem.

The president also aims to convey to the UN diplomat his efforts to try and obtain a stronger participation from the EU in resolving the Cyprus problem, which will always be under the wing of the UN, Letymbiotis added.

Thursday’s meeting with Stewart will lay the ground for DiCarlo’s visit.

According to the spokesman, Christodoulides is preparing a document that lays out how the EU can be a more active participant on solving the Cyprus problem. Nicosia’s hope is that the EU can appoint an envoy that will deal exclusively with the Cyprus problem.

Christodoulides will be traveling to Brussels at the end of March to participate in EU Council meetings, where he will also meet with French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.

“The president does not want to wait for the elections in Turkey and Greece to be over before starting his efforts,” Letymbiotis said.

He added there was no answer yet on whether Christodoulides would be able to meet UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres in Brussels.

Christodoulides’ plans for the EU’s involvement in the Cyprus problem will also be on the agenda for his visit to Greece set to take place on March 13 and 14. Before his election, Christodoulides had maintained Greece would be his first official visit as president.

He will be meeting with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Greece President Katerina Sakellaropoulou, Archbishop Ieronymos II of Athens and all Greece, the President of the Parliament Konstantinos Tasoulas, and party leaders.