Christodoulides thanks Slovakia for ‘long-term’ Cyprob support

President Nikos Christodoulides on Tuesday thanked Slovakia for the country’s “long-term” support regarding the Cyprus problem.

He was speaking at a meeting with Slovakia’s Parliament speaker Peter Pellegrini at the presidential palace.

He described the meeting as “constructive”, and also expressed his gratitude for Slovakia’s “contribution to the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (Unficyp), as well as for its long-term support for bi-communal dialogue”.

The Slovakian embassy in Cyprus has since 1994 facilitated meetings between Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot political parties at the Ledra Palace hotel in Nicosia’s buffer zone, with the aim of building a dialogue between the island’s two sides.

On Monday, Pellegrini had met with his Cypriot counterpart Annita Demetriou.

The pair had “underlined the excellent relations of friendship and cooperation between the two countries and their parliaments and expressed the mutual will to further strengthen bilateral relations in all areas”.

Demetriou awarded Pellegrini with an honorary medal of the House of Representatives as a “sign of deep appreciation” for Slovakia’s support for negotiations regarding the Cyprus problem.

Pellegrini awarded Demetriou with an honorary medal of the Slovakian parliament and reaffirmed his own country’s “principled position regarding the Cyprus problem and the efforts to resolve it”.