United Nations under-secretary-general for peacebuilding Rosemary DiCarlo on Thursday afternoon met Turkish deputy foreign minister and European Union affairs director Mehmet Kemal Bozay in Ankara.

The meeting was the latest in DiCarlo’s tour of the region ahead of a planned enlarged meeting on the Cyprus problem in Geneva next month, with Turkey’s foreign ministry having said next month’s meeting was the focus of discussions.

Bozay was deputising for Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, who was on Thursday in Pakistan.

DiCarlo had met Greek Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis on Wednesday, with Gerapetritis telling her a solution to the Cyprus problem is an “absolute priority” for his country, and insisting on a bizonal, bicommunal federation, in line with UN Security Council resolutions.

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Meanwhile, on Thursday morning, Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides had said he will be waiting by the phone to be briefed on the outcome of DiCarlo’s meetings in Ankara.

Christodoulides said he had already been informed about her meeting with Gerapetritis by the minister himself.

“What is important is to see the outcome of the meeting in Turkey. That is where the key is,” he said.

Christodoulides said he had agreed with DiCarlo, whom he met earlier this week in Nicosia, that he would be briefed on “the outcome, the reaction, the way forward” after Thursday’s meetings.

“Let us hope that we receive good news,” he added.

Earlier, he said he had “suggested five specific proposals” to DiCarlo at their meeting on Monday, but did not specify what they were.

“The holding of the enlarged conference is a positive development. From there, what I conveyed to DiCarlo is that what is important is that there is a positive result. It is precisely within this context that I suggested five specific proposals in relation to a positive result through the enlarged conference,” he said of the planned enlarged meeting.

DiCarlo had also met Tatar on Monday, with Tatar telling her that the “sovereign equality and equal international status of the Turkish Cypriot people must be accepted” for there to be constructive steps to be taken towards a solution.

“The Turkish Cypriot people are the primary element in Cyprus and have an inherent right to sovereignty, and I conveyed those vital rights at the meeting,” he said.

Tatar had also said the meeting would take place on March 17 or March 18, with Greek diplomatic sources confirming this selection of dates to the Cyprus News Agency the following day.

The enlarged meeting in March will see both Cyprus’ sides as well as representatives of the island’s three guarantor powers, Greece, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, and the UN, convene to discuss the Cyprus problem.

Tatar has remained insistent that the UK play a “lesser” role in the meeting, having previously publicly been against the idea of British involvement, before agreeing to a “4+1+1” format, with the “four” being the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot communities and Turkey and Greece, and the two “plus ones” being the UN and the UK.

He also insisted that negotiations on the basis of a federal solution to the Cyprus problem must not happen.