Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar on Wednesday met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara, completing the round of Cypriot leaders’ meetings with representatives of the island’s three guarantor powers ahead of next week’s enlarged meeting on the Cyprus problem in Geneva.

The meeting was held behind closed doors at Turkey’s presidential palace, and no statements were made afterwards, with Tatar then meeting Turkish Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz.

“We always say it is futile to seek a solution on an exhausted basis which does not reflect the consent of both sides,” Yilmaz said ahead of the meeting, adding that Turkey “fully supports” a two-state solution to the Cyprus problem.

“It is undoubtedly all of our wish for the two neighbouring states on the island to live side by side with good relations and contribute together to regional stability and prosperity,” he said.

“As the motherland and guarantor, we will always seek to ensure the security and prosperity of our Turkish Cypriot brothers and sisters, and to work for the development and strengthening of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.”

Tatar and President Nikos Christodoulides had both met the United Kingdom’s minister of state for Europe Stephen Doughty in separate meetings in Nicosia last week, while Christodoulides had on Saturday travelled to Athens to discuss the enlarged meeting with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

There, he had said he will attend the meeting with a “clear plan”.

“I want to express publicly that I am going to Geneva with a clear plan, a clear design. We know very well what we want to achieve, and that is nothing more than the resumption of talks from where they were interrupted in the summer of 2017,” he said at a joint press conference at the Maximos Mansion.

Tatar had told Doughty that the Turkish Cypriot side will act “in a constructive manner”, but at the same time insisted that formal negotiations to solve the Cyprus problem can only begin once the Turkish Cypriots’ sovereign equality and equal international status have been accepted.

The enlarged meeting on March 17 and 18 and will see both Cyprus’ sides as well as representatives of the island’s three guarantor powers, Greece, Turkey and the UK, and the UN convene to discuss the Cyprus problem.