President Nikos Christodoulides on Friday welcomed a selection of Turkish Cypriots to the presidential palace to speak about next week’s enlarged meeting on the Cyprus problem, which is set to take place in the Swiss city of Geneva.

The group, which among others included the leaders of minor Turkish Cypriot political parties, the YKP’s Murat Kanatli and the BKP’s Izzet Izcan, according to presidential press office spokesman Victor Papadopoulos had a “very productive” meeting with Christodoulides.

Papadopoulos added that Christodoulides had “listened carefully to the Turkish Cypriots’ concerns”.

“He also assured them that he will do everything possible in Geneva so that this conference can reach a positive outcome and that he is going there with specific proposals and specific goals,” he added.

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 United Kingdom, and the UN convene to discuss the Cyprus problem.

Christodoulides had said last week during a meeting with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in Athens that 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.

Earlier, Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar had said 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.

Despite his firm red lines for negotiations to begin, however, Tatar was keen to stress that in the absence of negotiations, there is fertile ground Cyprus’ two sides to cooperate with one another.