A bizonal, bicommunal, federal solution to the Cyprus problem is “the only option”, President Nikos Christodoulides said in a televised address to the nation on Saturday evening.

“I would like to recall that the position of the international community is that the only basis for resolving the Cyprus problem is a bizonal, bicommunal federation with political equality, as defined in the [United Nations’] security council’s relevant resolutions,” he said.

He added that such a solution would entail a Cyprus “with one sovereignty and international personality and a single citizenship, with its independence and territorial integrity guaranteed”.

“This is the only option,” he said.

The address comes a day before he is set to depart the island for the Swiss city of Geneva to take part in the enlarged meeting on the Cyprus problem which is due to take place on Monday and Tuesday.

There, he will be joined by Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the foreign ministers of Greece and Turkey Giorgos Gerapetritis and Hakan Fidan, and the United Kingdom’s minister of state for Europe Stephen Doughty, alongside each of their delegations.

Tatar has repeatedly stated that he will not acquiesce to negotiations based on a federal solution and had said on Friday that he in Geneva will demand “sovereign equality and equal international status” for Cyprus’ two sides, and said negotiations to solve the Cyprus problem “will not be started without these two principles being accepted”.

Christodoulides on Saturday said that enlarged meeting came about as a result of the informal dinner he attended with Tatar and Guterres in New York last October and is “part of the dynamics observed on the Cyprus issue, a product of both our own coordinated actions and our clear political will”.

Additionally, he said, the meeting’s realisation is an indication that that will has been “recognised by the international community”.

“We took the initiative of making the moves and demonstrated genuine political will which was recognised by everyone,” he said.

He went on to say that he will go to the enlarged meeting “with absolute seriousness and with the aim of holding a substantive discussion which will pave the way for the resumption of negotiations for a solution to the Cyprus problem”.

As has become his mantra since being elected in 2023, he said that those negotiations should be resumed “from where they were interrupted in Crans Montana in the summer of 2017”.

“We are ready and prepared to be constructive, guided by the achievements of negotiations so far, to get to that point, but also to produce an outcome which will keep the process alive,” he said.

He also made reference to difficulties on a global scale, stressing the importance of international law in light of the current global geopolitical context.

“In light of regional and international developments and the serious challenges to international peace and security … the commitment to respect and defend international law, the UN charter, the security council resolutions, and the principles and values of the European Union becomes even more imperative,” he said.

He added that “the prestige of the international architecture demands this”.