President Nikos Christodoulides departed with the Greek Cypriot delegation for the informal conference on the Cyprus Problem, an announcement said on Sunday afternoon.

The conference will take place in Geneva, Switzerland, and will be held from March 17-18. 

Also on the flight are the former President of the Republic, Nicos Anastasiades, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Constantinos Kombos, the Deputy Minister for European Affairs, Marilena Raouna, political leaders – members of the National Council and associates of the President, among others.

Speaking earlier on Sunday at the annual memorial service of Theofilos Georgiades in Aglantzia, President Christodoulides said that every opportunity will be used to create the conditions for the resumption of dialogue on the Cyprus problem, expressing the expectation that the informal enlarged meeting will mark the continuation of the initiative in this direction.

The enlarged meeting will take place in three stages. 

The first is the dinner, which will be hosted by Antonio Guterres on Monday evening for both sides with Nikos Christodoulides and negotiator Menelaos Menelaou and Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar with his negotiator Gunes Onar. At this level, it is expected that there will be the first exchange of views as to the objectives and how the two sides see things and obviously the dimension of the approach will become apparent.

Tatar left on Saturday for Geneva, stopping over in Turkey first, where a Turkish news station interviewed him. He told a reporter that they would not back down from the ‘two-state solution model’ and that the the federation chapter was closed.

Turkish Cypriot politicians part of the north’s parties and ‘government’ left for Geneva on Sunday afternoon.