President Nikos Christodoulides on Tuesday said he had discussed the Cyprus problem with United States President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the summit on the future of Gaza in the Egyptian city of Sharm El-Sheikh the previous day.

Christodoulides and Trump travelled to Sharm El-Sheikh alongside the leaders of more than 20 other countries and were photographed shaking hands with one another on the sidelines of the summit.

Asked what was discussed between him and Trump, he replied that “all I can say is that the issue discussed was the Cyprus issue”.

Christodoulides had said on Sunday that he is “cautiously optimistic” over the prospect of resuming substantive talks towards a resolution of the Cyprus problem, and may be bolstered in that optimism on Sunday if incumbent Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar is unseated by opposition-backed challenger Tufan Erhurman.

Erhurman advocates for a return to negotiations based on a federal solution – the model ostensibly favoured by Christodoulides.

However, the Turkish government has made no secret of the fact that it would prefer to see Tatar re-elected, with a wave of officials from Turkey having visited the island in the runup to the election.

Most recently, the country’s Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz spent three days on the island campaigning for Tatar, but then unexpectedly left the island on Sunday evening.

Aside from Yilmaz, who during his previous visit made a speech at a Tatar campaign stop and was joined there by Turkish ambassador in Nicosia Ali Murat Basceri, former interior minister Suleyman Soylu, former defence minister Hulusi Akar, opposition Zafer Party leader Umit Ozdag, and former footballer Mesut Ozil have all visited the island in recent weeks to declare their support for Ersin Tatar.

Prior to that, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ruled out any return to negotiations towards a federal solution to the Cyprus problem, regardless of who wins next week’s Turkish Cypriot leadership election.

“The matter of federation is now closed for us. No one can draw us back into talks for a federation with wordplay. Turkish Cypriots will never accept being a minority on the island. The only realistic solution is to accept the existence of two states on the island,” he said.

These actions have drawn reactions from both Cyprus and Turkey, with Turkish Cypriot Nicosia mayor Mehmet Harmanci having described Ozil’s visit as “interference”, and described Ozil himself as a “model for the government’s public relations agency”.

The next enlarged meeting on the Cyprus problem – the third of the year – is set to take place in Trump’s home city of New York in the latter part of next month, with the island’s two sides, the United Nations, and the island’s three guarantor powers, Greece, Turkey, and the United Kingdom all set to convene.