President Nikos Christodoulides will meet new United Nations special representative in Cyprus Khassim Diagne for the first time on Wednesday, government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis said on Monday.

Letymbiotis told the Cyprus News Agency that Diagne will visit the presidential palace at around 11.30am on Wednesday.

Asked about the planned visit of UN envoy Maria Angela Holguin to the island, he said that “official announcements from the UN are awaited”.

The Cyprus Mail understands that Holguin will next visit the island at some point between November 3 and November 11.

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Diagne will also meet Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman, who formally took office on Friday, in the coming days, with Holguin also expected to meet Erhurman when she next travels to Cyprus.

Holguin’s visit will come with a view to readying the ground for a third enlarged meeting on the Cyprus problem of the year, expected to take place in New York towards the end of November.

That meeting, just as the previous two meetings, will be attended by representatives of Cyprus’ two sides, its three guarantor powers, Greece, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, and the UN.

Diagne arrived in Cyprus to take up his new position last week, having previously served as the UN’s acting resident and humanitarian coordinator in Mali.

Prior to that, he had worked as the regional director for the UN office for west Africa and the Sahel, and as deputy special representative for protection and operations for the UN stabilisation mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

He replaces Colin Stewart, who retired in August after having served in the post for four years.

The election of Tufan Erhurman as Turkish Cypriot leader and his subsequent taking of office last week may also see the UN reintroduce the role ofspecial adviser on Cyprus.

That role was last held by Norwegian diplomat Espen Barth Eide, now the country’s foreign minister, between 2014 and 2017, with the UN having not since appointed a replacement after he resigned in August 2017, and negotiations having not resumed since they were abruptly cut off in Crans-Montana a month prior.

UN sources told the Cyprus Mail earlier this month that a special adviser reports directly to the UN security council and must as such adhere to the security council’s resolutions on Cyprus, with any talks on the Cyprus problem to be geared towards a bizonal, bicommunal federal solution with political equality between the two sides.

However, in the five years during which Erhurman’s predecessor Ersin Tatar was in office, he refused to enter negotiations geared towards a federal solution to the Cyprus problem, and as such, the sources said, blocked the appointment of any new special adviser.

With Erhurman having repeatedly stated his readiness to re-enter negotiations geared towards a federal solution to the Cyprus problem within the UN’s parameters, however, the path may now open for a new special adviser to be appointed, particularly if he and Christodoulides look likely to enter formal negotiations on the Cyprus problem.