Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman on Sunday night denied telephoning Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan during last week’s tripartite meeting on the Cyprus problem, saying that he had instead left the room to call Turkish Cypriot Nicosia mayor Mehmet Harmanci.

It was newspaper Phileleftheros which appears to be the source of the report, with the newspaper on Sunday having written that Erhurman was making “constant phone calls” to an “unknown address”, before concluding that the subject of the calls must have been the post-meeting joint declaration’s reference to United Nations resolutions.

Erhurman denied this, saying that while he usually does not “take such things seriously”, he had seen some Turkish Cypriots adopt the newspaper’s narrative. As such, he said, he wished to provide “transparency” regarding the telephone calls both he and his undersecretary Mehmet Dana had made during the meeting.

“For the sake of transparency, let me say this. Yes, both I and Mehmet Dana had phone conversations. We both spoke with our Nicosia mayor, Mehmet Harmanci, about the Mia Milia wastewater treatment plant, which can also be seen in the joint declaration,” he said.

He added that the issue of the wastewater treatment plant had not been on the agenda when he had held a meeting with President Nikos Christodoulides and UN special representative Khassim Diagne last month, and that as such, “we did not want anything incorrect to be written in the text”.

“Those who wish to do so can confirm this with Christodoulides or with Mehmet Harmanci,” he said.

Last week’s meeting saw Erhurman, Christodoulides and UN envoy Maria Angela Holguin convene for a meeting which lasted for more than three and a half hours, with the UN saying after the meeting that it had included a “stocktaking discussion on previously agreed trust building initiatives”, as well as a discussion on new ideas.

“They agreed to concentrate on achieving new agreements as soon as possible, especially on the issue of the opening of new crossing points, the halloumi issue and the construction of pipelines from the Mia Milia water treatment plant,” it said.

It added that the pair also “agreed to increasing the staff for services required at the crossing points” and welcomed the European Union-funded works to widen the Ayios Dhometios crossing point in western Nicosia, while also “looking forward to its completion in the coming months”.

“Both leaders also reaffirmed their commitment to participate in the next informal meeting in a broader format to be convened by the UN Secretary-General [Antonio Guterres],” it said, in reference to a planned enlarged meeting involving the island’s two sides, the UN and its three guarantor powers, Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom.

However, the question of when such a meeting will take place remains unresolved.

Christodoulides has said he would be ready as early as “next week” to participate in an enlarged meeting, and while no date for such a meeting has yet been decided, he set expectations high for an agreement to be found on a date from Holguin’s trips to Greece and Turkey in the days which were to follow.

“You understand that after these meetings and in particular the meeting with [Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan], we will be able to talk more specifically about the date of this enlarged meeting,” he said.

However, while Erhurman expressed his willingness to make progress on the Cyprus problem, his belief is that progress should be made in advance of an enlarged meeting, and not only through it.

He called a press conference after the meeting and stressed that the next enlarged meeting “must be an innovative and meaningful process”.

To this end, he said that while Thursday’s tripartite meeting saw “small advances”, the achievements were “not sufficient to create an environment conducive to comprehensive negotiations”.