Progress in efforts aimed at bringing about a solution to the Cyprus problem could aid efforts towards solving other geopolitical issues, the European Union’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Monday.

“Achieving a peaceful solution to the Cyprus issue would open the door to resolving many problems,” she told Turkey’s Anadolu Agency.

She added that the EU and Turkey should “also address the Cyprus issue”, and said that both sides should “support the mediation and negotiation efforts” being undertaken by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

Her comments come with efforts ramping up on all sides to bring about a resumption of negotiations in earnest on the Cyprus problem, though unconfirmed reports over the weekend suggested that the process may be somewhat slowed down, with it being reported that UN envoy Maria Angela Holguin may wait until after next week’s Nato leaders’ summit to continue her contacts.

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It is expected that Holguin’s next meeting of note will be with European Council President Antonio Costa in Brussels, but government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis said on Monday that that meeting will now not take place until July 13.

Confirmation that Holguin will wait until after the Nato summit, which will be held in Ankara, before resuming her contacts come with discussions regarding security guarantees in a post-solution Cyprus centring on the idea of those guarantees being provided through a Nato-based structure.

Those guarantees may come in the form of the new Cypriot republic’s accession to Nato, alongside the presence of Nato troops from Turkey, Greece, France, the United Kingdom and the United States on the island.

However, when questioned on the prospect of Holguin meeting Nato officials while in Brussels, which is also the seat of Nato’s headquarters, and of Nato-based security guarantees in a post-solution Cyprus, a Nato official told the Cyprus Mail that “there are no meetings planned with the envoy and the topic has not been discussed at Nato”.

Guterres and Holguin met in New York on Friday, with it having initially been hoped that Holguin may return to the island before the end of this month. However, she will now likely not return to the island until the second half of next month.

This will likely also push back the planned dates for the convening of an enlarged meeting on the Cyprus problem, involving the island’s two sides, its three guarantor powers, Greece, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, and the UN.

Initially, it had been said that the meeting would take place either in the latter part of next month or at the beginning of August, but Holguin’s delayed timetable of contacts will likely push back the convening of that enlarged meeting to mid-August or the second half of that month.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will host next week’s Nato summit, with the prime ministers of the island’s other two guarantor powers, Kyriakos Mitsotakis of Greece and Sir Keir Starmer of the UK also expected to attend, alongside Antonio Costa and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.

Starmer is likely to resign within ten days of that summit to be replaced as prime minister by outgoing Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, though this change is not expected to impact the UK’s stance on the Cyprus problem.