The foreign ministry has in recent days been telephoning diplomatic missions in Nicosia, urging them not to attend a briefing on the Cyprus problem which is due to be given to diplomats by Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman’s undersecretary Mehmet Dana on Wednesday, the Cyprus Mail has learned.

Diplomatic sources informed the newspaper that missions have been receiving telephone calls from the foreign ministry imploring them to avoid Wednesday’s briefing, which Dana is set to offer to Nicosia’s diplomatic corps at the Home for Cooperation in the capital’s buffer zone.

It is understood that Dana’s planned briefing was organised to offer diplomats from around the world an update regarding how the Turkish Cypriot side perceives progress and the state of play on the Cyprus problem following United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ visit to the island last month.

Greek Cypriot chief negotiator Menelaos Menelaou has already briefed diplomats on his own side’s perception of the state of play following Guterres’ visit.

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Dana and Menelaou are expected to meet each other this week, while Erhurman and President Nikos Christodoulides are set to meet next week, with government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis having promised that Christodoulides will approach that meeting with a “constructive attitude”.

Next week’s leaders’ meeting is set to be held with the hope of later organising 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 United Nations.

Guterres had said during his visit to the island that a new enlarged meeting will be convened “after adequate progress” is achieved on confidence-building measures, the meeting’s methodology, and the substance of the talks.

Initially, presidential press office director Victor Papadopoulos had said that while confidence-building measures “naturally help create a climate”, they are “not a prerequisite” for an enlarged meeting to be convened.

However, UN Cyprus problem envoy Maria Angela Holguin then pushed back on this, saying that the implementation of confidence-building measures is an “indispensable condition” to be fulfilled ahead of an enlarged meeting.

“Confidence-building measures should not be seen merely as symbolic steps which improve the atmosphere between the two communities, but rather as practical tools which test the viability of a future political order,” she told Turkey’s Anka news agency.

She added that confidence-building measures are “important in demonstrating whether cooperation works in practice”, and said that “such initiatives help create the collaborative habits which a future solution will need”.

Chief among those possible confidence-building measures is the possible opening of crossing points between the island’s two sides, on which talks remained deadlocked over the question of whether to break up the package of four locations upon which the sides had agreed last year.

On this matter, the Greek Cypriot side proposed removing Louroujina, northwest of Larnaca, from the package of four, instead opening crossing points near Athienou, and in the eastern Nicosia suburbs of Mia Milia and Aglandjia, and the Turkish Cypriot side flatly refused to entertain any discussions which did not include all four agreed upon locations.

Dana had previously said that next week’s leaders’ meeting will constitute “the first step in this preparatory process” towards an enlarged meeting.

“In this meeting, within the framework outlined by the secretary-general, a process of exchanging views will being, primarily on confidence-building measures, then on methodology, and finally on some substantive issues,” he said.

He went on to stress that the Turkish Cypriot side’s position on the next steps remains unchanged, saying that “our approach, both in the context of negotiations and in the context of the five-plus-one framework, is not to negotiate for the sake of negotiations, nor to have a five-plus-one for the sake of a five-plus-one”.