European Commission Cyprus problem envoy Raffaele Fitto is to travel to both Ankara and Athens in the coming days to hold talks with the political leadership of both Turkey and Greece on the Cyprus problem, according to reports on Tuesday.

The Cyprus News Agency reported that those meetings will be held to “support the process on the Cyprus issue”, and that they will take place “in view of the next contacts between the two sides”.

Meanwhile, it also reported that United Nations Cyprus problem envoy Maria Angela Holguin will be well enough to travel to New York for the UN’s “high-level week” next week, after having been unable to fulfil planned engagements both in Cyprus and in New York earlier this month due to health reasons.

Both Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman and President Nikos Christodoulides are expected to meet UN Secretary-General when both travel to New York next week, with the pair set to meet each other on Thursday in Cyprus.

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Christodoulides had said on Monday that “feverish preparations” are ongoing in the hope of achieving tangible results on the Cyprus problem next week, so as to achieve the “desired goal”, which he said is “the announcement of the resumption of negotiations” in earnest on the Cyprus problem.

Following the pair’s most recent meeting last week, Christodoulides had said that a document listing the convergences reached in talks on the Cyprus problem up to now would be ready in “a matter of days”.

He said that pursuant to the document being ready, “I imagine that, according to some information we have, though it is not a given, there may be a joint meeting in New York, either with the [UN] secretary-general or his personal envoy, either at the level of leaders or at the level of negotiators, we will see”.

Last week’s discussion, he said, “continued on the three issues – methodology, substance and confidence-building measures”.

“On some issues, there is progress, in the sense that there is a common understanding. On some, however, there continue to be disagreements, different approaches,” he said.

Christodoulides hopes for resumption of negotiations from Crans-Montana

Asked whether he is “satisfied” with the discussions being held on the methodology of talks and the substance of the Cyprus problem itself, he said that “I believe that the issues of both methodology and substance are clear on how we can move forward, how the conditions can be created for the resumption of talks”.

“My personal opinion, because I cannot speak on behalf of anyone else is that we are, as things stand, ready for the talks to resume from where they were interrupted in Crans-Montana,” he said, in reference to the collapse of the most recent round of negotiations in earnest at the Swiss ski resort in 2017.

Erhurman, meanwhile, said after the meeting that he had told Christodoulides to “refrain from initiatives which undermine trust”.

“The main topics of the meeting were confidence-building measures and methodology. While we were unable to reach an agreement on new confidence-building measures during a significant part of the meeting, we conveyed our views regarding external and internal initiatives which are eroding even the existing level of trust,” he said.

He added that he had “emphasised that if we wish to move the process forward, it is crucial to create the ‘conducive climate’ mentioned by Guterres”.

“To this end, we stressed the need to both implement new confidence-building measures and refrain from initiatives which undermine trust,” he said.

Erhurman warned that trust is ‘being eroded’

Those comments come after Erhurman had earlier lamented that trust is “being eroded” by initiatives taken by the Greek Cypriot side to cancel international events being held by the Turkish Cypriot community, such as a children’s football camp organised by FC Barcelona and a music festival in Kyrenia.

He had also criticised the arrests made by the Republic of Cyprus of people it accuses of illegally using or selling property which was owned by Greek Cypriots prior to their displacement 1974, as well as its pursuit of deepening relations with the State of Israel.

Christodoulides is expected to address the UN general assembly on Wednesday next week, while Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will give his speech on Tuesday, and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis will speak on Thursday.

It had been expected that British Prime Minister Andy Burnham would also speak next Tuesday, though following the death of his father, it is now unclear whether he will travel to New York.

It is possible that the United Kingdom may therefore choose to send another minister, with deputy prime minister of the day David Lammy having spoken last year. At present, the UK does not have a deputy prime minister, with it therefore possible that Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband may be sent to New York to deputise.