President Nikos Christodoulides will meet British Prime Minister Andy Burnham on the sidelines of the United Nations’ “high-level week” in New York on Tuesday, government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis confirmed.

The meeting will begin at 3.20pm local time (10.20pm Cyprus time), and while the content of the pair’s planned discussion has not been published, it is likely that the matter of the UK’s sovereign bases in Cyprus and the country’s relations with the EU will form the basis of proceedings.

The issue of the bases appears more salient this year than ever before, with the British government on Tuesday having confirmed that it will “provide additional defensive military support” to Saudi Arabia “following renewed Houthi attacks and escalating violence in the region”.

According to British newspaper the Financial Times, this support will be sent from Cyprus, with it likely that the Akrotiri air force base near Limassol will therefore form the launchpad for it.

Akrotiri itself was hit by an Iranian-made drone on March 2, prompting Christodoulides to promise upon his arrival a European Council summit later that month that “we are going to have an open and frank discussion with the British government” over the future of the bases, heavily hinting that he would like to see them abolished.

That summit then ended with the European Council declaring that it stands ready to assist” the Cypriot government in discussions regarding the bases’ future and stating that it “acknowledges the intention of Cyprus to initiate a discussion with the UK” on the matter, though the UK has insisted throughout that the bases’ status is not up for negotiation.

UK’s relations with EU likely to be discussed

Away from the matter of the bases, it appears likely that the UK’s relations with the EU will also be discussed, with Burnham having said when the pair held a telephone conversation earlier this month that his country intends to “get closer” to the European Union, six and a half years after leaving the bloc.

“He thanked Cyprus for its support in advancing relations between the UK and the EU during its presidency and set out the UK’s intention to continue to get closer to the EU,” Burnham’s office said at the time, in reference to Cyprus’ six-month term as the holder of the Council of the EU’s rotating presidency during the first half of the year.

It remains unclear how Burnham intends to move the UK closer to the EU, though he was a major critic of the country’s departure from the bloc before becoming prime minister, saying that “I am going to say I want to rejoin”, while talking to British newspaper the Guardian during his Labour Party’s conference last year.

Asked about the prospect of the UK rejoining the EU by British newspaper The Independent on Tuesday, he said that the matter was “for another day”, with some circles inside Westminster predicting that he may call an early general election and place substantial political movement towards Europe in his manifesto.

At present, the UK government remains committed to “red lines” set out by former prime minister Theresa May in 2016, which entail that the UK neither join the European single market nor enter a customs union.

Since then, all of her now five predecessors – Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak, Sir Keir Starmer, and now Andy Burnham – have adhered to those red lines, though only two – Johnson and Sunak – publicly supported the campaign to leave the EU at the time of the referendum a decade ago.