President Nikos Christodoulides and Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman are scheduled to meet at the offices of the United Nations at the site of the old Nicosia airport on 3.30pm on Tuesday.

“We are working to transform the window of opportunity in the Cyprus problem into a resumption of negotiations,” Christodoulides said, speaking after a meeting with the mayor of Morphou at the presidential palace on Monday.

Referring to the meeting with Erhurman, he said that it had been arranged “on our own initiative, so that we could discuss in even greater detail how we might achieve this objective.”

Christodoulides said that there were certain developments which he considered to be a step in the right direction and which could form the basis for the resumption of negotiations, adding that the convergence document “which will form the basis for the resumption of negotiations”, has been finalised by the UN.

With regard to the 19-point proposal submitted to Erhurman at their last meeting, Christodoulides said that these concerned new and very specific proposals which were different from those submitted in the past, which had not received a positive response from the Turkish Cypriot side.

“So, we are not entrenching ourselves behind positions that we know have already been rejected. We came with new proposals and new ideas on matters of methodology, substance and the terms of reference, and I am pleased that they were well received by the UN,” he said.

He went on to say that the proposals that were put forward at the last meeting were to be considered by the Turkish Cypriot side, as was their approach.

“There was neither approval nor rejection. I hope that tomorrow we will have a substantive dialogue on these new proposals, so that the conditions can be created,” the president said.

Christodoulides reiterated that there was a window of opportunity with the current UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and said that he intended to take full advantage of it.  

“We hope this can be achieved within this timeframe. At the same time, we are in contact with the candidates for the new UN Secretary-General,” he said.

Christodoulides clarified that the solution’s essence remained unchanged, regardless of who holds the position of UN Secretary-General, noting that whoever the next Secretary-General may be, they are acting on the instructions of the UN Security council.

“[The new Secretary-General] acts on the basis of the mandate given to him by the UN Security Council,” he said.