President Nikos Christodoulides and the European Commission’s Cyprus problem envoy Raffaele Fitto on Thursday held a telephone conversation to discuss the Cyprus problem, ahead of Fitto’s planned trip to Turkey on November 20.

Government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis said that the pair had discussed “how the matter should be approached”.

“The key to progress on the issues which the Turkish Cypriot side seeks to advance with the European Union is the resumption of negotiations from the point at which they were interrupted at Crans-Montana in 2017. This is the key to further progress,” he said, of the collapse of the most recent round of negotiations almost a decade ago.

Fitto will travel to Turkey to meet the country’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, and had said in his own most recent intervention on the Cyprus problem that he was “encouraged” by the results of Monday’s meeting of Christodoulides and Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman.

“This is a good step forward in the discussions for a comprehensive settlement of the Cyprus issue. The European Union remains fully committed to the reunification of Cyprus in accordance with the relevant UN security council resolutions and in line with EU principles, values and legislation,” he said on Tuesday.

Erhurman and Christodoulides had agreed to open two new crossing points and meet United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in the coming weeks for further discussions, with it expected that that meeting may take place towards the end of the month, after Guterres returns from other engagements in the Philippines and after Fitto’s trip to Turkey.

Hopes remains that tripartite meeting may produce enlarged meeting

It is hoped that the tripartite meeting will then pave the way for an enlarged meeting to be held, with Guterres having said during his visit to the island in July that an enlarged meeting will be convened “after adequate progress” is achieved on confidence-building measures, the meeting’s methodology and the substance of the talks.

Such an enlarged meeting would involve the island’s two sides, its three guarantor powers, Greece, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, and the UN.

Sources told the Cyprus Mail that should it be deemed that “adequate” progress has been achieved at the end of the tripartite meeting, it remains possible that an enlarged meeting could be held during the first half of December.

They also said that Guterres is continuing to work with the goal of having negotiations in earnest to solve the Cyprus problem resume before the end of his ten-year term in office, which expires at the end of the month.

Fitto had told the European Parliament last month that “in further deepening the EU-Turkey cooperation, we attach particular importance to the resumption of the Cyprus settlement talks and Turkey’s constructive engagement in that regard”.

“This is in the strategic interest of the EU and in line with the mandate we have from the European Council. We must not forget that the whole of the island of Cyprus is part of the EU and that Turkish Cypriots are EU citizens,” he said.

He later said that “without a comprehensive settlement of the Cyprus issue, it will be impossible to bring sustainable de-escalation in the eastern Mediterranean”.