President Nikos Christodoulides will on Tuesday convene the National Council to inform its members about the informal dinner he attended with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar last week.
Government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis announced the National Council meeting in a post on social media, saying the council would convene at around 10.30am.
He said the council would discuss the results of last week’s informal dinner, as well as the next steps to be taken, including the holding of an “enlarged meeting” potentially involving Cyprus’ three guarantor powers, Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom.
“Our commitment to the goal of resuming negotiations within the agreed framework remains constant. We all desire to resolve the Cyprus problem, just as we must all make the requisite effort to do so,” he said.
The UN had said after the meeting that Guterres had encouraged both Christodoulides and Tatar to consider “how to bridge the gap in their positions” and rebuild trust that would allow the movement necessary to lead to a settlement.
“The leaders agreed to have an informal meeting in a broader format in the near future, under the auspices of the secretary-general, to discuss the way forward,” the UN readout said.
Additionally, it was agreed that both Christodoulides and Tatar would hold future meetings to discuss the opening of more crossing points.
Mia Milia in the east of Nicosia, as well as the village of Pyroi between Ercan (Tymbou) airport and Larnaca, and the Kokkina exclave have all been touted in the past as possible sites for new crossing points.
Tatar had pushed for the opening of a crossing point in Mia Milia in June last year, but he had said the proposal met a stumbling block when the Greek Cypriot side suggested that a crossing point be opened in Kokkina.
He had at the time poured cold water on the idea of a crossing point in Kokkina, saying that it is not possible to open a crossing point there as it is a “sacred area” and functions as a military base.
In August this year, Pyroi’s mukhtar-in-exile Georgia Ioannou called for a crossing point to be constructed in her village, and said Christodoulides “promised us that [the crossing point] is the next step, together with one in Mia Milia”.
Pyroi would be a convenient place for a crossing point to be placed for a relatively large proportion of Cyprus’ population. The village is located just west of the town of Athienou, and thus a crossing point could offer an alternative and quicker route to Nicosia for residents of the town and its surrounding villages.
