Fidan briefs EU’s Kos on Cyprus enlarged meeting

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan briefed the European Union’s enlargement commissioner Marta Kos on the recent enlarged meeting on the Cyprus problem, which was held earlier this month in New York.

Fidan and Kos released a joint statement in which they said the briefing had taken place, and that Kos had “emphasised that dialogue on the rule of law and democratic standards is an important part of relations between Turkey and the European Union”.

“Turkey, as a candidate country, is committed to this direction,” the joint statement read.

The enlarged meeting, the second of its kind to be held this year, had ended without the securing of any new confidence-building measures.

However, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said at its conclusion that he will hold a meeting with President Nikos Christodoulides and Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar in New York during the “high-level week”, the week in which the 80th session of the UN general assembly is to be held.

This year, the general assembly is scheduled to begin on September 9.

In addition, he said a further enlarged meeting, in the style of this week’s meeting, attended by representatives of the island’s two sides, its three guarantor powers, Greece, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, and the UN, will take place “later this year”.

While no date has yet been set for the next enlarged meeting, sources have told the Cyprus Mail that it is expected that the meeting will be held after the Turkish Cypriot leadership election, which is set to take place on October 19.

Fidan held an hour-long one-on-one meeting with Christodoulides during the New York talks, and had earlier promised “empathy for the other side” during discussions on the Cyprus problem.

“We are quite constructive on this issue. Our president [Recep Tayyip Erdogan]’s vision on this matter is very clear. We always act with a win-win formula in mind. We never lose our empathy for the other side, but we cannot accept an equation which disregards Turks and their rights,” he said.