‘Open and honest’ leaders’ meeting ends without result
President Nikos Christodoulides described his meeting with Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman on Tuesday as “open and honest”, though no concrete results were achieved.
The meeting took place at United Nations special representative Khassim Diagne’s official residence in the buffer zone, but was not under the UN’s auspices.
Instead, the pair spoke for the first time without international facilitation.
Christodoulides said that he and Erhurman will meet again “soon”, and that in the meantime, they had “agreed to provide guidelines” to Greek Cypriot negotiator Menelaos Menelaou and Erhurman’s undersecretary Mehmet Dana on the matter of confidence-building measures.
Additionally, he said that he and Erhurman had “reviewed” all confidence-building measures agreed so far, both in terms of the “progress which has been observed” and “the delays”.
On crossing points, he made reference to his own suggestion for a second crossing point to be located in Nicosia’s old town, specifically referencing Lidinis Street.
Lidinis is located east of Ledra Street and backs onto the old Bandabuliya municipal market, which is located in the north.
While adding that that “specific instructions” will be given to Menelaou and to Dana, he added that on the “substance” of the Cyprus problem, an “open discussion” had been held.
“We will meet again soon to see how we are progressing towards the goal of resuming talks. Let me remind you that we reaffirmed our commitment to the agreed basis for a solution to the Cyprus problem,” he said.
He also said that following on from Erhurman’s meeting with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres two weeks ago, he plans to hold his own one-on-one meeting with Guterres next month.
Later on Tuesday, Erhurman called a press conference to evaluate the meeting, and, similarly to Christodoulides, described it as “open, sincere, and useful”.
“It was an open and sincere meeting. Perhaps it was one of the most open and sincere meetings we have had so far,” he said.
He also lamented “some delays in terms of confidence-building measures”, and said that with the aim of speeding up the process of their implementation, “we agreed that [Menelaou] should officially inform [Dana] about their completion in the meetings [they] will hold”.
To this end, he said there has been “a modicum of progress” on this front.
Asked about potential differences of opinion between him and Turkey in light of both Christodoulides and the north’s ‘foreign minister’ Tahsin Ertugruloglu referencing Turkey’s stance on the Cyprus problem in criticisms levelled at Erhurman last week, he said that his “point of movement is common” with Ankara.
“Our evaluations regarding the reasons behind the failures of previous solution processes coincide with those of Turkey. The basis of those fruitless negotiation processes of the past was the reluctance of the Greek Cypriot leadership to share power and resources,” he said.
Earlier, Erhurman announced he intended to visit the Greek Cypriot school in Rizokarpaso during a day-long visit to Cyprus’ northeastern extremity on Wednesday.
He stressed that the decision was “not made upon any request from the south”, adding, “we do not have to notify anyone in the south to visit a school in Karpasia”.
To this end, he warned the Greek Cypriot side against presenting his planned visit as a Greek Cypriot-sourced idea.
“Trying to turn something so openly into ‘we wanted this, they did it’, with manipulation games through the media is extremely far from seriousness, maturity and sincerity,” he said.
He later added that his “duty” is to “explain what the truth is not only to the Turkish Cypriots, but also to the Greek Cypriots”, and that “of course, in today’s meeting, I will also tell Mr Christodoulides”.
After the meeting, Christodoulides said that he will “not enter into [a] discussion” regarding Erhurman’s visit to the school.