Christodoulides and Erhurman to meet Tuesday as crossing-point differences persist
Cyprus’s leaders will hold another weekly meeting on Tuesday, with progress reported on a transit route but disagreements continuing over crossing points and political equality.
Nicosia, Cyprus. President Nikos Christodoulides and Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman are due to meet again on Tuesday, government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis announced on Friday. The meeting continues their weekly discussions amid reported progress on new crossings and unresolved differences over political equality.
Joint session with committees
Letymbiotis said the two leaders would follow their talks with a joint session involving the bicommunal youth and cultural heritage technical committees, together with the civil society steering committee.
Transit route dispute resolved, negotiator says
The Greek Cypriot side has reported advances towards establishing additional crossings between the two parts of Cyprus. Its chief negotiator, Menelaos Menelaou, said the disagreement about the proposed transit route linking Athienou with Aglandjia, a Nicosia suburb, “has been overcome”.
According to Menelaou, the remaining dispute concerns whether a proposed crossing linking Louroujina with nearby Lymbia would open simultaneously. Louroujina is the southernmost Turkish Cypriot village.
The Turkish Cypriot position counts the Athienou–Aglandjia route as two crossings, with one at each end. It regards these as elements of a four-crossing package that also includes Louroujina and Mia Milia, a suburb in eastern Nicosia.
The Greek Cypriot side, by contrast, counts the Athienou–Aglandjia link as a single crossing, balanced by the proposed opening at Mia Milia. It therefore maintains that opening Louroujina should depend on establishing another transit route through Kokkina, the Turkish Cypriot exclave in the Tillyria region.
Political equality remains unresolved
Beyond the crossing discussions, the two sides continue to disagree over what political equality entails. The Turkish Cypriot side considers a presidency rotating between Cyprus’s two main communities an “indispensable component” of political equality and insists that agreement on it must precede negotiations.
Christodoulides has accused Erhurman of making the restart of negotiations conditional on prior concessions. He said the Turkish side was demanding advance acceptance of particular positions important to the Turkish Cypriot community while displaying no willingness to discuss or accept Greek Cypriot positions on other significant elements of the Cyprus problem.
Erhurman continues to stand by his four-point methodology, which he says must be satisfied before substantive negotiations can resume.
This news item was generated automatically by Cyprus Inform from publicly available materials. Report an error →