Government reaffirms commitment to restarting Cyprus settlement talks

Nicosia, Cyprus. The government is maintaining its efforts to restart negotiations for a Cyprus settlement, officials said at separate memorial services on Sunday. They reiterated that its foremost objectives remain reunification and ending the Turkish occupation.

Antoniou warns against abandoning settlement efforts

Deputy government spokesperson Yiannis Antoniou said the difficulties and obstacles facing the negotiating process would not halt efforts to restart it. Cyprus would never regard the consequences of Turkey’s 1974 invasion as permanent, he said, reaffirming that liberation, reunification and ending the occupation remained the government’s leading priorities.

Antoniou said negotiations must resume under the agreed framework, with respect for earlier negotiating agreements and for European Union law, principles and values.

Describing Turkey’s actions as an ongoing crime, he said Cyprus would neither accept nor legitimise the situation established through the illegal invasion.

He warned that giving up on a settlement would strengthen Turkey’s argument that the island comprised two separate states and that agreement under the established framework could not be reached.

Antoniou said the government envisaged the Republic becoming genuinely free across all its territory, with no occupying troops or guarantor powers holding unilateral intervention rights.

Damianos outlines conditions for a settlement

Energy Minister Michael Damianos said efforts by President Nikos Christodoulides and the government were continuing with the aim of restarting substantive negotiations that could deliver a viable, workable settlement.

Any agreement, he said, must rest on the relevant resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, international law, and EU values and principles.

Damianos said the objective was a Cyprus that was free and reunified: a modern European state offering every citizen security, peace and dignity.