Athens, Greece. President Nikos Christodoulides and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis reaffirmed their commitment to restarting Cyprus settlement talks within the framework of United Nations Security Council resolutions during a meeting in Athens on Saturday.
The meeting took place at the Maximos Mansion ahead of UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ planned visit to Cyprus next week.
Support for negotiations
Mitsotakis said Greece would continue to stand firmly alongside Cyprus and would not depart from the UN framework for resolving the Cyprus issue.
He said Greece fully supported Christodoulides’ initiatives for a meaningful resumption of negotiations within the framework of UN Security Council resolutions.
Mitsotakis described the timing of the meeting as significant, citing heightened tensions in the wider region and renewed diplomatic activity on Cyprus. He said Guterres’ upcoming visit would be the first by a UN secretary-general to Cyprus in almost two decades.
“If real progress is to be made, now is the time to explore the possibilities,” Mitsotakis said, pledging Greece’s support for Christodoulides during the forthcoming discussions.
Regional cooperation
The Greek prime minister also referred to cooperation between Greece and Cyprus on civil protection. He noted that Greece had deployed two firefighting aircraft to Spain as wildfires continued to affect parts of southern Europe.
International and EU engagement
Christodoulides said the government’s strategy and political will had generated renewed international interest in the Cyprus issue after years of diplomatic stagnation.
He referred to Guterres’ planned visit and increased European Union engagement, saying it was now widely recognised that the Cyprus problem was also a European issue.
Christodoulides pointed to the appointment of a European Commission executive vice-president as the bloc’s special representative for Cyprus as evidence of growing EU involvement.