Govt waiting for a date for dinner with Tatar

The government is waiting for official information regarding the date of the planned informal dinner to be attended by President Nikos Christodoulides, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, and Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar, government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis said on Tuesday.

“The convergent information we had in the last few days and during our stay in New York was that this joint meeting would take place,” he said, adding that the government had “welcomed the initiative from the first moment”.

“We consider it to be the first obvious step. We are in touch,” he said, before adding that the government had given a list of dates to Guterres on which it would be possible for Christodoulides to attend such a meal.

To this end, he added that “we are at [Guterres’] disposal whenever and wherever this meeting can take place.”

“We seek dialogue, we have absolute confidence in the correctness of our positions and of the way we articulate them, but also in the framework as determined by the UN Security Council’s resolutions,” he said.

He added that such a framework – a bizonal, bicommunal federation with political equality – “can resolve the Cyprus problem and answer the concerns of our Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot compatriots”.

Asked about Tatar’s position on the Cyprus problem, he said progress on the Cyprus problem “cannot come about through public statements”, but did note that the framework for a solution to the Cyprus problem “is defined and determined by the UN Security Council’s resolutions”.

Tatar had announced on Monday that he had agreed to attend an informal dinner with Christodoulides and Guterres, saying that Guterres had suggested the idea to him, and that his response had been “positive”, so long as there was “no formality in the context of talks on the Cyprus problem”.

To this end, he said that based on the lack of common ground found between Cyprus’ two sides, “an environment could be created for a 4+1 informal consultation” – involving the Turkish Cypriots, Turkey, the Greek Cypriots, Greece, and Guterres, “to discuss how the future of Cyprus would be shaped”.

Letymbiotis had then described the plans as an “important development which cannot be downplayed”.

The latest move for a meeting between Christodoulides and Tatar comes after a haphazard handling of prior initiatives for such a meeting to be held in August.

Christodoulides had announced a planned meeting at an event in Deryneia, saying it had come about thanks to “our own persistent efforts, both in the direction of [Guterres] and the European Union”.

He went on to say he had been “working tirelessly to break the deadlock” which had seen the Cyprus problem unmoved since the collapse of talks at Crans-Montana in 2017.

However, Tatar responded the following morning saying that he had not been invited to such a meeting, and that even if he had been invited, he would not attend.

Letymbiotis rationalised this, saying that no formal invite had been sent by the UN and that both Christodoulides and Tatar would have been “sounded out” over the prospect of a meeting.

Christodoulides, he said, “has been frequently in contact with Guterres of late”.

He said they had met and spoke in Paris when they were both in the city for the Olympic Games opening ceremony, and that in this and other conversations between the two, the sounding out over a potential meeting occurred.

He added that Tatar had also been sounded out over the prospect, “and very publicly gave his answer … that he is refusing to meet”.