Government Spokesman Prodromos Prodromou said on Saturday that a meeting between Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci, on April 16, will provide an indication as to whether negotiations may resume on the island. He added that more meetings between the two men could follow, depending on the outcome of the informal dinner.
On Friday the United Nations announced that the two leaders will have an informal meeting on April 16, at the residence of Elizabeth Spehar, the Deputy Special Advisor of the UN Secretary-General on Cyprus.
Replying to CNA questions, Prodromou said that there is no agenda and the meeting is being held “in order to understand the intentions of the Turkish Cypriot side.” He noted that President Anastasiades has already reiterated his readiness to resume negotiations and it is up to the two men to discuss whether they can restart talks.
“This does not mean that everything ends on April 16, there might be a second and a third meeting” depending on the course of events, said the Government Spokesman.
Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkish troops invaded and occupied its northern third. Numerous UN-backed rounds of negotiations to reunite the island under a federal roof have not yet yielded result. The latest round of talks took place in July 2017 at the Swiss resort of Crans Montana but ended inconclusively. The two leaders haven’t met since.
Prodromou said, however, that if during the April 16 the Turkish Cypriot side puts forward demands concerning decision making over natural resources, then “it means they have no desire for [resuming] negotiations”. The issue of hydrocarbons is not part of the negotiations, he added.
The Government Spokesman recalled finally that the Good Offices of the UN Secretary-General’s remain available to the two sides, adding that negotiations need to resume “on the basis they were held until today and from the point where we stopped” at Crans – Montana.