Nicos Christodoulides said he was prepared to take part in an informal five-party conference on Cyprus even before the end of the year, as the UN Secretary General originally envisaged, but has now been moved to early 2026, due to a number of delays.
He disclosed that the first trilateral between himself, Turkish-Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman and the UNSG’s special envoy Maria Anhela Holquin, who starts her sounding out mission next month, will take place between four and five thirty in the afternoon on Thursday December 11th.
The two leaders will previously jointly visit the Committee of Missing Persons laboratories.
‘The most important result of this meeting’, he noted, is to forge a basis for an informal multilateral conference, as all sides have promised Antonio Guterres. He further said that a meeting of negotiators had taken place earlier this week, as preparatory to the trilateral.
Asked about Turkey not making the deadline to enter the SAFE defence funding mechanism, Christodoulides noted that this result was of Ankara’s own doing.
He also reiterated that any participation of a third country in SAFE must be agreed with all EU members, including Cyprus.