President Nikos Christodoulides will hold a meeting with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres next week, with that meeting most likely set to take place on the sidelines of next week\u2019s European Council summit in Brussels, presidential press office director Victor Papadopoulos said on Thursday.<\/p>\n
He told the Cyprus Mail that the meeting will likely take place next Thursday, with the summit set to take place on Thursday and Friday.<\/p>\n
The meeting comes a month after Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman had met Guterres<\/a> in New York, with Erhurman saying after that meeting that with regard to talks aimed at resolving the Cyprus problem, \u201cthis time it must be different\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI shared with the secretary-general face to face my view that, especially in light of previous experiences and the disappointments suffered by Turkish Cypriots, what is important to me is not that the meetings are for the sake of meetings, but that this time, they are for the sake of reaching a solution,\u201d he said after the meeting.<\/p>\n To this end, he said he \u201chad the opportunity to share with him that we have developed\u00a0our four-point proposal,\u00a0based on his own frequently used phrase, \u2018this time it must be different\u2019\u201d.<\/p>\n Those four points, sometimes referred to as \u201cpreconditions\u201d \u2013 a term Erhurman resents \u2013 foresee that the Greek Cypriot side accept political equality, time-limit negotiations, and preserve all past agreements, and that the UN guarantee that embargoes placed on the Turkish Cypriots be lifted if the Greek Cypriot side leaves the negotiating table again.<\/p>\n More recently, Erhurman met Christodoulides without the presence of the UN for the first time last month, with Christodoulides describing that meeting as \u201copen and honest<\/a>\u201d, though no concrete results were achieved.<\/p>\n Erhurman was largely in agreement with him at the time, describing that meeting as \u201copen, sincere and useful\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was an open and sincere meeting. Perhaps it was one of the most open and sincere meetings we have had so far,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Guterres\u2019 spokesman Stephane Dujarric, meanwhile, had in his most recent public intervention on the Cyprus problem elected to speak about crossing points between the island\u2019s two sides, with no crossing points having opened for almost seven years.<\/p>\n He said the UN is hoping for new crossing points to open \u201cas soon as possible<\/a>\u201d, with Erhurman later accusing Christodoulides of obstinance<\/a> regarding plans to open a through road between Athienou and the Nicosia suburb of Aglandjia, which would route, at least in part, through the north.<\/p>\n He had said that various proposals had been made to Christodoulides so as to allow the road to open, but that Christodoulides had rejected all proposals. Christodoulides, meanwhile, had suggested a new idea for a crossing point to be opened in Nicosia\u2019s old town.<\/p>\n