Government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis said on Wednesday that the government's goal of convening an informal multiparty meeting remains unchanged.
Speaking to journalists at the Presidential Palace, and asked to comment on Tuesday's written statement by the UN Secretary-General's Personal Envoy on the Cyprus problem, María Ángela Holguín, Letymbiotis said the government welcomes the fact that the Personal Envoy also recognises the role the EU can play in supporting the Secretary-General's efforts, coming just a day after a joint statement from the EU's High Representative, two European Commissioners and the Turkish foreign minister expressing support for the Secretary-General's efforts. He said this carried particular significance given the timing of both statements.
He added that Holguín herself had said in her statement that the UN Secretary-General remains personally committed to the effort. "We are in constant consultation with all sides, the UN, the EU," he said. He noted that the NATO summit takes place next week, with the European Commission president, the European Council president and the UN Secretary-General all expected to attend, providing an opportunity for significant contacts on the sidelines. Holguín is due to travel to Brussels on 13 July.
Target remains late July
"Our own efforts continue as normal, aimed at convening the multiparty meeting at the end of July or the beginning of August, whenever this can practically be arranged. We have no information suggesting any change to that," Letymbiotis said.
He said the government's goal remains to assist in every possible way with convening the informal multiparty meeting this summer, as Holguín herself had indicated during her most recent visit to Cyprus. He stressed, however, that such a meeting should aim at announcing the resumption of negotiations toward a definitive resolution of the Cyprus problem. "We do not want an informal multiparty meeting as an end in itself, we want an informal multiparty meeting at which we discuss the substance of the Cyprus problem," he said.
He said consultations are ongoing, both behind the scenes and publicly, under the auspices of the UN Secretary-General himself. "What remains, the only side that needs to show a constructive disposition, a constructive will, for progress to be made on the Cyprus problem, is of course occupying Turkey," he said.
Asked by a journalist why Holguín's statement made no reference to an expanded conference, and whether the UN Secretary-General might be having second thoughts due to the absence of suitable common ground, Letymbiotis said the government had no such information.
He added that achieving the goal requires one side, given that the wider international community, the participants in the informal multiparty meeting and the EU as a whole, as well as Cyprus itself, have communicated and demonstrated in practice their wish for an informal multiparty meeting at which the resumption of negotiations is announced, to show that constructive stance. "The only side which should, and which we expect to, show this constructive stance, particularly given that it demands improvement and progress in its relations with the EU while ignoring and bypassing the fact that it cannot demand such relations with the EU while illegally occupying the territory of an EU member state, is Turkey," he said.
"If this sincere political will exists, if this intention exists on Turkey's part, the informal multiparty meeting can and should be convened," he said.
Comments on Fidan and the Diko meeting
Asked to comment on Tuesday's remarks by Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan, Letymbiotis said that if anyone bears responsibility for the lack of progress in EU-Turkey relations, it is Turkey that needs to look in the mirror and examine how it approaches not only the EU as a whole, but the Republic of Cyprus as a full EU member state. He added that the EU's positions on Turkey's progress are clearly set out in the European Council's Conclusions, which have been unanimously approved by all member states.
He noted that the EU wants progress in EU-Turkey relations, provided there is the self-evident progress on the Cyprus problem, which he described as a European issue par excellence.
Asked about Tuesday's meeting between the president and Diko's Secretariat, Letymbiotis said the president's meetings with the secretariats of parties supporting the government take place at regular intervals and should not come as a surprise, since this is a natural part of the process, adding that several meetings between the president and Diko's Secretariat had already taken place. He said it was the fourth meeting with the Diko leader since the parliamentary election, noting that "Diko is a key government partner and has contributed, and continues to contribute, along with Dipa and Edek, significantly to the implementation of the government's work."
On the content of Tuesday's meeting, the spokesman said there was a shared view that the government's work and the policies it is pursuing and implementing amount to successes, and that these serve as a starting point for demonstrating how they can affect citizens' daily lives, something Diko officials have recognised, having themselves highlighted it clearly during the election campaign by acknowledging the benefits of participating in government. He said a broader exchange of views on a range of issues also took place.
He added that a wide-ranging exchange of views took place, always in the spirit of respect and sincerity that characterises the cooperation, and that there is a shared assessment that as the implementation of the president's governance programme progresses, improves, strengthens and accelerates, this benefits everyone, above all citizens.
Asked whether the government was troubled by the leak to the media of the Diko president's letter to the president of the republic, Letymbiotis said the government was not concerned with who had leaked it. Asked whether the government was troubled by the fact that in his letter Nicolas Papadopoulos had set the agenda for the discussions, the spokesman said every political force, whether it supports the president or not, has the right to raise any issue, and that the president would listen to all such issues with respect and would exercise his constitutional powers as he sees fit, on the basis of the mandate given to him by the Cypriot people.
