Averof asks to meet Christodoulides to discuss Cyprus problem

Former Disy leader Averof Neophytou on Friday requested to meet President Nikos Christodoulides to discuss the Cyprus problem.

He said he had asked for the meeting “to bring to his attention my conclusions from contacts regarding the Cyprus issue”.

“Given the critical phase which the United Nations’ initiative for our national issue has entered, it is the obligation of all of us who can contribute towards a solution, based on the agreed framework, to do so in a spirit of unity, sincerity, and commitment to the ultimate goal of a united homeland,” he said.

His request for a meeting comes a little over a week after he had met Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman in New York, with Erhurman’s office stating that the pair discussed “current issues and developments”.

That meeting came after Erhurman had met UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, with Erhurman saying after that meeting  in this front that “our fundamental view was that solutions to confidence-building measures should be found in Nicosia, rather than through enlarged meetings”.

Previously, Neophytou’s most recent intervention on the matter of the Cyprus problem was made during UN envoy Maria Angela Holguin’s visit to the island last month, in which he said that Cyprus risks “being trapped” if progress on confidence-building measures between the island’s two sides is not achieved.

“The messages from the president’s meeting with Holguin are not encouraging. If we do not move quickly and without hindrance, we risk being trapped again, with the future of the Cyprus issue now becoming extremely uncertain,” he wrote in a post on social media.