Statement of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nikos Dendias, following his meeting with the Cypriot Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nikos Christodoulides (New York, 23 September 2019)

“It is a great pleasure to be meeting today with my dear colleague, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Cyprus, my friend Nikos Christodoulides.

The main topic of our conversation was our coordination on the many issues concerning our two countries’ foreign policy in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean. So, this is why we met today, on the first day of Ministerial Week, and of course we will be meeting again on Friday, when we’ll be meeting with our Egyptian colleague.

We talked about the prospects for reopening the negotiating process, in light of the ongoing efforts of the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy, Ms. Lute, and about continuing the negotiations where they left off in Crans Montana, with that as a given.

Because, I have to say that, in spite of the consistently constructive stance maintained by the Republic of Cyprus, Turkey is not handling the situation in the same way – it isn’t helping towards the reopening of the negotiations. So, if the scheduled meetings take place -the Prime Minister’s meeting with President Erdogan and then mine with Mr. Cavusoglu- the Greek side will clearly raise the need for Turkey’s cooperation in the context of reopening the negotiations. There is no other way. Turkey needs to see that this is the European framework for resolving disputes.”