UN envoy in Cyprus ahead of Geneva summit

President Nicos Anastasiades will tell visiting UN envoy he is ready to attend a Cyprus summit in Geneva to end the current deadlock so settlement talks can resume after a four-year lull.

UN special envoy Jane Holl Lute is in Cyprus to hold contacts with the Cypriot leaders ahead of the 5+1 informal meeting on Cyprus to take place in Geneva on 27-29 April.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres invited all parties involved to attend an informal summit in Switzerland next month.

The foreign ministers of guarantor powers Greece, the UK and Turkey are expected to attend.

After talks with Anastasiades, Lute will cross the ceasefire line to meet with the Turkish Cypriot leader, Ersin Tatar.

President Anastasiades will underline to Lute the importance for the negotiations to resume from where they were suspended at Crans-Montana in 2017 to find a viable and functional settlement based on the work done so far.

Nicosia also wants the EU to be present at the informal meeting, as Cyprus is and will remain an EU member state after a solution.

Lute will also be briefed by the UN mission on developments and meetings taking place on the ground.

On Wednesday, she will visit Athens to hold meetings with the Foreign Minister of Greece, Nikos Dendias, and other Greek Foreign Ministry officials.

Dendias visits Nicosia on Monday Nicosia to hold talks in the afternoon with his Cypriot counterpart, Nikos Christodoulides, to coordinate strategy on the Cyprus conference.

The last round of negotiations, in July 2017, at the Swiss resort of Crans-Montana, ended in acrimony; there have been no official Cyprus talks since then.