"I'm ready to resume negotiations': Cyprus president optimistic about reuniting the island

Cyprus is ready to resume talks about a reunification of the island immediately, eight years after the last round of UN-backed negotiations collapsed in Switzerland in 2017.

“I’m ready to resume negotiations even next week,” Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides said on Euronews’ flagship interview programme The Europe Conversation, a good two months before the start of the Cypriot EU presidency.

His declaration comes on the heels of the landslide victory of pro-EU Social Democrat Tufan Erhüman as leader of the Turkish-occupied Northern Cyprus.

Erhüman ran on a platform of reunification of Cyprus under a federal model, reviving hopes of a fresh attempt to solve the dispute.

“I believe this is a positive development,” Christodoulides added.

If Erhürman comes to the negotiating table “and talks clearly about bi-zonal, bi-communal federation, then I think the road is open for the solution of the Cyprus problem based on the UN Security Council resolution,” Christodoulides said.

At the same time, Christodoulides rejected a two-state solution for the island as advanced by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The former British colony in the eastern Mediterranean has been haunted by sectional strife between the Greek and Turkish communities for decades.

In 1974, a Greek military coup, which aimed to unite the island with Greece, led to a Turkish invasion and the division of the island between Turkish Northern Cyprus and the Greek-speaking Republic of Cyprus in the south, which is solely a member of the EU.

This division remains to this day despite numerous attempts by the United Nations to resolve the dispute.

‘EU losing enlargement tool’

Christodoulides spoke in favour of a swift next round of EU enlargement, a topic that has been dormant for years and only recently gained new traction in Brussels.

“Enlargement is one of the most important geopolitical tools of the European Union. And I’m afraid to say that we are losing this very important tool, because we made a lot of promises and we didn’t deliver,” the Cypriot president said.

Name-checking Montenegro in particular, Nicosia wants to engineer positive steps under the Cypriot EU presidency regarding accession to the EU.

Absent any positive developments, the risk is that the people in the candidate countries will turn their back on the EU, according to Christodoulides.

This would drive the western Balkans, for example, into the hands of “other actors, non-EU actors,” he added.

Bringing EU closer to Middle East

When Nicosia assumes the rotating EU presidency in January, one priority of his government will be “to bring the European Union closer to our region, to the Middle East,” Christodoulides also said.

Being the only EU member state in the region, the Cypriot president sees his country well-positioned to help with the implementation of US President Donald Trump’s peace plan for Gaza, to which “there is no other alternative right now in front of us.”

In particular, Christodoulides, for the first time, elaborated on how Cyprus wants to repurpose its ‘Amalthea’ maritime humanitarian corridor to support Gaza’s eventual reconstruction.

His six-point plan is broadly structured along two main lines: humanitarian aid and security.

It aims to support the delivery of humanitarian aid, the screening of "dual-use goods", and the training of Palestinian security forces. Cyprus is also aiming for a role in Trump’s proposed ‘international stabilisation force’, which is expected to comprise Arab and international partners.

All six points are pegged to eight separate points of US President Donald Trump’s broader 20-point plan, including those that refer to humanitarian assistance, economic recovery, reconstruction and future governance.

No end in sight for war in Ukraine

With regard to defence and security in Europe, Christodoulides expressed pessimism about the prospects of ending the war in Ukraine during Cyprus' presidency of the EU Council.

“I don’t see the end of the war in Ukraine coming.”

Nonetheless, Europe should continue to support Kyiv and the clear stance “towards the illegal Russian invasion and occupation of Ukraine”, he said.

In this context, Christodoulides announced that he would visit Ukraine in early December, just weeks before the start of the Cypriot EU presidency.