Cyprus President-elect Nikos Christodoulides is ready to meet with Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar, his office said on Monday, a day after his election.
Tatar called Christodoulides to congratulate him, a spokesman for Christodoulides’s office said.
“He (Christodoulides) said he would be ready to meet, even before March 1, and would reiterate this through the UN,” the spokesman said, referring to the date Christodoulides formally takes over the presidency.
The president-elect also conveyed to Tatar his deepest condolences over the deaths of Turkish Cypriots in the earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria.
Christodoulides, a former foreign minister, says a resumption of now-stalled peace talks is his priority.
Parties supporting him have typically followed a hard line in reunification talks, and two of his backers reject the United Nations basis for the talks, which is uniting Cyprus under a loose federal umbrella.
Tatar, who is also a hardliner, says the only solution for Cyprus is a two-state one, with each side holding equal sovereign rights.
(Reuters)
