Anastasiades to brief the public before Geneva talks

President Nicos Anastasiades will be briefing the public on the latest developments in the peace process before he flies out to Switzerland for crunch reunification talks, the government spokesman said on Thursday.

Speaking on public broadcaster CyBC, Nicos Christodoulides said the president, prior to heading to Geneva, intends to inform both the public as well as the parties represented in the National Council.

In Geneva, the leaders of the two communities will hold talks from January 9 to 11, where they are expected to submit their respective maps.

On January 12, a multi-party conference commences featuring the two communities as well as Cyprus’ three guarantor powers – Greece, Turkey and the UK.

The conference will seek to arrive at a formula on the security and guarantees arrangement for a united federal Cyprus.

Christodoulides reiterated on Thursday that there was no question of the Republic not being a party to any discussion or decision regarding its status.

“And there is no question of the Republic being dissolved,” he added.

According to the spokesman, the two sides in Cyprus have made further progress in the talks, “although not as far as we would have liked.”

On Friday, the president pays a flash visit to Athens for talks with Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras.

The purpose of the meeting – to be attended also by the two countries’ foreign ministers – is to coordinate the actions and strategy of Nicosia and Athens ahead of the Geneva conference.

Anastasiades will return on the afternoon of the same day.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.