Statements by the General Secretary of AKEL Stefanos Stefanou after the session of the National Council:

“Without clear positions, the way forward for talks will not open up”

24 July 2026, DIALOGOS website

On Friday, following the conclusion of the National Council meeting at the Presidential Palace, the General Secretary of AKEL Stefanos Stefanou referred to the need to safeguard the common ground that has been achieved on the Cyprus problem.

At the same time, S.Stefanou appeared cautious regarding the prospects of resuming talks, noting that, based on the information available so far, it is not possible to determine the degree of optimism.

“Today’s meeting of the National Council took place in the light of the anticipated and, admittedly, significant visit by the Secretary-General of the United Nations to Cyprus, which we hope will result in the resumption of negotiations or, at the very least, create preconditions that will bring the objective of resuming negotiations as close as possible”, the General Secretary of AKEL said at the outset.

“At the meeting of the National Council, we of course heard the briefing from the President of the Republic regarding the outcome of the previous meeting, and we had the opportunity to reiterate our own views on achieving the objective of resuming the negotiations,” he said.

The General Secretary of AKEL Stefanos Stefanou said that it is well known that “AKEL supports the resumption of negotiations from the point at which they were suspended in 2017 at Crans Montana, safeguarding the convergences that have been achieved so far and making use of the framework presented by the UN Secretary-General to both sides”.

“I would like to say that the Greek Cypriot side’s positions should be geared towards this, because we must give a clear indication of our stance regarding how we approach the issue of the resumption of negotiations,” said the General Secretary of AKEL.

He noted that “there are many significant points of convergence that have been registered so far on core chapters and aspects of the Cyprus problem”.

It is therefore extremely important that we safeguard what has been achieved so that we can start from where the UN Secretary-General believes we are just a mile away from reaching a strategic understanding which, according to him, also constitutes the point of no return for achieving a comprehensive solution to the Cyprus problem’, he pointed out.

S.Stefanou added that the solution to the Cyprus problem “will certainly be based on the agreed framework of a Bi-zonal, Bi-communal Federation with political equality, whilst at the same time it will put an end to the Turkish occupation and reunite the land and the people, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots’.

When asked how optimistic he was following the briefing by the President of the Republic, he said that optimism would depend on Turkey’s actions.

As S.Stefanou noted, approaches are demanded that will enable the UN Secretary-General to ascertain that the preconditions are in place for convening an informal enlarged meeting with the aim of resuming the talks.

“At this stage, we cannot say how optimistic we can be,” he added.

“Based on the briefing we have received, we cannot comment on what the UN Secretary-General is planning,” said S.Stefanou.

“This, in our view, further underlines the need for us to be clear about what we support and what we would like to see regarding the initiative which the UN Secretary-General has expressed his readiness to undertake, provided, of course, that the circumstances support such an initiative,’ he added in conclusion.