NICOSIA – Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides and United Nations Special Envoy Maria Angela Holguin Cuellar were to talk about any prospects of rebooting long-stalled reunification talks with Turkish-Cypriots occupying the northern third.

She had met with European Union officials in Brussels and Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidara in Ankara before heading to Cyprus, which this summer will have been split 50 years after two unlawful 1974 Turkish invasions.

Cypriot government spokesperson Konstantinos Letymbiots told reporters that  Christodoulides and Holguin “will likely discuss the next steps aimed at restarting negotiation talks on the Cyprus problem.”

But Turkish-Cypriot hardline leader Ersin Tatar has already said he won’t even discuss it, instead demanding that the UN and world accept the self-declared republic that only Turkey recognizes, and where it keeps a 35,000-strong standing army.

Holguin was to meet with Tatar, said The Cyprus Mail, although it wasn’t said how she expects to move him away from his adamant stance that he won’t talk about reunification, digging in his heels after winning office in October, 2020.

Letymbiotis reiterated “the significance of tying Turkey’s trajectory towards the EU and Ankara’s relations with Brussels to a potential progress on the Cyprus problem,” Tatar and Turkey not wanting any European Union involvement.