COP31 in Antalya: Erdoğan left the reception as President Christodoulides arrived, sources say – Guterres welcomed him alone

The leaders’ segment of the UN climate conference COP31 in Antalya began on Wednesday, November 11 with a protocol incident at Cyprus’s expense. As the President of the Republic of Cyprus, Nikos Christodoulides, arrived at the conference venue, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, host of the summit, left the reception point, according to reports. UN Secretary-General António Guterres welcomed the Cypriot president alone.

Erdoğan had just welcomed Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhürman, as shown in a Euronews report. The summit is held under the auspices of the United Nations, with Turkey as host. The opening session of the leaders’ segment was broadcast by UN Web TV.

The Cypriot message

Mr Christodoulides was among the speakers at the COP31 Leaders’ Summit. The content of his intervention had been announced by Government Spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis, in his statements about the president’s trip to Antalya and Dublin. The president would back the common European position for greater global climate ambition and faster implementation of the Paris Agreement, bring to the fore the regional Cypriot climate initiative for the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East, and the initiative of the Cyprus Presidency of the EU Council for a more strategic EU approach to international climate negotiations. His programme also included bilateral contacts, among them with Ursula von der Leyen.

Christodoulides travelled via Rhodes and arrived in the Turkish city on Tuesday evening. A few hours earlier he had spoken by phone with Guterres, who described the results of Monday’s trilateral meeting, attended by Erhürman and Guterres’ envoy for Cyprus, María Ángela Holguín, as substantive. That meeting produced an agreement on two new crossing points. The two also discussed the Secretary-General’s meeting with Erdoğan the same day and the planning of a new trilateral meeting with the two leaders, for which a location in Europe is being considered.

The Antalya episode coincides with new friction between Nicosia and Ankara, as Cyprus issued these days a NAVTEX for the Abeille Marengo, in reply to the Turkish announcement for the GSI surveys, as we reported in our report on the Cypriot counter-NAVTEX.