Nikos Christodoulides

"The Cyprus issue is a constant concern and a top national priority of Greek foreign policy," the President of the Hellenic Republic Katerina Sakellaropoulou said on Monday, welcoming the President of the Republic of Cyprus Nikos Christodoulides to the Presidential Mansion on his first official visit to Athens after assuming his new duties.

Greece will continue joint efforts to solve the Cyprus problem on the basis of UN resolutions, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told the Mediterranean island's newly-elected president Nikos Christodoulides during a meeting in Athens Monday.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis will meet with new Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides at Maximos Mansion in Athens on Monday at 12 p.m.

It is the Mediterranean island's first official trip as president since his election on February 12.

The two leaders will hold a joint press conference after the meeting.

Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides took a commercial flight to Athens on Sunday for his first trip overseas since taking office, with reports saying the presidential aircraft was grounded due to a minor mechanical problem.

Christodoulides is in Athens this week on his first trip overseas since taking office, a route taken without fail by all his predecessors.

Cyprus will earmark 2% of gross domestic product to defense spending in line with other European Union member states as a means to strengthen the east Mediterranean island nation's foreign policy bargaining power, the new Cypriot president said Friday.

Fourteen candidates formally joined the race on Thursday to become Cyprus's next president in an election next month dominated by the island's decades-old division, irregular migration and corruption scandals.

Cyprus has a presidential system of government and the head of state has wide executive powers.

Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias on Friday met with his Cypriot counterpart Nikos Christodoulides in Athens.

Talks focused on bilateral and regional cooperation as well as coordination between Athens and Nisocia in light of tension in the eastern Mediterranean and developments regarding the Cyprus problem, the Foreign Ministry said in a tweet.

An informal five-party summit on the Cyprus issue is to reportedly take place in the US under the auspices of United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in early March. 

The conference will be hosted at Greentree on Long Island, at a UN resort where other similar meetings have taken place in the past. 

US Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf was expected for a two-day visit in Cyprus starting on Monday, before heading off to Bahrain and Qatar for talks with regional counterparts on bolstering security cooperation and information sharing.

UN special envoy Jane Holl Lute met separately on Tuesday with the two Cypriot leaders, who said they were open to a possible five-party informal meeting but expressed diametrically opposite views on solving the Cyprus issue.