Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar on Monday said that President Nikos Christodoulides wants to “make us sit on his lap”.

“I look into the man’s eyes, and I see his intention. His intention is to make us sit on his lap. With every turn he makes, he does not see the Turkish Cypriots as worthy of anything other than a sub-administration of the Republic of Cyprus, without even taking them as a serious interlocutor,” he told the north’s foreign press association, next to Nicosia’s Ledra palace hotel.

“I have attended meetings in a thousand different places; the intention is definitely not federation or anything like that. They always talk about reunification in their speeches,” he added, using the English word “reunification”.

He added, “reunification, united Cyprus”, before saying in Turkish, “they are speaking of a united Cyprus”.

His comments come after it was revealed that he will meet United Nations envoy Maria Angela Holguin next Monday at 10.30am, with Holguin set to first meet Christodoulides on Saturday.

Tatar had on Sunday attended the ‘Louroujina Panayiri’, an annual festival held in the north’s southernmost village.

There, he had reiterated his call for a crossing point to be opened between Louroujina and the nearby Greek Cypriot village of Lympia, addressing Christodoulides in his speech

“What are you waiting for for this crossing point to be opened?” he asked.

Louroujina, located just 380 metres away from Lympia, is one of two crossing points upon which the Turkish Cypriot side has insisted since talks began for the potential opening of new crossing points, the other being Mia Milia in the east of Nicosia.

Holguin spent a six-month stint as envoy in Cyprus last year, and wrote in an open letter to the island’s people at the end of her first term that “too many years have been spent in confrontation; too much time blaming the other side.”

She said her visits to Cyprus last year had shown her that “commemorations and monuments remind us not of the glory but the failure of efforts to reach an agreement on the island.”

“It reveals a Cyprus frozen in time. This is exactly what we have the opportunity to change now.”