Cyprus’s President Nicos Anastasiades has asked UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to help restart the stalled peace negotiations for the reunification of Cyprus, government spokesman Prodromos Prodromou said on Thursday.

The spokesperson said Anastasiades proposed in his letter dated June 11 to Guterres three alternative moves, in which the negotiations could restart.

Prodromou told the Cyprus News Agency (CNA) that despite being a difficult period for the continuation of the Cyprus negotiations, Anastasiades expressed hope that the secretary-general would render his support “to restore the conditions which, if accepted by the other side, could lead to a resumption of negotiations.”

He said Anastasiades recalled that he had proposed a meeting to the secretary-general’s special envoy Jane Holl Lute — with her presence — with Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci, and he also agreed to Lute’s proposal for a meeting in the same composition in the Crans-Montana conference, Prodromou said.

At Crans-Montana, Switzerland, in 2017, Guterres attended a meeting of Anastasiades and Akinci, with the presence of the representatives of the guarantors — Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom — and the European Union, which served as an observer, to seek a final settlement to the long-standing division of Cyprus.

On his behalf, Akinci said in a recent public statement that he proposed an informal meeting of the participants of the Crans-Montana conference to discuss how to proceed forward