Local time December 21, 2015, Foreign Minister Wang Yi met in Nicosia with President Nicos Anastasiades of Cyprus.

Nicos Anastasiades asked Wang Yi to convey his best regards to President Xi Jinping, and noted that Cyprus and China enjoy traditional friendship, maintain close cooperation in various fields and always offer support to each other in major issues. Cyprus earnestly expects to join in the initiative of "Belt and Road" put forward by China and welcomes more Chinese enterprises to invest in Cyprus. Wang Yi's visit came at a crucial moment for the negotiation between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot. Cyprus is grateful to China for its long-term understanding on the Cypriot issue and is willing to reach the peace agreement under the support of the UN as soon as possible.

Wang Yi conveyed the greetings from President Xi Jinping to Nicos Anastasiades. Wang Yi noted that Cyprus is a reliable friend of China. His Excellency President Nicos Anastasiades paid a successful visit to China recently, further enhancing China-Cyprus political mutual trust and deepening mutually beneficial cooperation. The most prominent feature of China-Cyprus relations lies in their long-lasting mutual understanding, mutual trust and mutual support in issues concerning each other's core interests and major concerns and their relations serve as a model for equal treatment between large and small countries. China hopes that the Cypriot issue can witness a just and reasonable solution at an early date based on relevant resolutions of the UN, which not only will play an exemplary role in properly handling the hotspot issues around the world, but also will pave a broader prospect for national development of Cyprus and China-Cyprus cooperation. China, as the permanent member of the UN Security Council and sincere friend of Cyprus, will continue to play a constructive role to this end. China welcomes Cyprus to actively participate in the construction of the "Belt and Road", and stands ready to dock its opening-up strategies with Cyprus in accordance with its development needs and discuss on taking maritime transport, port, infrastructure, oil and gas development and tourism as a priority in their mutually beneficial cooperation in the future.