President of Cyprus Nikos Christodoulides referred to yesterday's Intergovernmental Summit with Greece, as well as to the issue of Cypriot passport visas for the US, addressing on Thursday the members of the Council of Ministers at the beginning of the body’s meeting.

According to a Presidency announcement, President Christodoulides began his address by thanking all members of the Government for the preparations for yesterday's 2nd Intergovernmental Summit with Greece.

"It is not only the symbolism, it is much more the results that have emerged, results that are relevant to the improvement of the daily life of the citizens, which all the policies we pursue have the objective to serve. And indeed, those who attended yesterday's meeting saw that there are very concrete deliverables that will benefit the Cypriot people", he said.

In particular, he highlighted the e-Citizen initiative, the discussion on medicines, which he described as very important, discussions on desalination and transplants, the 112 line, as well as internal governance issues, which he said are a priority.

He added that there was another important development yesterday towards achieving the goal of avoiding the need for entry visas for Cypriot passport holders travelling to the US, as he noted that the visa refusal rate for Cypriot citizens fell below the 3% threshold, a prerequisite for a country to participate in this programme.

"Again, this is a cross-cutting issue that many Ministries are dealing with and I would like to thank you for this and call everyone to further intensify our efforts on what is our obligation so that by the beginning of next year, passport holders of the Republic of Cyprus will be able to travel to the US without the need for an entry visa," he noted in that regard.

"Therefore, we are continuing this effort, as we started, which is yielding results. I thank you and I encourage you to ‘walk’ this last ‘mile’ towards achieving yet another goal we had set," the President concluded.