On June 18, 2012, Vice Foreign Minister Song Tao held consultations between the Foreign Ministries of China and Cyprus with Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Cyprus Petros Eftychiou in Nicosia. Song also met with Cypriot Minister of Foreign Affairs Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis.

Song said that China attaches importance to relations with Cyprus and is willing to deepen mutual political trust, promote cooperation in trade, investment, telecommunications, tourism and other areas and expand humanities exchanges. The Chinese Foreign Ministry is willing to strengthen coordination with the Cypriot Ministry of Foreign Affairs and make positive efforts for the comprehensive, in-depth development of bilateral relations.

The Cypriot side agreed with China's comments on bilateral relations and stressed that Cyprus hopes to further strengthen bilateral high-level exchanges, expand mutually beneficial cooperation in various areas and raise the relations to a new level.

Song said that a united, prosperous and stable Europe is in China's fundamental interests. China will continue to support the efforts of the euro zone and EU to deal with the debt problems and will support the European integration. Song appreciated Cyrus for actively promoting China-EU relations and hoped Cyprus will make new contributions to the development of China-EU relations during its rotating EU presidency in the second half of this year.

The Cypriot side thanked China for supporting the EU to deal with the debt problems with practical action and expressed their willingness to promote the further development of EU-China comprehensive strategic partnership during its rotating EU presidency.

Charge d'affaires ad interim Jiang Chunyan of the Chinese Embassy in Cyprus participated in the relevant activities.