Nikos Christodoulides

Nikos Christodoulides (Greek: Νίκος Χριστοδουλίδης; born 6 December 1973) is a Cypriot politician, diplomat, and academic who has served as the 8th President of Cyprus since 2023. He previously served as Government Spokesman from 2014 to 2018 and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2018 to 2022, both under his predecessor Nicos Anastasiades. A former member of the Democratic Rally, he has been an independent since the party ejected him for entering the 2023 presidential race against their chosen candidate.

Christodoulides started his career as a diplomat in 1999, also working as a lecturer and researcher at the University of Cyprus from 2007 to 2010. He then served in the second Anastasiades government until resigning in January 2022 in order to run in the presidential election, where he defeated Andreas Mavroyiannis in the run-off and assumed office on 28 February 2023. He is the first Cypriot leader to be born in Cyprus after it gained independence from Britain.

Nikos Christodoulides was born in Geroskipou on 6 December 1973, the son of a mother from Geroskipou and a father from Choulou. He graduated from the Lyceum A' of Ethnarch Makarios III in Paphos in 1991, and completed his compulsory two-year military service in the Cypriot National Guard in 1993. He majored in political science, economics, and Byzantine and Modern Greek studies at Queens College in New York City, graduating in 1997. He then pursued postgraduate studies in political science at New York University and diplomatic studies at the University of Malta's Mediterranean Academy of Diplomatic Studies. He earned a PhD in political science and public administration from the University of Athens in 2003.

Christodoulides lectured and worked as a non-tenure track research associate at the University of Cyprus' History and Archeology Department, teaching the history of the post-war world.

Christodoulides entered diplomatic service in 1999. He held various posts, including Director of the Office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Spokesman of the Cyprus Presidency to the Council of the European Union in Brussels, Deputy Chief of Mission at the Embassy of Cyprus to Greece, Director of the Office of the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Consul-General of the High Commission of the Republic of Cyprus to the United Kingdom. Between 2013 and 2018, he served as Director of the Diplomatic Office of the President of Cyprus.

Christodoulides was appointed Government Spokesman on 14 April 2014, and stepped down upon the conclusion of Nicos Anastasiades' first term on 28 February 2018.

On 1 March 2018, after Anastasiades' re-election, Christodoulides was appointed to Anastasiades' cabinet as Minister of Foreign Affairs. On 6 March 2018, he stated that Nicosia would not be swayed by Turkey's incursions into the Exclusive Economic Zone of Cyprus. During a meeting on Greek-Cypriot cooperation with Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras, he said that the reunification of Cyprus was their primary goal.

In May 2018, Christodoulides officially asked the United Nations to prepare for a speedy resumption of the reunification process. After meeting Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias on 7 May 2018, he praised United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres for despatching a UN Special Representative to sound out the atmosphere for resuming talks.