As next month’s Paris meeting between Cypriot President Glafcos Clerides and Turkish-Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash draws near, envoys from the USA and Britain are due on the war-divided island over the next few days to try to boost the peace process.

US envoy Thomas Weston will hold talks with government officials in Athens and Ankara, as well as in Nicosia, while Britain’s David Hannay — who, in June, alienated the Cypriot government by publicly espousing a solution to the island’s division along a formula advanced by Denktash — will just visit Cyprus.

Clerides and Denktash are to meet again on September 6 in Paris, in the presence of United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, following up a series of fruitless direct talks throughout the year.

Meanwhile, the Cypriot military on Wednesday said Turkish occupation forces in the vicinity of the village of Pyla — where Greek and Turkish Cypriots live together — had strengthened their positions by building defense walls.

On the other hand, Defense Minister Socrates Hasikos said Turkey has withdrawn part of the 5,500 extra troops it sent to the island at the end of May to boost the 35,000-strong occupation force Ankara has maintained on the island for decades. He said this troop movement was probably associated with US plans to attack Iraq, in view of which Turkey was sending forces to guard its border with northern Iraq.

In remarks reported yesterday, Denktash repeated threats that if Cyprus was accepted into the European Union while still divided, the occupied north would unite with Turkey. “The Turkish-Cypriot people will protect its flag, its country and its sovereignty by all means,” he was quoted as saying.