Envoy calls for Cyprus talks soon
As a US envoy for Cyprus called for a quick resumption of reunification talks after meeting with the Turkish-Cypriot leadership yesterday, Nicosia said that it was doing everything in its power to prepare the ground for a fresh set of negotiations. The US deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, Laura Kennedy, rounded off her trip to the region, which included visits to Ankara, Athens and Nicosia, by holding talks with Turkish-Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat yesterday. «We discussed the importance of restarting the UN-led settlement talks as soon as it is feasible,» said Kennedy. Cypriot government spokesman Kypros Chrysostomides said that President Tassos Papadopoulos was constantly engaged in efforts to set up a new round of talks that would not produce a «dead end or failure.» Greek Cypriots rejected a UN reunification plan in a referendum last April. Papadopoulos on Thursday also raised with Kennedy the issue of property belonging to Greek Cypriots but taken over in the island’s occupied north, Chrysostomides said.
