Meeting on missing Cypriots
Greek- and Turkish-Cypriot leaders will meet today for the first time in two years to discuss efforts to determine the fate of hundreds of people still missing from both sides as a result of fighting in the 1960s and 1970s. It will be the first time President Tassos Papadopoulos and Turkish-Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat have meet since Greek Cypriots rejected, and Turkish Cypriots accepted, a UN-sponsored plan to reunify the island in 2004. It is unlikely the two leaders will discuss anything else but the missing persons, a humanitarian issue that is separate from reunification efforts. About 2,000 people from both communities are listed as missing from the island’s strife in the 1960s and the Turkish invasion in 1974. Most of the missing are thought to be dead, but many relatives are reluctant to accept that before they see proof that their loved ones had indeed perished. Cyprus has been divided since 1974, after Turkey invaded following an Athens-backed coup by supporters of union with Greece. (AP)
