NEWS

UN envoy due here Monday

The Greek government is placing great importance on next Monday’s meeting between Foreign Minister George Papandreou and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s special envoy, Alvaro de Soto, as it will come a few days before talks between the two Cypriot leaders and Annan. The October 3-4 talks in New York are expected to show whether there is any possibility of the Cyprus issue being resolved before the final decision for the island’s EU accession is made at December’s Copenhagen summit. «We are at a very important point with regard to the solution of the political problem of Cyprus and this meeting is part of the framework of briefings and negotiations,» Foreign Ministry spokesman Panayiotis Beglitis said. «The period ahead of us is especially crucial. We will have the opportunity from now until December to discuss the Cyprus issue a lot, with regard to its progress toward (EU) accession and the effort to solve the political problem,» he said. Meanwhile, Cyprus President Glafcos Clerides and Turkish-Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash held another meeting in Nicosia yesterday. In a television interview afterward, Denktash again repeated his demand that the breakaway state he leads in the Turkish-occupied part of Cyprus be granted international recognition. Meanwhile, as Cyprus’s EU accession date nears, Turkish officials have been increasing their threats that accession will imply conflict. «Granting the Greek Cypriots EU membership would disrupt peace and stability in Cyprus and the eastern Mediterranean,» the commander of Turkish land forces, Aytac Yalman, said on a visit to the island’s north. «It would drag the eastern Mediterranean into a permanent security crisis,» Yalman added, according to the Anatolia news agency.

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