Holbrooke: US interest to rise after Turkish elections

RICHARD Holbrooke has assured President Glafcos Clerides that American involvement in Cyprus will increase after next year’s the Turkish elections.

Speaking after a meeting with Clerides yesterday, House President Spyros Kyprianou said that Holbrooke, the US Representative on Cyprus, had spelt out during a phone call to Clerides the continuing American interest in Cyprus, and that the US was hard at work on the issue of the S-300 missiles.

On Monday, Holbrooke is to hold contacts in Athens as part of the US efforts on Cyprus. This will include a meeting with Greek Foreign Minister Theodoros Pangalos.

Kyprianou met with Clerides on the occasion of the President’s departure for Vienna today to take part in an EU summit.

Referring to the missiles, Kyprianou said that there was a need “to clear the stage on everyone’s part”.

There had, he added, been “different movements, especially by UN General Secretary Kofi Annan”, and that the goal of these was “a lowering of tension”.

But he added that although a proposal to prevent the missiles from coming was expected, Clerides had given him no indication as to whether or not he thought it would be an acceptable proposal. The National Council decisions and conditions under which the S-300 might not be deployed still stood, he added.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.