G8 tries to give Cyprus peace settlement a push

FOREIGN ministers from the big power Group of Eight, frustrated at repeated failures to settle the dispute over Cyprus, agreed yesterday to press for new United Nations talks about the island.

Meeting in Cologne to prepare next week’s annual G8 summit among other things, a joint statement said they would urge their leaders to get fresh negotiations under way between the two sides.

“We recommend that the G8 summit urge the UN secretary-general to invite the leaders of both parties to enter into comprehensive negotiations without pre-conditions,” the foreign ministers of the United States, Russia, Japan, Germany, Canada, France, Italy and Britain said.

“We urge all those concerned to avoid any measures that could increase tensions on the island and complicate efforts to promote a just and lasting peace.”

A European source at the G8 talks said there was general frustration that there was still a stalemate over the status of the island 25 years after Turkish troops invaded following a short-lived coup backed by the then military junta in Athens.

The G8, fresh from taking a lead in ending Nato’s war with Yugoslavia, was not seeking to take over the Cyprus peace process from the United Nations, the source said. But there was a consensus that the parties should get back to the negotiating table under UN auspices.

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.