Improved EU-Turkish relations will help Cyprus

BRITISH High Commissioner Edward Clay yesterday said better relations between the EU and Turkey would help create a better climate for solving of the Cyprus problem.

Speaking after a meeting with new Communications Minister Averof Neophytou, Clay said that the EU wanted to improved its relations with Turkey and that the Helsinki summit at the end of the year would decide whether to make Turkey a candidate country.

He said improved EU-Turkey ties could not be directly connected to a solution of the Cyprus problem, but that an improved relationship between the two, and specifically between Greece and Turkey, would contribute to a better environment for progress on the Cyprus problem.

Clay also said he could not confirm reports that the EU would be negotiating the Cyprus problem directly with Turkey, rather than through Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash as has been suggested in recent days.

He said efforts to solve the Cyprus problem fell mostly under the auspices of the United Nations, and that the EU supported these efforts.

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.