Weston due in town immediately after elections

U.S. STATE Department special co-ordinator for Cyprus Thomas Weston arrives on the island next week for talks with both sides on the resumption of negotiations.

The visit will come immediately after Sunday’s Turkish Cypriot elections, regarded as a make or break development for the Cyprus issue. However, reports yesterday said the US was pushing hard for talks to resume on the Annan plan, irrespective of who won the elections.

Weston’s visit is part of renewed efforts by Washington to find a settlement before Cyprus joins the EU next May.

Weston will meet President Tassos Papadopoulos and Foreign Minister George Iacovou. It is not clear if he will meet Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash, who declined to meet the US envoy during his visit to the island last month.

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.