Kerry to visit next Thursday

US Secretary of State John Kerry will visit the island on December 3 as part of a six-nation European tour next week, the State Department said on Tuesday.

During his visit he will hold talks with President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci to encourage progress toward ending the island’s division.

Kerry will travel to Paris on Monday to join President Barack Obama for the opening of international climate talks. He will then go to Brussels to attend NATO meetings, to Kosovo’s capital Pristina and to the Serbian capital Belgrade, where he will take part in a meeting of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe, the department said in a statement.

On Thursday he will travel to Nicosia, where he will “meet with Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot leaders to encourage continued progress in the UN-facilitated settlement talks,” it said.

Kerry will travel to Athens on December 4 on the final leg of his trip, and his talks with Greek officials will include the migration and refugee crisis and economic reforms, the State Department said.

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.