Turkey’s armed forces chief said yesterday that some 40,000 Turkish troops will remain on Cyprus despite a new peace deal between Greek- and Turkish-Cypriot leaders.

“There is no such thing as pulling troops out tomorrow if there is a peace deal today,” said Yasar Buyukanit, wrapping up a four-day visit to the island’s Turkish-occupied north areas. “The army needs to observe and be fully convinced on how safe Turkish Cypriots are,” he said, according to Agence France-Presse.

Cyprus President Dimitris Christofias said yesterday that finding a settlement to reunify the divided island would be “a very difficult task.” But he said the working groups he agreed to set up following talks with Turkish-Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat were a practical first step. “They have not been set up for show or for reasons of propaganda but to produce results,” Christofias said.

President Christofias and Cyprus Foreign Minister Markos Kyprianou are to visit Washington for talks with US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice at the end of next month.

  United Nations demining experts swept the buffer zone dividing Nicosia for discarded explosives yesterday as part of efforts to open a crossing in Europe's last divided capital.

UN spokesman Jose Diaz said demining teams completed a search for unexploded devices or booby traps that could have been left over from the 1974 Turkish invasion, which divided the island along ethnic lines. The sweep of the 70-meter (230-foot) stretch of no man's land was necessary before work could begin to shore up dilapidated buildings on either side of the pedestrian thoroughfare.

«A six-person mine action team carried out the search with support from UNFICYP (United Nations Force in Cyprus), during which no dangerous items were found,» a UN statement said. The clearance, shoring up and other preparations were expected to last 10 days or more, Diaz said.

Barbed wire first divided Ledra Street, a busy shopping street in the Cypriot capital's medieval core, in the early 1960s amid fighting between the island's Turkish-Cypriot and Greek-Cypriot communities. The leaders of the Greek and Cypriot communities agreed Friday to open a crossing at Ledra Street as a sign of good will before resuming talks on reunifying the island.

A sticking point appears to have been overcome after the Turkish army agreed to keep patrolling soldiers out of sight of the crossing point, officials close to the discussions said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. The Greek Cypriot National Guard will also pull its soldiers back.

The new Cyprus' President of the internationally recognized Greek-Cypriot Republic of Cyprus, currently in the south of the island, Dimitris Christofias, and the leader of the breakaway Turkish-Cypriots currently in the Turkish occupied and military controlled north area of Cyprus, recognized only by Turkey, Mehmet Ali Talat, also agreed Friday to reach a reunification deal «as soon as possible.» Aides to Christofias and Talat agreed yesterday to quickly set up 13 groups of experts to bridge the gaps between the two sides on issues such as security, territory, crime and health. The groups will have until June to make as much progress as possible before Christofias and Talat begin face-to-face negotiations.

A UN statement said both sides agreed to set up additional groups if necessary «to ensure that their respective leaders may be able to negotiate as effectively as possible on the full spectrum of issues to be discussed.»

However, Turkish troops will stay in the occupied northern areas of Cyprus until a «just and lasting peace» has been achieved on the divided island, Turkish-Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat said yesterday. The Turkish forces in the breakaway north have been deployed «in line with international agreements,» Talat said.

«They will continue to conduct their mission until a just and lasting peace has been achieved.» Talat was speaking at a meeting with visiting Turkish army chief, General Yasar Buyukanit, just days after he and newly elected Cyprus President Dimitris Christofias agreed to relaunch peace negotiations stalled since 2004.

Talat said the influential Turkish military, often accused of advocating a hardline position on the Cyprus conflict, «supports us on the issues we are working on, together with the Turkish government.» Buyukanit said: «The Turkish soldiers are here for the security of the Turkish Cypriots. They have ensured their security and will continue to do so.» Turkey, the only country to recognize the government in the occupied north, maintains more than 40,000 troops there.

Turkish troops stopped a UN initiative to clear explosives and other materials from Ledra Street, which runs through the buffer zone that divides northern and southern Nicosia, citing “technical problems.” Meanwhile, sources said that Turkey’s armed forces chief Yasar Buyukanit is due in the Turkish-occupied north of Cyprus today. It was unclear whether the trip had been planned.

  Cyprus President Christofias and Turkish-Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat last week agreed to open up Ledra Street as a symbolic move ahead of renewed peace talks. The Cyprus President yesterday said he believed “barriers would be overcome.” Nicosia, the capital city of the Republic of Cyprus, is the last divided city in Europe.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday said he “warmly welcomed” the agreement by Christofias and Talat to “start full-fledged negotiations under UN auspices.”

  The room where families get a first glimpse of relatives who vanished in fighting in the 1960s and 70s, at a new facility in Nicosia, in the buffer zone separating the Greek and Turkish-Cypriot communities, last Tuesday. The facility will allow families from both sides to see recently unearthed remains of a relative for the first time.

The final act in dozens of human tragedies from divided Cyprus’s troubled past is unfolding in a clinical room with four tables draped in white sheets. Here, in the buffer zone separating Greek and Turkish-Cypriot communities, families will get a first glimpse of relatives who vanished in fighting in the 1960s and 1970s, their hastily dug graves lost in the fog of postwar politics.

“We’ve had instances where children who hadn’t been born when their father disappeared see him for the first time as a skeleton,” said Elias Georgiades, the Greek-Cypriot member of a committee tasked with uncovering the fate of hundreds of missing Greek and Turkish Cypriots.

An international forensics team carries out the actual search for the approximately 1,500 Greek Cypriots and 500 Turkish Cypriots who are listed as missing. To date, the exhumation and identification program has unearthed the remains of 379 missing people. The disappearances began in 1964 at the onset of intercommunal violence. They culminated in 1974 when Turkey invaded the Republic of Cyprus in response to a failed coup by supporters of union with Greece. Many died in battle; others were victims of revenge killings, buried in unmarked graves undisturbed for decades until long-suppressed information guided anthropologists to them.

The new facility, inaugurated this week in the no man’s land that cuts across the island’s capital, Nicosia, will allow scores of families from both sides to see recently unearthed remains of a relative for the first time in decades.

“This is a place where a lot of emotion will unfold,” said Christophe Girod, the committee’s UN-appointed member. Until now, viewings of the remains were held in a cramped office that was once part of the old airport’s installations.

Since July, the families of 57 Greek Cypriots and 26 Turkish Cypriots have viewed the identified remains of their relatives. Remains first undergo laboratory analysis before DNA testing to identify them. Then families are called in.

At one recent viewing, an elderly grieving woman caressed the skull of her husband, weeping softly as she kissed his jaw bone. The Greek-Cypriot man had vanished in 1974, after being snatched from his home late one summer evening, his relatives said. They asked that neither they nor the man be identified. His remains were found in a shallow grave in the northeastern Karpasia peninsula alongside those of 11 others. He was handcuffed to another body lying beside him. Forensic scientists said they could not determine the exact cause of death. But in his relatives’ minds, there was little doubt – his skull was fractured and he had a bullet hole in his shoulder blade. The black-clad relatives viewed the skeletal remains with quiet resignation. “After so many years, we expected this,” said one of the man’s three daughters.

One relative lit incense to waft over the remains in accordance with Orthodox Christian custom. His children said that at least this time, their father would receive a proper burial. There was a palpable sense of relief at the end of the viewing. The relatives embraced the staff and expressed their gratitude, some even managing to smile.

Families take custody of the remains a day or so later after signing release papers. Officials say such viewings have a ceremonial quality to impart a sense of closure. Relatives are first ushered into a sitting room where experts involved in the exhumation and identification process field questions and offer emotional support.

They are then guided into an adjacent viewing area where the remains are neatly arranged on a table. Clothing and other items such as keepsakes and pocket change found at the burial site are displayed nearby.

“The families cry, they shout, they kneel, they kiss the bones, they touch them... they demand the truth, the whole truth,” Georgiades said. “These are sacred moments for the relatives,” he added. “They imagine the last days, hours and moments of the skeleton that lies before them.”

The exhumation program is seen as a way to heal a festering wound that has long impeded reconciliation between the two estranged communities, as efforts to reunify the island remain stalemated. The program has raised around $5.33 million in donations to carry on its work through 2008, with an estimated five years remaining for completion.

“Without closure, the pain and anguish of these families remains. That is why the work of the (committee) is so important, not only to the families themselves, but also to the future of the island,” US Ambassador Ronald Schlicher said.

Cyprus President Dimitris Christofias, whose election in February sparked a fresh drive for peace, and Turkish-Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat agreed on Friday to launch reunification talks in three months.

Hopes are high that this time around rival leaders from the separated Greek- and Turkish-Cypriot communities have the political courage and conviction to finally hammer out a road map to peace and end the 34-year divide.

“This is a new beginning that may turn out to be a starting point in a search for a settlement,” Joseph Joseph, Professor of Political Science at Cyprus University, told AFP. “After four long years of stagnation and deadlock, everybody now realizes it could be the last and best hope for a settlement. We have a new President with a fresh mandate, the right attitude and who is forward-looking. Talat is open-minded and flexible. Both leaders have a good personal and political relationship. So, the pressure is there. The right people are there and there is conviction from the international community.”

  The rival Cypriot leaders announced a landmark decision to open Ledra street in the heart of Nicosia, Europe’s last divided capital city, as a gesture of good will. “Ledra Street is a good start but not enough on its own,” an EU diplomat told AFP.

Advisers from both sides will meet today to form working groups and technical committees which will set the agenda for future talks.

Christofias’s chief aid George Iacovou will meet with his Turkish-Cypriot counterpart Ozdil Nami to agree on the number of committees needed and the issues they will tackle. These issues will be a mixture of everyday problems, such as crime and immigration, as well as the more thorny subjects encompassing property rights.

The meeting between the two leaders, mediated by the United Nations’ permanent representative for the island Michael Moller, was the first since Christofias was elected to his post last month. It was “very positive and cordial” and revealed “a great degree of convergence,” according to Moller, who said that the men would meet again in three months. “The leaders have also agreed that Ledra Street should open and function as soon as technically possible,” he added. Officials in Nicosia said the crossing, in the city’s shopping district, could be open within a week.

Until the next scheduled meeting in June, the two leaders’ aides are to set up working committees to examine the resolution of practical issues.

Both leaders appeared positive and determined after yesterday’s talks. “We agreed to work together in a spirit of good will,” Christofias said, adding, “We shall examine any possible disagreement together.” Talat was even more effusive. “This is a new era for the solution of the Cyprus problem,” he said, adding that a settlement could even be found by year-end. Christofias did not refer to a timeframe. “We didn’t mention anything about the basis or parameters of the solution,” he said.

Peace talks... > Cyprus President Dimitris Christofias, who is to meet Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat today, said he is ready for peace talks but stressed that there can be no quick fix solution.

  A Cypriot soldier stands guard by a temporary bulkhead at a Cypriot outpost next to the UN buffer zone that divides the Greek and Turkish Cypriot controlled areas of Nicosia.

The hustle and bustle of shoppers eyeing trendy boutiques on the southern side of Nicosia's Ledra Street is not unlike what you would encounter in the commercial heart of any European city.

  Yet steps away from where couples huddle to sip coffee and buskers ply their trade stands an armed soldier guarding a barricade - a stark reminder that Nicosia remains Europe's last divided capital in its last partitioned country.

Today, the island's rival leaders are expected to agree on opening a crossing at Ledra Street - a deeply symbolic move that would give a lift to a fresh reunification drive. Up close, there is nothing remarkable about the 2.5 meter (8 foot) high barricade of aluminium and plastic boards.

  It certainly is less forbidding than the concrete wall torn down a year ago. But it rudely interrupts a vibrant street in the capital's medieval core, shutting out a decaying no-man's land of weed-strewn streets and crumbling buildings that slices the island into a Greek-Cypriot south and an occupied and military controlled Turkish-Cypriot north.

The UN-controlled buffer zone has been in limbo since 1974 when Turkey invaded in response to a failed coup by supporters of uniting the island with Greece. And the Ledra Street barricade has been the most poignant symbol of the enduring separation between the once-warring communities.

Expectations are high that Greek-Cypriot President Dimitris Christofias and Turkish-Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat will jointly announce a Ledra opening today to serve as a springboard for the start of talks on breaking years of deadlock on reunification. On Wednesday, President Christofias said Greek Cypriots were «ready to proceed with the opening at Ledra Street.»

The buildup to a Ledra opening has attained an air of inevitability. Nicosia's Mayor Eleni Mavrou repeatedly said a crossing could be readied within five days of an announcement, despite months of work to shore up derelict buildings on either side of the pedestrian walkway.

Even a key Greek-Cypriot objection to Turkish army patrols near a future crossing that scuttled previous attempts at an opening appears to have been overcome: Aides to Christofias and Talat suggested last week that Turkish troops would pull back enough to remain out of sight of the crossing.

  Another breach in the buffer zone would be nothing new - five crossings have opened since 2003 when Turkish Cypriots eased restrictions. Greek and Turkish Cypriots have since crisscrossed the divide hundreds of thousands of times, setting aside old trepidation and mistrust to see old friends and visit homes they had been barred from visiting for nearly three decades.

But a Ledra Street crossing would resonate most with Cypriots jaded after decades of stalemate and a heap of failed peace initiatives. That's because Ledra's mystique as the embodiment of division would be shattered - offering fresh hope for unification.

«It could serve as an ice breaker, I think we are able work things out with the Turkish Cypriots,» said Chrysanthos Trokkoudes, 69, whose health food store is a stone's throw away from the barrier.

Ledra Street has been a symbol of separation since January 1964 when British peacekeepers laid barbed wire across the street between Nicosia's Greek and Turkish Cypriot sectors after brokering a cease-fire agreement.

The street's division was cemented in 1974 with the invasion. «A symbol of division may now turn out to become a symbol of reunification,» said veteran Turkish-Cypriot politician and former mayor of northern Nicosia Mustafa Akinci. Besides hope, a crossing would offer the tangible benefit of injecting new life in the old town nestled within 15th-century Venetian walls. Tourists and locals eager to satisfy their curiosity would boost commerce, especially in the less cosmopolitan Turkish-Cypriot north.

Economists from the Greek and Turkish Cypriot sides of the island said the sector would also stand to benefit from greater cooperation and economies of scale.

“Ninety-eight percent of the Turkish Cypriot respondents and 79 percent of the Greek Cypriot respondents see a win-win situation with a joint tourism industry,” The Management Center, an independent think tank, said in a news release.

Tourism is an important component of the economies of both Cypriot sides; it represents 14 percent of gross national product of Turkish Cypriots, and 12 percent of Greek Cypriots’ gross domestic product. Tourism revenues in the Greek-Cypriot part of the divided island were $2.73 billion last year. Revenues in the Turkish-Cypriot part were $328.8 million in 2005, the last year for which figures are available.

The survey, funded by the British Embassy in Cyprus, said Greek and Turkish Cypriot industry professionals regard the division as a negative factor for their businesses.

“Tourism professionals of the two sides believe that the continuation of the current political situation results in lost business opportunities, and is perceived as a lose situation, at least for their side,” the research team said.

The two leaders will meet at the UN’s Headquarters at Nicosia Airport in the presence of the alliance’s representative on the island, Michael Moller, UN spokesman Jose Diaz said.

The announcement was made following a meeting between the two leaders’ aides that was described by Moller as “very cordial and constructive.” “The two aides reached a great degree of convergence on the issues discussed, including on the possible future opening of the Ledra Street crossing,” Moller said.

However Christofias, leaving for a European Union summit in Brussels yesterday, said he was concerned about the “provocative” stance adopted by Talat over the past few days. Christofias reiterated that a stalled July 2006 agreement between the two sides for the launch of exploratory talks on specific issues should be the basis for renewed talks.

"The date of the meeting has been set for March 21st," Jose Diaz, a spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Cyprus, told Reuters.

Christofias was elected last month, pledging to end a stalemate in talks between the Greek and Turkish communities on the eastern Mediterranean island, which remains a hurdle to Turkey's aspirations to join the European Union.

Cyprus was divided in 1974, when Turkish troops invaded its northern third in response to a brief coup by Greek-Cypriot extremists at the urging of the military then ruling Greece.

Reunification talks stalled in 2004 when Greek Cypriots rejected a U.N. blueprint, which was accepted by the Turkish Cypriots.The two sides agreed in 2006 to look at an incremental approach to negotiations, but that too has stalled because of disputes over its agenda.

Christofias's predecessor, Tassos Papadopoulos, last met with Talat in September 2007. The meeting reaffirmed a deadlock in negotiations.

Economic benefits would come mainly from new business opportunities with Turkey, tourism revenue and construction, the survey sponsored by the Norway-based Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) said. “Translated into household income, the annual dividend per family comes to approximately 5,500 euros per year,” PRIO said in a news release yesterday. That represents 20 percent of the average income of Greek Cypriots, and 40 percent of Turkish Cypriots, it added.

Cyprus, an island of around 1 million people, was partitioned in a Turkish invasion in 1974. Greek Cypriots, who represent the island in the European Union, have no direct trade or diplomatic links with the Turkish-led statelet in the island’s Turkish occupied and military controlled north.

The southern areas of Cyprus controlled by the Greek-Cypriot government joined the eurozone on January 1, 2008. The northern part, a Turkish-Cypriot breakaway state recognized only by the government in Ankara, stayed out.

Economic disparities between the two sides are huge. Gross domestic product in the south was 15.5 billion in 2007, and approximately 2 billion in the north in 2006, according to the latest data available.

Economists from both sides of the divide based their projections on a seven-year game plan should a settlement be reached in 2009, and using Greco-Turkish trade relations, which have flourished in the past decade, as their reference point.

Greek and Turkish-Cypriot community leaders are expected to meet in the last fortnight of March to discuss how to resume peace talks. Reunification efforts collapsed in 2004 when Greek Cypriots rejected a UN settlement blueprint accepted by Turkish Cypriots.

PRIO is financed by the Norwegian Research Council, the United Nations and the World Bank.

Global Mortgages Direct, which describes itself as Ireland’s first international mortgage brokerage specialist, began advertising the offers earlier this month. But according to the reports, the company had second thoughts and withdrew the service little more than a day later.

The Irish newspaper the Sunday Tribune reported that Global Mortgages Direct had taken the decision to withdraw after considering the implications and the Irish government's stance on the issue. The company said the service had been withdrawn the day after its launch.

The decision was made following discussions with Cypriot officials in Ireland, and having taken account of the Irish government's strong warnings about buying property in the Turkish military controlled and occupied northern areas of the Republic of Cyprus.

Director Mark Gannon told the Sunday Tribune the company had arranged a facility to source mortgages with a Turkish bank after "regular requests" from people interested in buying property in the occupied northern Cyprus. He said the reaction to the decision to offer mortgages on the occupied north of the island "took us from left field". "We didn't expect the fall-out. . . It was pretty full-on."  Gannon said the decision to withdraw the facility immediately "relates to the Irish government's stance".

The Tribune said many Irish citizens had purchased property in the Turkish military controlled and occupied northern areas of Cyprus. However, like Britain, the Irish government issues a warning to prospective buyers on its website strongly advising them to seek qualified independent legal advice due to potential claims related to title and ownership from Cypriots displaced in 1974 after Turkey invaded Cyprus, “which may lead to serious financial and legal repercussions”.

It adds that potential buyers may face legal proceedings in the courts of the Republic of Cyprus, decisions of which can be executed elsewhere in the EU, including Ireland. Cypriot law was also recently amended making it a criminal offence, with penalties of up to seven years imprisonment, to purchase, sell, rent or promote or advertise the sale of property in Turkish military controlled and occupied northern areas of Cyprus owned by Greek Cypriots, the website says. “Any attempt to undertake such a transaction is also a criminal offence under Cypriot law. The law is not retrospective and took effect on October 20, 2006,” it advises.

When the advertisement first went out, Gannon said he had received some queries about the legal implications for buyers purchasing in the occupied north, but he said: “What we do is facilitate mortgages,” not sell or buy the properties. Gannon said that for the company it was an issue of “Buyer Beware”.

The soldiers had been buried in a multiple grave in the aftermath of the invasion 34 years ago.

Speaking at a press conference where she presented the work of the Municipality for 2007 as well as its plans for 2008, Nicosia Mayor Eleni Mavrou said that the technical preparations in the event Ledra Street opens are ready, adding that Ledra Street can open in a matter of five days the most.

She said the work to support the infrastructure will be financed by the EU and will take some time, however without endangering the safety of pedestrians while the road will be open for traffic.

Mavrou said there are a total of 275 derelict buildings, some of which pose an immediate danger to pedestrians and the Municipality’s engineers will proceed with their support.
The Nicosia Mayor said that the loan which the Municipality is anticipating to acquire to carry out work to revive buildings along the Green Line, will reach three million pounds.

The National Guard, the island's army, removed on March 8, 2007, the wall in Ledra Street, which was erected soon after the Turkish invasion in 1974. Nicosia today, is the last divided capital in Europe. The government of Cyprus clarified that the demolition of the wall does not mean the opening of the crossing point to and from the Turkish occupied areas, unless security issues are addressed. In a statement, the members of the Security Council urged both communities to work with the UN to open Ledra Street crossing.

Palmas was invited to comment on the resolution passed by the US House of Representatives’ Committee on Foreign Affairs that describes the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians early in the last century as genocide.

“The Armenian genocide by Turkey constitutes an unquestionable historical fact, just as unquestionable is the fact that Turkey invaded in 1974 the Republic of Cyprus and still occupies the northern part of our country,” Palmas said.

Invited to say whether this development would affect the Cyprus issue, Palmas said that one should react with caution and realism. “We should remain cautious and realistic and not consider that the decisions of a Committee of a Body, like the US House of Representatives, would shake or change US-Turkey relations to such an extent that the international political scene would totally change,” he said. The issue, he noted, “concerns mainly Turkey and the US, and the Cypriot government has no other comment to make.”

Cyprus has been divided since July 1974, when Turkey invaded and occupied its northern third.

Speaking at the 34rth General Conference of UNESCO, in Paris, Cleanthous said that “today, due to the military occupation, our government does not have access to these sites and monuments, leaving them at the mercy of nature’s elements or worse, at risk of being deliberately destroyed”.

The Cypriot Minster noted that through the ratification in 1979 of the Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (1970) and the ratification, in 2001, of the Second Protocol to the Hague Convention of 1954 for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (1999), “our government is trying to re-gain access to the archaeological sites and monuments that are in the occupied area in northern Cyprus”.

“There are numerous examples of illegal archaeological excavations as well as trafficking of masterpieces such as Byzantine icons, mosaics, frescoes and other priceless antiquities”, he added. He also said that the archaeological sites and monuments of Cyprus are on the World Heritage list as well as on the European Heritage Label list. “We have achieved high standards in conservation of cultural properties as evidenced by the restoration of the medieval fortifications of Nicosia and a number of churches, mosques, water mills, olive-presses, bridges and houses of traditional architecture”, he added.

As regards the Cyprus problem, the Cypriot Minister said that the Cypriot government is committed to the final settlement of the Cyprus problem. “We constantly trying to find a solution and we hope that through the mutual efforts of both communities in the island we can set an example of peace and reconciliation in order to build new and harmonious relations”, he pointed out.

Referring to the field of culture, Cleanthous said that Cyprus has ratified the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions and has set a new strategy, which aims to ensure that the right conditions are present for cultural diversity in Cyprus to flourish and to enhance the status of cultural industries as a significant source of revenue and jobs.

Concluding, he reminded that Cyprus had hosted the first UNESCO Euro-Mediterranean Youth Forum on “Young People and the Dialogue among Civilizations, Cultures, and People” in November 2006, bringing together young delegates from 34 countries from Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Cyprus' Government spokesman Vassilis Palmas said talks scheduled for Saturday in London between Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis and a British Foreign Office Minister, Kim Howells, had been called off to underscore Nicosia’s displeasure over last week’s deal. “Ms Marcoullis’s trip to London will not take place,” Palmas told reporters. “Decisions have been made on different levels and more will be made. These decisions and these measures will be made public as they are implemented, unless the government judges that it must act differently.”

The Marcoullis-Howells talks were part of talks between Nicosia and London that began in October 2005 aiming to build trust and promote cooperation between the two countries.

The strategic partnership agreement, announced last week during a visit to London by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, included a reference to northern Turkish-occupied and military controlled Cyprus as the “TRNC,” which stands for the “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.” The breakaway state in the north of the divided island is recognized only by Ankara, as opposed to the Greek Cypriot Governmemt which is internationally recognized.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkey invaded the Republic of Cyprus, following a failed coup by supporters of uniting the island with Greece. The island remains split between an internationally recognized Republic in the Greek-Cypriot south and the Turkish-Cypriot occupied north. Talks to resolve the division have been stalled since 2004, when Greek Cypriots rejected a UN-backed plan in a referendum. Turkish Cypriots approved the plan in a separate vote.

The Cypriot government in the south also warned that the partnership agreement could hamper settlement prospects. Speaking on state radio yesterday, Minister Kozakou-Marcoullis called the Turkish-British agreement “unacceptable.” London had said its policy toward northern Cyprus was unchanged and it did not seek to promote partition.

The agreement has provoked the anger of both Athens and Nicosia, as only Turkey recognizes this part of Cyprus as a self-proclaimed state.

Foreign Ministry General Secretary Aristidis Agathoklis told Gass, according to sources, that this sort of move was not helpful at a time when the two sides in Cyprus are attempting to restart reunification talks.

The British ambassador insisted that London had no intention of recognizing any other authority than the government in Nicosia and that it fully backed an effort to solve the island’s division as soon as possible.

Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos described the contents of the agreement signed by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan as being “a very unfavorable development.” “Britain’s policy has always been the same but it is only now that it is being revealed,” said Papadopoulos.

Cypriot government spokesman Vassilis Palmas reminded Britain that the presence of British military bases on the island is founded on the principle of reciprocity.

The strategic partnership agreement, announced Tuesday during a visit to London by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, included a reference to northern Turkish-occupied and military controlled Cyprus as the "TRNC," which stands for the self-proclaimed and so-called Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. The breakaway state in the north of the divided island is recognized only by Ankara.

British Ambassador Simon Gass was summoned over the agreement, in which Britain also pledges to work toward "ending isolation of the Turkish Cypriots" in the Cyprus' Turkish occupied north.

"It is unwise to take such actions at such a crucial time, before the resumption of talks aiming to find a solution" to the division of Cyprus, a Foreign Ministry official said. The complaint was both about the wording referring to the north and the "whole spirit of the strategic partnership," the official said.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkey invaded following a failed coup by supporters of uniting the island with Greece. The island remains split between an internationally recognized Republic in the Greek Cypriot south and the breakaway state in the Turkish Cypriot north. Talks to resolve the division have been stalled since 2004, when Greek Cypriots rejected a U.N.-backed plan in a referendum.

The Cypriot government in the south slammed the agreement between London and Ankara. "Great Britain is siding with the policies of Turkey on the Cyprus issue ... with such actions the prospect of reaching a settlement based on U.N. Security Council resolutions becomes even more difficult," government spokesman Vassilis Palmas said Wednesday.

Britain's High Commissioner in Cyprus, Peter Millet, insisted London's policy toward northern Cyprus was unchanged. "Our policy on the non-recognition of the so-called 'TRNC' is unchanged," he said in a statement Wednesday. "We do not and will not recognize a separate entity in the northern part of Cyprus. Nor does anything in the document reflect an attempt to upgrade the status of the north or promote partition."

Cypriot Foreign Minister Erato Marcoullis complained to Britain’s High Commissioner to Cyprus Peter Millet. Millet said the document, which foresees closer economic cooperation between Britain and the Turkish-occupied, military controlled north area of the Republic of Cyprus, “contained nothing new.” “Britain’s policy of non-recognition... remains unchanged,” he said.

But Nicosia spokesman Vassilis Palmas said the document “is imbued by the logic of consolidating the division of Cyprus.” “Britain appears to go along with Turkey’s policy on the Cyprus problem,” Palmas added.

Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis called for “clarifications and corrections.” “On such a significant issue, clarified so precisely by international law... there is no room for oversights and misconceptions, particularly from such an experienced and professional Ministry,” she said.

The agreement, signed by Gordon Brown and Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday, foresees financial support for the Turkish Cypriots and the development of trade ties between Britain and the Turkish military controlled and occupied north area of the Republic of Cyprus.

Erdogan is to meet with Greek Premier Costas Karamanlis in Thrace in mid-November to inaugurate a Greek-Turkish natural gas pipeline.

The Primate of the Greek Orthodox Church of Cyprus and His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew met in Georgia, where they participated in the celebrations for the 30th anniversary of Patriarch Elias assumption of duties and the 1,400 years since the establishment of the ancient monastery of the Holy Cross.

Archbishop Chrysostomos returned to Cyprus via Paris where he had several meetings with religious and state officials. Speaking in Nicosia, the Archbishop said that together with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew they discussed issues concerning the Church and Orthodoxy. “For us, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew is the Patriarch of the Nation and from this point of view we move forward and confront the several issues that appear”, he said.

As regard to his visit to France, Archbishop Chrysostomos said he met with Archbishop of Paris, whom he briefed on the Cyprus issue, focusing on the destruction of the Cypriot cultural and religious heritage in the Turkish military controlled and occupied north of the Republic of Cyprus.

The Archbishop further said that during a meeting with the German Ambassador in Nicosia he expressed the wish to meet with the German Chancellor Angela Merkel and discuss the issue of Cyprus’ stolen icons currently held by the Bavarian authorities. He added that he will raise the same issue with the Pope in Napoli, where he will be next Saturday and ask for his contribution.

The proposal foresees a meeting between President Papadopoulos and Turkish-Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat within the next two weeks followed by talks between “working groups” from both sides of the island.

The aim of the talks is to draft a pact based on the agreement reached by community leaders in July 2006, which Turkish Cypriots now dispute. The proposal was dismissed as “verbiage” by Talat who also submitted a proposal to Ban foreseeing the creation of confidence-building measures.

David, a Congolese who has been an «illegal» in Cyprus since 2005, paces each morning up and down in front of Nicosia's historic Venetian Walls waiting to be picked up as a day laborer. «This is not the Europe that I imagined,» he sighed after several hours of waiting in vain, ready to do any job for a day's wages. «For me, Cyprus was a stepping stone to France or Belgium, but I'm stuck here without work, without any future. This is a real prison,» said the young French speaker.

His fate is shared by most of the illegal immigrants who have made their way to the divided island of Cyprus, which became a member of the European Union in May 2004. Due to sign up to the EU's border-free Schengen zone possibly as early as 2008, Cyprus has turned into a waiting room for would-be EU migrants, most of whom sneak in on the side of the Turkish occupied and military controlled north area of the Republic of Cyprus.

Over the past three years, the UN-patrolled Green Line dividing the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities has turned into one of the least secure land borders of the EU. Only a few hundred people made the journey to Cyprus in 2002, before it was part of the EU, compared to more than 3,200 illegals who have arrived so far this year alone. The new arrivals are mostly from Syria, Pakistan, Iran and Africa, according to the Cyprus' Immigration Office.

Many of them say they landed at the southern port of Limassol. But, in reality, «most of us arrived through the north,» said Adnan, a 26-year-old man from Ivory Coast. Emilios Lambrou, from the Border Control Department, said most migrants reach Cyprus through the Turkish occupied and military controlled north area of Cyprus and Turkey, which had eased visa requirements for certain nationals, such as those from Syria and Iran, in 2003. In 2006, out of a total of 3,778 migrants who landed in Cyprus illegally, only 16 arrived on the island through the Cypriot government-controlled south, according to the Immigration Office.

But once on dry land, immigrants seek to head south. In the Turkish occupied and military controlled north area, «it's worse. You can't ask for political asylum, or else you are jailed straight away and then expelled,» Adnan said. He paid 2,000 dollars (1,400 euros) to cross from Egypt on a cargo ship, hidden in a container with 20 compatriots. They were dropped off «at night, somewhere in the north» and crossed the Green Line to the south.

But although Adnan has filed an application for asylum in the south, «I haven't seen anyone official for 18 months and I'm not allowed to work.» Under Cyprus' law, asylum seekers who have been on the island for six months are entitled to work in the agriculture and farming sectors, while they are banned from other activities.

A group of Iraqi demonstrators spent more than six months sleeping rough on the pavement on the edge of Nicosia before they were granted the right to work in an expanded number of sectors and granted housing allowances in September. In May 2007, out of 12,000 registered asylum seekers, only 300 had work permits, according to figures from Amnesty International.

Some of those with permits have taken on jobs in the countryside, like Michel, an Iranian who is employed 30 kilometers outside the southern coast resort of Limassol. «I am paid 10 euros (14 dollars) a day to look after a flock of 284 goats from 5 in the morning until 10 at night», he said. Most prefer to roam the streets of Nicosia and make do with odd jobs and the monthly government help of about 200 pounds (480 dollars), which is often difficult to obtain. Others keep a low profile rather than approach the authorities for asylum.

«People know they have no chance to be regularized and stay clandestine,» said Doros Polykarpou, head of KISA, an NGO which assists immigrants. «If the request of the asylum seeker is rejected, he is put in jail for months or sometimes years, before being deported,» said Polykarpou.

Meanwhile, the immigration office says around 200 police are patrolling the Greek-Cypriot side of the 180-kilometer buffer zone with the north to prevent further entries, a figure experts say is insufficient. Despite barbed wire and sandbag barriers in places, the division is often easy to cross.

«We thought about installing a video surveillance system in the most sensitive places but it would cost a lot of money. We can't go so far as to build a wall,» said Emilios Lambrou of the Border Control Department. Building a wall would also amount to implicit recognition of the Turkish-occupied and military controlled north areas of the Republic of Cyprus.

As for the UN peacekeeping force on Cyprus, their job is «to ensure the ceasefire between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots is respected. They are not here to fight illegal immigration,» said UN spokesman Brian Kelly.

Cypriot Interior Minister Christos Patsalides recently said that the issue of illegal immigration, especially from the occupied areas, was one of the «most serious problems we are facing as a state today.» «The problem must concern all EU states,» he said.

The porous Green Line is a worry for Brussels, especially with the Schengen free movement agreement in the offing for Cyprus. «Signing the agreement risks being delayed. First a committee has to study security at our airports and on the Green Line. We are waiting for its advice before being able to integrate Schengen, possibly in 2009,» said Lambrou.

A government source, declining to be named, was even more cautious. «Cyprus will never integrate the Schengen space, at least not before the reunification of the island, which seems unlikely to happen soon. While waiting, Brussels will never accept such a weak border as the Green Line,» he said. The source said the only solution would be a political deal involving Ankara.

Turkey will continue to refuse trade privileges to Cyprus unless the EU eases the economic isolation of the breakaway Turkish Cypriots, Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said yesterday.

“We will maintain our determined position on this issue,” Babacan, during a one-day visit to the Turkish-occupied and military controlled north area of the Republic of Cyprus, told reporters after talks with Turkish-Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat. “No one should expect unilateral steps from Turkey, there will be no such steps,” he said.

Last year, the EU froze accession talks with Turkey in eight of the 35 policy areas that candidates must negotiate in response to Ankara’s refusal to allow Greek-Cypriot vessels to use its sea and air ports under a customs union pact with the bloc.

Ankara counters that the European Union has failed to keep pledges of easing the economic isolation by channeling aid to the Turkish-occupied and military controlled north area of Cyprus, which is recognized only by Turkey.

The EU made the promises in April 2004 as a reward to the “yes” vote that Turkish Cypriots gave to a UN-drafted peace plan to end Cyprus’s longstanding partition. The plan was killed off by a resounding “no” at a simultaneous referendum on the Greek-Cypriot side, whose community outnumbers the Turkish Cypriots three or four to one and which represents the internationally recognized government of the island. The outcome led to the Greek Cypriots alone joining the EU in May 2004.

“It is unfair to create difficulties for and make extra demands from the party which favors a settlement while rewarding the party opposed to a settlement,” Babacan argued. “We expect the international community to end the discrimination and isolation of the Turkish-Cypriot people,” he said.

Turkey accuses the Greek Cypriots of using their veto power in the EU to block the EU from delivering its promises to the Turkish-occupied and military controlled north and snag progress in Ankara’s own membership bid to extract concessions on Cyprus.

Babacan said Ankara continues to favor the island’s reunification within a bizonal federation based on political equality between the Turkish-Cypriot and Greek-Cypriot communities. “It is a futile dream to expect the Turks to give up this and agree to living in the island as a minority,” he said.

The Cyprus government has said it was lodging protests with the United Nations and the EU over what it termed an “illegal” visit last month by Turkish President Abdullah Gul and his remarks about a religious divide on the island.

Cyprus has been divided along ethnic lines since July 1974 when Turkey invaded the Republic of Cyprus and occupied its northern third with the stated aim of protecting Turkish Cypriots in the wake of an Athens-engineered coup in Nicosia aimed at uniting the island with Greece.