Greek
Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades’ decision to cancel peace talks
scheduled for May 27 after cutting short a trip to Turkey for the World
Humanitarian Summit (WHS) due to anger over a perceived protocol breach
has put the United Nations-brokered Cyprus peace talks into jeopardy.
Anastasiades
was in Turkey for the U.N.’s WHS but refused to attend a banquet for
heads of state on May 23 after Turkish Cypriot President Mustafa Akıncı
was also invited.
Implicitly blaming the U.N. for the
controversy, government spokesman Nikos Christodoulides said there was
“no fertile ground” for the planned May 27 meeting with Akıncı in
Nicosia, one of the many meetings the two leaders have conducted since
May 2015.
Nonetheless, Christodoulides added, Anastasiades was still committed to the peace process on the island, according to Reuters.
The
Mediterranean island has been divided into two communities since 1974
when Turkey partially intervened into the north after a coup aiming at
unification with Greece took place.
Peace
talks to solve the more than 40-year-old conflict was re-launched in
May 2015, after Akıncı was elected as the new president of the Turkish
community.
Akıncı and Anastasiades said in January that a peace deal was possible within 2016.
“The president of the republic [of Greek
Cyprus] reiterates his decisiveness to continue the dialogue as long as
the principle of mutual respect and the will for an acceptable solution
are maintained, without unilateral moves which seek to upgrade the
pseudo-state,” Christodoulides said in a statement.
It was not
immediately clear who invited Akıncı to the summit, but his Twitter
account showed pictures of him with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
and U.N. special envoy for Cyprus Espen Barth Eide.
Such actions
from “any party – not excluding the U.N. special envoy for the Cyprus
problem” undermine the process, Christodoulides said.