Roundup: Cyprus negotiations suffer serious setback

Negotiations to end Cyprus'long-standing division suffered a serious setback on Thursday after a scheduled meeting between the leaders of the eastern Mediterranean island's communities ended up in disarray.

Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades, representing the Greek Cypriot community, and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci, blamed each other of pulling out of the meeting, which was presided over by a United Nations official.

They presented conflicting versions of events that led to the disruption of negotiations.

Akinci claimed that Anastasiades left the room when he was vexed with UN Secretary General's special adviser on Cyprus, Espen Barth Eide. But Anastasiades said he had asked for a short recess after he was allegedly involved in an argument with Eide.

"I was the one who was sitting in the room for half an hour waiting for Eide to convince the Turkish Cypriot leader to come back," Anastasiades said when he returned to his office.

The meeting had been scheduled to continue negotiations on what have become known as the internal chapters of the Cyprus issue: governance, territorial adjustments and restitution of properties.

But Akinci said that he went to the meeting to discuss only a crisis which surfaced after the all-Greek Cypriot parliament passed on Friday an amendment of a law introducing educational reforms.

The amendment, proposed by a two-seat extreme right-wing party, requires teachers in schools to make a brief mention of the anniversary of a referendum in 1950, in which Greek Cypriots almost unanimously voted in favor of Cyprus uniting with Greece.

Akinci and other Turkish Cypriot politicians, as well as Turkey, have claimed that the vote would lead to a revival of centuries-old Greek Cypriot dreams to bring about a union of Cyprus with Greece, despite protests by Anastasiades that it was insignificant.

He stated that the amendment was approved only by minority parties which aim at preventing a Cyprus solution, and that the two largest parties did not approve it.

Left-wing AKEL voted against the amendment and ruling DISY party abstained to safeguard the passing of the reforms law.

"I will allow nobody to dispute my intention and that of the Greek Cypriot community to reach a federal solution on the terms agreed with Turkish Cypriots," Anastasiades said.

Eide had a meeting late on Thursday with Akinci in a bid to salvage the negotiations which produced unprecedented progress in the last more than 20 months.

United Nations officials said that he also sought to meet with Anastasiades, who reportedly said that such a meeting was conditional on Eide telling publicly what exactly happened at Thursday's meeting. Endit