Nicosia

A major reshuffle of some 40 ambassadors has gone into effect, with Öztürk Y?lmaz, the former Turkish consul general to Mosul who was taken hostage last year along with 48 others by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants for 101 days, appointed as ambassador to Tajikistan's capital of Dushanbe.

Rival Cypriot leaders have made progress on the prickly core issues of putting the divided island back together again, UN envoy Espen Barth Eide said on June 29.

A Turkish company, Bahçeci Test-Tube Baby Center, has agreed with Turkish lender Ziraat Bank to enable Bosnian families that want to have a baby through in vitro fertilization to acquire cheaper loans. 

The bank will now offer interest-free loans worth around 15,000 Turkish Liras ($5,600) for a 36-month time frame. 

Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders agreed May 28 to open further crossing points linking the two parts and to merge their electricity networks, a U.N. envoy has said. 

Two hot developments happened simultaneously concerning the eastern Mediterranean. One is from Cyprus, the other from Iraq. 

Don?t consider that what happens in Iraq is far away from the eastern Mediterranean? Syrian ports, the Persian Gulf and indeed Turkey?s Mediterranean shores are on the same ?strategic fault line.? 

Foreign scantily-clad women working as coffee vendors in Nicosia offered passers-by refreshing frappe wearing nothing more than hot shorts and tank tops. Cyprus citizens reacted to the indecent appearance of the vendors inundating regional roads and causing traffic problems.

Leaders of rival communities in ethnically-split Cyprus shared coffee and cake on Saturday in a symbolic gesture underscoring a thaw in relations over a conflict spanning decades.

U.N.-sponsored talks resumed on May 15 after an eight-month stalemate with Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders agreeing to adopt confidence-building measures, in a new drive to settle the island's decades-old conflict. 

The leaders of divided Cyprus are scheduled to restart peace talks on May 15, following a three-side meeting with the United Nations' special envoy earlier this the week. 

Newly elected Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Ak?nc?, a moderate leftist who pledged to resume talks during his campaign, and Greek Cypriot leader Nicos Anastasiades held their first meeting on May 11. 

Mustafa Ak?nc? and Nikos Anastasiades, the leaders of the two communities of the divided Cyprus wined and dined at an occasion hosted by Espen Barth Eide, the special envoy of the UN secretary-general, and agreed to kick off the Cyprus talks wherever they were abandoned last October by the Greek Cypriot leadership.