Nikos Anastasiades

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras continued his high-profile meetings in the “Big Apple” on Monday, with UN Chief Ban Ki moon and Cyprus President Nikos Anastasiades next up on Tuesday.

Tsipras’ Monday “highlights” included a brief conversation with Raul Castro, Cuba’s “Commandante No. 2″, who invited him to the island nation, as well as with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.

A performance of an ancient tragedy was staged at the ancient theater of Salamina, in occupied northern Cyprus, for the first time in 41 years on Friday evening.

A senior United Nations official for Cyprus held meetings in Ankara with Turkish officials on Aug. 13 amid cautious optimism about a possible deal to reunify the island.

I know quite a number of Turkish elites who, frustrated with developments in Turkey, decided to settle in Turkish Cyprus over the course of the last decade. 

Following the failure of the 2004 Annan plan, I had found this choice a bit odd, as pessimism reigned over Turkish Cyprus. 

Turkey is displaying a largely hands-off attitude to the current Cyprus negotiations, according to Turkish Cypriot Foreign Minister Emine Çolak. Turkey's stance at the moment is devoid of any manipulation or interference, she says Ankara is allowing the two sides in the Cyprus dispute to pursue negotiations to unify the island in peace, according to the north's foreign minister.

Defying all skeptics, pulling down old taboos one after the other and with an unaccustomed absence of leaks and public mudslinging, the Cyprus talks appear to be gearing up to yet another twin referenda in March-April 2016.

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.? 

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.

The presidential election held on April 26, 2015, in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) brought a moderate leftist politician to the presidency. Mustafa Ak?nc?, who ran as an independent, became the fourth president of the TRNC with 60.5 percent of the votes in the runoff while his rival Dervi? Ero?lu, the incumbent president, got only 39.5 percent.