Cyprus

Leaders of the divided island of Cyprus have agreed to resume peace talks on April 11, the United Nations said on Tuesday, following a two-month interruption after historical grievances boiled to the surface.

A very interesting “Risk Analysis” on the Cyprus dispute, the on going negotiations and the prospects for a just and viable solution.

It would be political shortsightedness not to see that a serious decline in Turkey's relations with Europe is in the making. At this stage, resorting to blame games does not help: Turkey is hardly satisfied with the approach pursued by the EU vis-a-vis Turkey over the last 10 years, while Turkey's performance in complying with EU standards has not been convincing either.

Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish-Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci say that more work is needed to lay the groundwork for the resumption of stalled reunification talks.

In a joint statement on Sunday, the two men said that United Nations Envoy Espen Barth Eide would continue contacts with them both in order to get negotiations back on track.

The two Cypriot leaders on April 2 failed to set a date to restart stalled peace talks on reunifying the island after meeting for dinner in the U.N.-controlled buffer zone, the United Nations said.

The rival leaders of ethnically divided Cyprus say more work is needed to prepare the ground for the resumption of stalled reunification talks.

Was it Albert Einstein who described insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?" If what he said was right, the mental status of everyone involved in the futile Cyprus diplomacy and peacemaking efforts since 1968 can be called into question.

Commemorative events are taking place all over Cyprus today, since April 1 is the day the struggle for the liberation of Cyprus begun by EOKA in 1955. On that day, 62 years ago, explosions of bombs shook Nicosia.

When angered by the inappropriate attitudes of friends, don't we often say "With friends like you, who needs an enemy?" Seeing the awful performance of Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias ever since he assumed the foreign minister portfolio in Alexis Tsipras' government, perhaps that expression should be reworded as "With Kotzias as foreign minister, do the Greeks need an enemy?"

Apart from the war in Syria and its repercussions, Turkish interests and "legal rights" in the Aegean and the Cyprus peace negotiations are among Turkey's top foreign policy priorities, according to the country's National Security Council, which convened this week.