Eastern Mediterranean

According to a report by the Greek Military website Defencenews.gr, the Republic of Cyprus is interested in selling its 11 Mil-35PMs due to their relatively low operational availability.

It is difficult to carry a rather unknown name when you are a child. I started getting used to my rather uncommon name as I got older. Both my name and surname are rare in Turkey, and I occasionally come across people who ask if I'm a foreigner.

A large number of hotel units at Greek destinations that are particularly popular with foreign visitors have stopped taking bookings for peak summer season earlier than ever before, having already reached their full capacity for August bookings.

Turkey is expected to see a slowdown in growth in 2017, partly reflecting security and geopolitical risks that have also led to a downward revision in European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) forecasts for countries in the southern and eastern Mediterranean. 

Turkey's violations of Cyprus's exclusive economic zone (EEZ) are having an adverse impact on the reunification talks, the island nation's President Nicos Anastasiades has warned in a letter to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development's Annual Meeting and Business Forum starts in Nicosia, Cyprus on Tuesday and lasts until Thursday.

Its title this year is "Targeting Green and Inclusive Growth: Meeting Regional and Global Challenges."

Espen Barth Eide, the U.N. secretary-general's special Cyprus envoy, will soon be meeting the leaders of the two peoples of Cyprus, to explain that many years of United Nations-sponsored Cyprus talks may be leading to a humiliating failure, perhaps forcing an "embrace of the serpent."

The governor's office in the southern province of Hatay denied reports on May 6 claiming that the Turkish army would be deployed to the opposition-held Syrian province of Idlib.      

Fighting subsided in Syria on May 6 after a deal signed by government backers Russia and Iran and rebel supporter Turkey to create four "de-escalation zones" began to take effect.

The multi-phase plan, signed on May 4 in the Kazakh capital Astana, is one of the more ambitious efforts to end Syria's six-year conflict.

Both sides of the island of Cyprus now have "the best chance" for a unification agreement, even though the dispute over gas exploration and an upcoming election on the Greek side have hampered the negotiations, UN special envoy Espen Barth Eide said.  "These are very crucial times for Cyprus itself, and also all the interested countries like Turkey and Greece," Eide told an interview at the UN