Nicos Anastasiades

Cyprus's president vowed on Monday to stay away from peace talks with Turkey as long as Turkish ships remained off the island, threatening its right to explore for natural gas offshore.

Turkey dispatched a research vessel to the south of the island late last year while companies commissioned by the internationally recognised government explored offshore.

Greek Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades has said reunification talks can restart if Turkey respects the ethnically divided island’s “sovereign right to exploit” its offshore gas reserves.

Anastasiades said Dec. 31, 2014 that Turkey must stop trying to impose its will on its tiny neighbor, as reported by The Associated Press Jan. 1.

A day after reports in the Turkish press indicated that Turkey’s seismic vessel Barbaros will withdraw from Cypriot waters next week, fueling hopes of a possible resumption of Cyprus talks, fresh reports over the weekend suggested that the Barbaros is heading for Greek territorial waters.

New hope for the possible resumption of stalled Cyprus talks emerged on Christmas Day amid reports in the Turkish media that the Turkish seismic vessel Barbaros would withdraw from Cypriot waters on Tuesday.

The foreign ministers of Greece and Turkey agreed on Friday to make a joint visit to Cyprus to hold talks with President Nicos Anastasiades in an effort to break the deadlock in the island’s peace talks.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavusoğlu has proposed to his Greek counterpart Evangelos Venizelos that the two visit Greek Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades, who underwent a mitral valve corrective surgery in New York earlier this month.

Greek Foreign Minister Evangelos Venizelos on Friday met with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu who proposed that the two meet with Nicos Anastasiades after the Cypriot President returns to the island, Kathimerini understands.

Expectations for a quick fix to the crisis in the Cyprus talks process appear to have come to a dead end. Turkey is reiterating that under no condition will it agree to abandon support for the equal partnership rights of the Turkish Cypriot people on - as well as off - the island, with the Greek Cypriots.

The third Greek-Turkish High-Level Cooperation Council ended on Saturday with a joint statement pledging goodwill and the intention for closer bilateral cooperation in trade, tourism and energy, as well as in curbing illegal immigration.

Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades has undergone successful heart surgery in the United States, the island's government said on Wednesday.

Anastasiades, 68, required surgery to repair a heart valve, and to address arrhythmia he had been experiencing, spokesman Nikos Christodoulides said in a statement.