Nicos

 Anastasiades plans to visit Athens, according to reports

Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades on Monday sought to play down a recent row between Greek Foreign Minister Evangelos Venizelos and Cypriot MEP Eleni Theocharous amid reports that he plans to visit Athens for talks with the Greek premier in late July.

Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades, 67, was admitted into a private Cypriot hospital late on Friday where he was diagnosed with gastroenteritis. The Cypriot politician was elected president of the island nation in 2013.

The Bulgarian community in Cyprus can serve as a model for our communities around the world, Foreign Minister Kristian Vigenin said during his visit to the island nation.

Minister Vigenin met with the local Bulgarian community and handed out the diplomas for graduates of the Bulgarian weekend schools. In turn, the students put up a short performance, including poetry recitals.

Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish-Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu are to meet in Nicosia on Monday for the first time since US Vice President Joe Biden visited the island.

By Georgios Georgiou & Paul Tugwell

Voters in Cyprus won’t reject Europe in this weekend’s European Union Parliament elections, even after international creditors last year forced the government to impose losses on bank deposits, Cypriot politicians and officials said.

Nikos Chrysoloras & Georgios Georgiou

Vice President Joe Biden will become on Wednesday the most senior U.S. official in more than half a century to visit Cyprus as the search for alternative gas-supply routes into Europe draws international attention to the divided island.

US Vice President Joe Biden is expected to arrive on the divided island of Cyprus on Wednesday, where he will meet with Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and other representatives of the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities to discuss the progress of peace talks.

President Nicos Anastasiades said discovery of natural gas around Cyprus could galvanize international efforts to resolve a longstanding division of the island and smooth development of an alternative energy supply source to Russia.

But he said it was too early to speak of tangible progress in recently relaunched peace talks on the ethnically split island.

A new sewage plant was opened in Cypriot capital Nicosia by the mayors of northern and southern part of the city as a joint initiative of the city's Greek and Turkish population.

The high-tech plant costs EUR 29 M, with a third of the money provided by the European Union, BusinessWeek reported.

Cyprus wants to shield financial flows with Russia, where it’s the biggest foreign investor, as the US and the European Union ratchet up sanctions in response to President Vladimir Putin’s annexing Crimea from Ukraine.