STANDSTILL IN CYPRUS

THE seemingly endless impasse between the Greek and Turkish communities in the divided island of Cyprus was given a further extension at the weekend when the Turkish zone voters rejected the moderate incumbent President , Mehmet Ali Talat, preferring the hard-line Dervis Eroglu. Mr Talat paid the price for failing to reach an agreement with the Greek zone's President Christofias despite years of negotiation. Both men were committed to a plan for reuniting the island as a two-zone federation but their agreement in principle could not overcome difficulties such as the claimed right of Greek Cypriots to return to land that they owned before the Turkish army invasion in 1974, which was itself triggered by a Greek-inspired coup.

The implications of this unsatisfactory outcome spread far beyond Cyprus itself. The island is a member of the European Union but under the present division this means that the Greek sector is recognised as the functioning government of the island. Turkey subsides its citizens' presence on Cyprus, but is not helped in its own bid for EU membership by their lack of support for an agreement on a unified Cyprus. The newly elected President Eroglu says that he will continue negotiations with his Greek counterpart but United Nations observers who have been facilitating the talks for several years think it unlikely now that any progress will be made in the near future.