Turkish Cypriot leader Talat visits Ankara as reunification efforts resume

25/04/2008

ANKARA, Turkey -- Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat was in Ankara on Thursday (April 24th) meeting with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan and Foreign Minister Ali Babacan. The visit comes only days after Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot ad hoc committees resumed talks on reunifying the divided island, the first such talks in four years. Talat and the Turkish leaders reportedly discussed negotiating strategies and agreed to seek broader UN involvement in the process. Talat plans to meet with Greek Cypriot President Dimitris Christofias in June to review the results of the ongoing committee work and to formally launch reunification talks.

In other news Thursday, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad confirmed that Erdogan delivered a peace offer to him from Israel. Erdogan "informed me of Israel's readiness to withdraw from the Golan in return for peace with Syria", Assad said in an interview with the Qatari daily Al-Watan Ankara has been mediating between Israel and Syria for the past year. (Zaman - 25/04/08; Focus, AFP - 24/04/08)