Word: cyprus
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Police say they have no leads on the disappearance of Tassos Papadopoulos' body from a quiet village cemetery. The timing of the theft, everyone agrees, is troubling, coming on the eve of a renewed push to finally bring down the bullet-riddled walls that make Cyprus' city of Nicosia Europe's last divided capital. (See the top 10 underreported news stories...
Turkey maintains some 35,000 troops in the north but the Turkish government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan recognizes that divided Cyprus is a potential embarrassment to its new-found ambitions to become a regional power. It also threatens to derail Ankara's long-standing -albeit slow-moving - bid to join the European Union. The E.U. has frozen discussions on eight of the 35 policy chapters towards membership since December 2006 to punish the Turks for not opening their ports and airspace to Cypriot vessels as required. At a summit last week, the E.U. agreed to open just...
...complicating factor. The island's last major opportunity for resolution was arguably lost when Brussels accepted Cyprus, as represented by its Greek Cypriot government, as a member in 2004, even though Greek Cypriots had rejected a painstakingly crafted U.N. peace plan in a referendum vote just prior. (Turkish Cypriots voted yes.) As a result, the Greek-Cypriot republic lost any incentive it might have had to speed up negotiations. (Read: "On the Run in Cyprus...
...while both sides say they want to reunite Cyprus as a bicommunal federation, sticking points range from how power sharing would work to property grievances of tens of thousands of people who lost their homes in the conflict. About a quarter of Cyprus' population of around 1 million is internally displaced. Talks on the sensitive issues of property and security have barely inched forward since last year, despite twice-weekly meetings. The problem now is that time is running out for the Turkish Cypriot side. A deal, or at least a concrete roadmap, would have to be agreed by late...
...homes. Visiting the island last week with a group of peacemakers known as the Elders, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said he was confident a deal was within reach and optimistic that both leaders were "completely determined to succeed". He knows better than most how elusive peace in Cyprus can be. Carter was responsible for the United States backing a 12-point Cyprus peace plan in 1978, which failed to produce results. Thirty years on, perhaps this time they'll finally get it right - if a missing corpse doesn't come between them...