Cyprus

Jonathan Clarke's article, "Sloganeering Steers U.S. Policy Awry" (Commentary, Jan. 10), is a bit off the wall, somewhat incomplete and incorrect, and totally insensitive and arrogant. If you believe him, Greeks can do no wrong and Turks can do no right. The writer uses the word "whatever" when he refers to the reasons of Turkish military intervention in Cyprus in 1974. The brutal ethnic-cleansing campaign waged between 1963-1974 by Greek nationalists in Cyprus, designed to annihilate Turks and unite Cyprus with Greece, is the reason why Turkey intervened.

Reporting from Nicosia, Cyprus -- Rauf Denktash, the former Turkish Cypriot leader whose determined pursuit of a separate state for his people and strong opposition to the divided island's reunification defined a political career spanning six decades, died Friday. He was 87. Denktash, who had a stroke in May, died of multiple organ failure at a hospital in the Turkish Cypriot north of Nicosia, said Dr. Charles Canver, who had treated his heart condition. His death comes in the middle of yet another diplomatic drive to reunify Cyprus, which has been split along ethnic lines since 1974, when Turkey invaded the island in the aftermath of a short-lived coup by supporters of union with Greece.

The hottest video rental in this beachside resort town isn't some action-packed Hollywood blockbuster, but "Brigada," a Russian miniseries about a bunch of army buddies who form an organized crime syndicate before they're rubbed out by a group of younger, more unscrupulous rivals. The Russian influence here is also visible in shop signs using the Cyrillic alphabet and Russian flags hanging outside stores just down the street from Starbucks. "We've had good relations with the Russians for a long time," said Nikos Andreo, a 57-year-old wine grower in Limassol.

Two top officials in Cyprus resigned Monday after a massive explosion of munitions seized from an Iranian shipment to Syria killed at least 12 people in the Mediterranean island nation. The early-morning explosion in the southern city of Zygi, which was felt for miles around, destroyed a power plant, leveled houses and shattered windows, doors and even the railing of a highway, said witnesses and journalists reached by telephone. Sixty-two people were injured. The blast at the Evangelos Florakis military base, apparently set off by a wildfire, quickly led to the resignation of the European Union nation's defense minister, Costas Papacostas, and the commander of the Greek Cypriot National Guard, Petros Tsaliklides.

Regular private intercity bus and taxi services in Cyprus resumed Thursday after a two-day break hit about 10,000 daily commuters. Government officials said a dispute between owners and the government over working hours for drivers has been settled.

Months of intense talks to reunify war-divided Cyprus have ended in failure, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced today. "We have reached the end of the road," he said after negotiating through the night in The Hague with the leaders of the Greek and Turkish communities of the Mediterranean island and their supporters.

A gunman fatally shot a Libyan businessman Tuesday on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, police reported. The victim was described by acquaintances as an opponent of Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi. A police statement identified the dead man as Ahmed Barrani, 35, and said he died in the hospital while undergoing emergency surgery for head wounds. The statement said Barrani was in the office of his export company in a building near Nicosia's main square when he was shot shortly after noon.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Wednesday presented his own plan to reunify Cyprus after Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders failed to agree on how to unite the long-divided island. Cypriots on the Greek and Turkish sides will vote simultaneously but separately on the plan April 24. If both sides accept, a unified Cyprus will join the European Union on May 1. If either side rejects the plan, only the Greek Cypriot side will become part of the EU.

Sixteen people have died in Cyprus in a heat wave that has scorched southern Europe for the past few days, officials said Wednesday. Temperatures rose to 113 degrees Tuesday in the island's central plain.

France raised a potential new hurdle to starting European Union membership talks with Turkey in October, saying Ankara must recognize EU member Cyprus first. The European Commission disagreed, saying the Cyprus question should be dealt with in a United Nations framework. Turkey signed an EU protocol Friday but issued a declaration stipulating that the act did not signify recognition of the Greek Cypriot government. Turkey backs a Turkish Cypriot breakaway state in northern Cyprus.

The hottest video rental in this beachside resort town isn't some action-packed Hollywood blockbuster, but "Brigada," a Russian miniseries about a bunch of army buddies who form an organized crime syndicate before they're rubbed out by a group of younger, more unscrupulous rivals. The Russian influence here is also visible in shop signs using the Cyrillic alphabet and Russian flags hanging outside stores just down the street from Starbucks. "We've had good relations with the Russians for a long time," said Nikos Andreo, a 57-year-old wine grower in Limassol.

In retrospect, it might not have been such a great idea for a district judge in this porous island-state to grant bail to an alleged Russian spymaster adept at slipping across borders, stashing huge amounts of cash and running sleeper agents in the United States. With enough cash and connections, locals say, there are hundreds of ways in and out of Cyprus. The man who went by the name of Robert Christopher Metsos may well have found one of them. Within hours of being arrested at the airport here Tuesday, appearing before Judge Christos Philippou and posting $34,000 cash bail, Metsos was gone — disappeared without a trace.

A flotilla packed with hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists, food and other humanitarian supplies was headed for a high-seas standoff Sunday as it attempts to break Israel's longstanding blockade of the Gaza Strip. Israel has vowed to intercept the boats, tow them to the Israeli port of Ashdod and deport or arrest those aboard. The flotilla, which gathered Saturday in international waters off Cyprus, is expected to encounter Israeli naval boats as early as Sunday. "We are determined to reach Gaza," said Saman Ali, a Swedish national, speaking by satellite telephone from one of the vessels in the flotilla.

James Robert Hornbarger's high school counselor hated to break the news to him, but when she saw the misspelled word tattooed across his back, she felt he needed to know. "Angle," she said. The hand-sized tattoo was meant to refer to Hornbarger's nickname, Angel — unlikely though that sometimes seemed for the free-spirited young man from the small town of Elko, Nev. "He was so excited to show me his new tattoo," Maribeth Cassinelli recalled, laughing. "When I told him ... oh, he was devastated."

The two couples had never met each other, and probably never would. They had come from opposite sides of a border between longtime enemies. But Elie Wakim and Nada Ghamloush from Lebanon, and Dimitri Stafeev and Olga Zaytseva from Israel, had a problem in common: Belonging to different religions, neither couple could get married in their home country, and had to fly to the Mediterranean island of Cyprus to tie the knot. In the Middle East, civil marriage doesn't exist and no religious authority will perform an interfaith wedding.

Tassos Papadopoulos, 74, the hard-line former president of Cyprus who ushered the divided island into the European Union after rallying Greek Cypriots to reject a United Nations peace deal, died Friday of lung cancer. Papadopoulos served as president from 2003 to March 2008. A longtime chain smoker, he was hospitalized last month with severe breathing problems. During his tenure, he oversaw the island's entry into the EU and its adoption of the euro currency. Papadopoulos will be remembered best for an emotional televised appeal to Greek Cypriots to reject a reunification plan brokered by then-U.

Re "Let Turkey, Our Best Muslim Ally, Join the Club," Commentary, Nov. 15: The 27-year impasse on Cyprus has been brought about by Turkey's ongoing military aggression, which keeps part of the sovereign territory of the Republic of Cyprus under military occupation, the country forcibly divided and the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities artificially separated. Ankara's obsessive efforts to dismember Cyprus have brought immense suffering to Greek and Turkish Cypriots alike. We share Tom Grant's concern for the welfare and isolation of our Turkish Cypriot compatriots, but their situation can only be improved in a reunited Cyprus, within the European Union, which our country is expected to join by 2004.

Turkey has offered to open a major seaport and an airport to longtime foe Cyprus to try to keep its European Union entry talks on track, Turkish and EU officials said. The EU called the step positive but insufficient. Turkey's refusal to open its ports has emerged as a deal breaker in its negotiations to join the European Union.

The two boats, named Free Gaza and Liberty, chugged into Gaza City on Saturday with quite an escort: a flotilla of fishing boats, sailboats, skiffs and even a swimmer carrying a Palestinian flag. Arriving to a boisterous reception, the international activists aboard the boats said they hoped their symbolic breaking of the Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip was just the beginning. "We will surely try to bring the boats back again," said Huwaida Arraf, one of 44 passengers who contended with rough seas and communications problems after setting out Friday from Cyprus.

David H. Popper, 95, a career foreign service officer who became U.S. ambassador to Chile months after Gen. Augusto Pinochet overthrew socialist President Salvador Allende, died July 24 at Georgetown University Hospital of complications from a fall. Popper arrived in Santiago in 1974 and spent the next three years balancing U.S. policy to support anti-Communist military regimes against public demands from Congress and humanitarian groups that the Chilean junta stop killing, jailing and torturing its political foes.