Britain offers to give up territory to help Cyprus peace deal

Nov 11, 2009, 8:36 GMT

Athens/Nicosia - Britain has offered to cede a portion of its sovereign territory in Cyprus to help a United Nations backed peace deal between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities, the UN said Wednesday.

The UN said in a statement that Alexander Downer, special advisor to the secretary general on Cyprus, 'has just been informed that the United Kingdom is renewing an offer to the United Nations to cede a portion of its territory in the Sovereign Base Areas (SBAs) to a reunified Cyprus.'

Cypriot President Dimitris Christofias was scheduled to meet British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in London on Wednesday to discuss the issue.

The British offer would be for a handover of 117 square kilometres of territory and is identical to the one made in 2003.

The offer is conditional on a comprehensive settlement being agreed by the Greek and Cypriot leaders and then accepted by a majority in the communities through a referendum.

'The offer is to be welcomed as a tangible demonstration of the goodwill and support of the international community to the two leaders in Cyprus in their efforts to reach a comprehensive settlement,' Jose Diaz, UN spokesman in Cyprus told the German Press Agency dpa.

Britain has a strategically located air base on the eastern Mediterranean island, which would not be part of any deal.

Greek and Turkish Cypriots launched renewed peace talks last September, but the pace has been slow since the series of meetings held at an abandoned airport inside the UN-controlled buffer zone.

Cyprus has been divided since a Turkish invasion in 1974, sparked by a brief Greek-inspired coup.

Greek Cypriots have lived in the south of Cyprus and Turkish Cypriots in the north, split by a UN-supervised buffer zone which runs through the heart of the island's capital.

Observers insist a window of opportunity for a bi-communal, bizonal settlement will close by April 2010, the date of the next Turkish Cypriot elections, when the pro-settlement leader risks losing his office to a more hardline candidate.

In 2004, Greek Cypriots rejected a UN settlement blueprint which would have turned Cyprus into a loose federation a week before the island joined the European Union as a divided state.

Both ethnic communities agree, on paper, to reunite the island's two halves in the latest round of UN-led peace talks, but disagree on how this would work. Other disputes include the complex issue of property lost during the invasion.

EU officials have said that progress in the Cyprus reunification talks will be essential to move Turkey's drawn-out EU accession process forward. Ankara's EU membership talks, which began in October 2005, have been partially frozen because of the situation on the island.

Turkey does not recognize the Greek Cypriot government and supports the breakaway Turkish Cypriot state in northern Cyprus where it has stationed more than 40,000 troops. Christofias has listed the withdrawal of Turkish troops from the island as a key goal.

Greek Cypriots say they will not agree to Turkey joining the bloc as long as the island is partitioned. Ankara's progress in membership talks are to be assessed in Brussels next month.