NICOSIA – Greece’s prime minister said on Monday that it’s unlikely “substantial” talks to reunify ethnically split Cyprus could resume if Turkey and Turkish Cypriots insist on pursuing a two-state accord that defies a United Nations and European Union-endorsed framework for federation.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said that in their public statements, the leaders of Turkey and the breakaway Turkish Cypriots are “outside the framework” of an envisioned federation made up of Greek and Turkish speaking zones that the two sides agreed would form the basis of a peace deal more than 40 years ago.
Mitsotakis said both the U.N. and the EU reject any notion of a two-state deal for Cyprus that was ethnically divided in 1974 when Turkey invaded