The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on Wednesday to keep a peacekeeping force in divided Cyprus for another six months.
The council extended the U.N. mission’s mandate until December 15 after Secretary-General Kofi Annan reported that while the Mediterranean island remained calm, the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot sides still distrusted one another.
Without council action, the mandate would have expired at the end of the day.
U.N. troops were first sent to Cyprus in 1964 to quell violence between the two Cypriot groups. Ten years later, Turkey invaded the northern third of the island, leaving the island divided, after a Greek Cypriot coup in Nicosia engineered by the military then ruling Greece.
The peacekeepers have since patrolled a 110-mile (180-km) “green line” separating the Turkish Cypriot north, recognized only by Turkey, from the internationally recognized Greek Cypriot government in the south.
Wednesday’s council vote fell as Annan weighs reviving unsuccessful U.N.-backed talks aimed at reunifying Cyprus.
The talks failed in April 2004 when the Greek Cypriots rejected a U.N. plan that the Turkish Cypriots embraced. Both sides had to vote “yes” for the plan to succeed.
The Greek Cypriot side then joined the European Union in the name of the whole island, and the council ordered the U.N. peacekeeping force trimmed to 860 soldiers from 1,220.
In its resolution adopted on Wednesday, the council sought no further cuts but asked Annan to keep an eye out for possible changes in the mission’s operations and force level.
Following the vote, Greek Ambassador Adamantios Vassilakis urged the council to now “look to the future and to search for those elements on which we can achieve progress.”
“Talking about the past would have no meaning and would not serve the goal of finding a just and viable solution to the Cyprus problem,” Vassilakis said.
A British couple who built their dream villa on disputed land in the Turkish republic of northern Cyprus won a high court victory yesterday protecting their UK home from having to be sold to compensate the dispossessed Greek Cypriot landowner.
David and Linda Orams's legal battle has become a cause celebre in Cyprus, where thousands of expatriates have bought bargain-priced property in the northern part of the island, much of it once occupied by Greek Cypriots who fled after the Turkish army invaded in 1974.
Ruling in their favour yesterday, Mr Justice Jack said the case had "an importance which extends far beyond the parties". An estimated 6,000 Britons own property in northern Cyprus, although not all the titles are disputed.
Meletios Apostolides, a Greek Cypriot architect, won two judgments from the district court in Nicosia ordering the couple to demolish their villa, vacate the land and pay him damages. The judgments could not be enforced in the Turkish republic of northern Cyprus (TRNC), so he registered them at the high court in London under rules providing for courts in EU member states to enforce judgments obtained in other member states.
But the couple appealed and yesterday the judge ruled that the judgments were unenforceable in England because, although Cyprus was now a member of the EU, the application of EU laws to the northern part of the island had been suspended pending a settlement between the Greek and Turkish communities.
To the annoyance of the Cypriot government, the couple were represented by the prime minister's wife, Cherie Booth QC. President Tasson Papadopoulos condemned her for taking sides in one of the most sensitive issues on the island.
The Orams could have lost their home in Hove, East Sussex, had the judgment gone against them. But that threat still hangs over them because the judge acknowledged the issues were difficult; he gave Mr Apostolides permission to appeal.
Cyprus, a former British colony, has been divided since 1974, when Turkey invaded the north in response to a military coup on the island backed by Athens.
Mrs Orams, 59, a former museum assistant, and her husband, 61, who used to work for the South Eastern Electricity Board, bought the land in Lapithos for £50,000 in 2002 and spent £150,000 building their villa, adding a swimming pool and creating a garden.
The judge ordered that Mr Apostolides should pay 75% of the Orams's £863,000 costs, with an interim payment of £150,000 - although £75,000 of that will be stayed, pending appeal. The couple are not expected to be called on by their lawyers to pay the other 25% of their costs, run up by an unusually large legal team including four barristers.
Outside court Mr Orams said: "It's taken a whole load off our minds." Mrs Orams added: "We have every faith in English justice and the EU. We realise it's not the end. It's just the beginning of the long road but we have every confidence that we will win the second appeal."
