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Cyprus: UN shares blame in kerfuffle that paused peace talks
NICOSIA, Cyprus – Cyprus says the United Nations mishandled a diplomatic kerfuffle involving the leader of the ethnically divided island’s breakaway Turkish Cypriots that led to ongoing reunification talks being temporarily put on hold.
President Nicos Anastasiades, a Greek Cypriot, said Wednesday he won’t tolerate the United Nations’ “bad handling” or allow the island nation’s internationally-recognized government to be “downgraded.”
Anastasiades cancelled Friday’s meeting with Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci after he attended a dinner for heads of state at the invitation of Turkey’s president at the end of a U.N.-sponsored humanitarian summit in Turkey.
Cypriot government spokesman Nicos Christodoulides said earlier that the U.N. is “mostly responsible” for what happened because it had given assurances Akinci wouldn’t be there.
Akinci’s spokesman called Anastasiades’ decision to call off Friday’s meeting “a big mistake.”
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