WASHINGTON (AFP) — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pledged Tuesday to throw US diplomacy behind new reunification talks between the divided Greek and Turkish communities of Cyprus.
"There is a new moment building on the island and we very much support the efforts to use this moment perhaps finally to come to a solution," Rice told an annual conference of the American Turkish Council here.
President Demetris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat said last month they would resume reunification talks in earnest in June after four years of stagnation under Christofias's predecessor, Tassos Papadopoulos.
Rice said the US administration was "disappointed frankly" when Greek Cypriot voters, in April 2004, rejected a plan promoted by then UN chief Kofi Annan to end the island's three-decade division.
The referendum defeat for the Annan plan meant Cyprus joined the European Union in May 2004 still a divided island, with the ethnic-Turkish residents of the breakaway north denied the full benefits of EU membership.
"We will be active in diplomacy as we were the last time," Rice said, also praising Turkey's support for the 2004 plan and noting that the United States had taken steps to end Turkish Cypriots' isolation.
"It's a more hopeful period and a more hopeful sign now. But ultimately some difficult choices are going to have to be made," she added.
"People are going to have to overcome political differences and really political resistance from both sides. And so we will be very supportive of the UN process there."
Cyprus has been divided along ethnic lines since 1974, when Turkish troops occupied its northern third following an Athens-engineered coup by Greek Cypriots seeking union with Greece.
February's election of Christofias on a platform for peace has sparked a thaw in the uneasy relations between the two communities.
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