10th April 2009, 05:15 pm
Greek Cypriot leader Demetris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat suprised their colleagues, the media and UN officials early this afternoon as they left the conference room where the Cyprus peace talks are being held inside the UN compound and took a walk around the area. The two had emerged from their traditional one-on-one meeting to find their colleagues — experts on specific issues of the Cyprus problem — hard at work, so they decided to leave them to it for a while. It’s not known what the leaders discussed during their 15-minute walkabout, but the beautiful spring weather could not but give them a boost as they went back indoors to wrap up a discussion on issues related to how the European Union would operate in a future united Cyprus.
8th April 2009, 04:56 pm
The Technical Committee on Cultural Heritage, one of the panels set up last year to improve cooperation between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities and help ease the way for peace talks on the island, today visited a number of mosques in the old part of Nicosia as well as in the nearby villages of Potamia and Dhali. Some of the mosques in old Nicosia date back to the Venetian period and were originally Catholic churches that became mosques during the period of Ottoman rule. Many have been restored and are in use today. Restoration work on the others is planned.
Much of the visit took place under pouring rain, which some committee members – tongue firmly in cheek — took as a divine sign, given that they were inspecting sites of religious and historical significance.
After visiting the Omeriye mosque in the heart of old Nicosia, the Committee members stopped in a traditional coffee-shop. Conversation among some of the members of the committee — Greek and Turkish Cypriots — centred around the small pungent cups of their favourite black beverage, either “sketo” / “sade”, (without sugar), “metrio” / “orta” (medium – one spoon of sugar) or “glyki” / shekerli” (sweet — two spoons of sugar). A couple of the members, who happen to be the grandchildren of coffee-shop owners, noted that they have inherited a love for the traditional hot brew and insisted that the secret to a good cup of Cyprus coffee is the way it is cooked. And, of course, the best way of doing that is in hot sand.
In the village of Potamia, the mosque has been restored and is used by the Turkish Cypriot families that continue to live there. In Dhali the Ziya Pasha Camii was restored in 2006 and is used regularly by the seven Turkish Cypriot families that live in the village.
Fuat Azimli (left) and Takis Hadjidemetriou, members of Cyprus' Technical Committee on Cultural Heritage, share their love of Cyprus coffee
31st March 2009, 11:14 pm
Things can move fast in Cyprus. No sooner had UNFICYP told the country’s media that the leaders of the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities would be meeting on 2 April at 10 a.m. for another round of talks in the UN “protected area” (known to Cypriots as the old Nicosia International Airport) that it was announced that Mehmet Ali Talat would be going to Stockholm the same day for talks with the Swedish Foreign Minister. This means the leaders’ meeting, originally set for 4 p.m., will in all likelihood be postponed. On 3 Aptil, Mr. Talat is scheduled to meet with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in Paris. Meanwhile, the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser for Cyprus, former Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, is set to be in the country the week of 6 April.