Secretary-General congratulates new leader of Turkish Cypriots

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today congratulated Mehmet Ali Talat on his election to the leadership of the Turkish Cypriot community in Northern Cyprus and welcomed the "renewed evidence of commitment to a peaceful resolution of the Cyprus issue."

In April last year, Mr. Annan sponsored a plan for the island nation to join the European Union as a united country with a Greek Cypriot constituent state and a Turkish Cypriot constituent state linked by a federal government. But Greek Cypriots rejected the plan by a three-to-one margin while Turkish Cypriots approved it.

At the time, he welcomed the fact that Turkish Cypriots, in approving the plan, unequivocally signalled their commitment to reunification, and he told Tassos Papadopoulos, the President of Cyprus, that it was up to the Greek Cypriots to explain fully to the Turkish Cypriots, the UN and the rest of the world how they saw the way forward.

He noted that as long as the current stalemate continued there was no apparent basis for resuming his "good offices" effort.

In a statement issued by his spokesman today, the Secretary-General said that "in the context of his mission of good offices" he looks forward to working productively with Mr. Talat in the continuing search for peace on the island.