UNITED NATIONS, Oct 22 (AFP) - The UN Security Council voted unanimously on Friday to cut the number of peacekeepers on divided Cyprus by about one third, a move unpopular in the island's ethnic Greek south.
The move comes after Greek Cypriot voters shot down a UN plan for reunification with the north, occupied by Turkey since 1974 when Turkish troops invaded following a coup that tried to make Cyprus part of Greece.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan invested four years on the peace plan, which voters in the breakaway Turkish statelet supported in a referendum in April.
But residents of the internationally recognised Greek Cypriot south overwhelmingly rejected the plan, with many saying it did not take into account their concerns about the Turkish troop presence.
On Annan's recommendation, the council voted 15-0 to reduce the roughly 1,200-strong UN force, which has been on the Mediterranean island since 1964, to an overall strength of 860 military personnel.
He said in a report to the council that the situation was stable enough to warrant a cutback in troops, while the United Nations remains concerned about the escalating scope, number and cost of peacekeeping mission around the globe.
At the same time, the council extended the mandate of the Cyprus mission until mid-June 2005.
"If the UN now tells us they can address the situation the same way with less people, we'll go along with it," the UN ambassador from Cyprus, Andreas Mavroyiannis, told AFP.
Since the April referendum, the United States -- which counts Turkey as a close military and political ally -- has worked to end the isolation of the self-styled Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC).
"We'll continue ... to work more closely with Turkish Cypriots and to offer them chances and opportunities that they haven't had," US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said on Wednesday.
Annan had been hoping to reunify the island before Cyprus joined the European Union on May 1. The south's rejection mean that it alone joined the Brussels bloc, leaving the north out in the cold.
Voters in the north backed the unity plan despite vocal opposition from veteran Turkish Cypriot president Rauf Denktash.
The United States then announced it no longer considered Denktash the TRNC's leader and has moved to end the north's isolation.
The European Union -- where a heated debate is unfolding about possible Turkish membership -- has also tried to ease the situation with the north.
10/22/2004 17:25 GMT - AFP