Greek Cypriot politician attends church service by Greek Orthodox Patriarch

ISTANBUL, Feb 13 (AFP) - Greek Cypriot opposition leader Nicos Anastassiades and his delegation attended a church service here Sunday which was presided over by Patriarch Bartholomew I, the leader of the Greek Orthodox church, the Anatolia news agency reported.
After the ceremony which lasted nearly two hours, Bartholomew I gave backing to Anastassiades' efforts to find a settlement to the long-standing division of Cyprus.
"People with common sense should work for peace. Our wish from God is that these efforts yield a result rapidly," the patriarch, who is the spiritual leader of the world's 250 million Orthodox worshippers, was quoted by the agency as saying.
Anastassiades, who heads the Democratic Rally Party (DISY), is the first Greek Cypriot political leader to visit Turkey since the island's partition in 1974.
Anastassiades and his delegation, who came here Wednesday on the invitation of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), has since held talks with Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and senior AKP leaders.
The DISY leader has described as "useful" his meetings with Turkish leaders in which the DISY and the AKP have agreed to pursue dialogue in order to resolve the Cyprus problem.
The right-wing DISY, the second largest party in southern Cyprus, was the only political force to rally behind a UN blueprint to reunify the island.
The settlement plan was killed off in a referendum in April last year when the majority of Greek Cypriots voted it down even though the Turkish Cypriots gave overwhelming backing to it.
The rejection of the plan meant that only the internationally-recognized Greek Cypriot sector of the island joined the European Union in May last year while the breakaway Turkish Cypriots were left out in the cold.
Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when Turkey occupied its northern third in response to a Greek Cypriot coup aimed at uniting the island with Greece.
Ankara still maintains some 30,000 troops in the island's breakaway Turkish-held north and refuses to endorse the internationally-recognized Greek Cypriot government in the south. The two sides have no diplomatic ties.
But Turkey, which last year obtained the green light to open membership talks with the European union, is now under pressure to recognize the EU-member Greek Cypriot government.

02/13/2005 12:18 GMT - AFP