ANKARA - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso in the sidelines of an international conference on terrorism in Madrid this week, his office said Wednesday.
Erdogan and Annan, scheduled to meet Friday, will discuss the possibilities of reviving UN-sponsored peace talks to resolve the Cyprus conflict, which remains a major stumbling block in Turkey's bid to join the European Union, a senior diplomat said.
The most recent UN effort to end the division between the island's Turkish and Greek communities failed last April when the Greek Cypriots voted down a settlement plan drawn up by Annan, even though the Turkish Cypriots gave it overwhelming support.
The outcome ensured that only the internationally-recognized Greek Cypriot south of the island joined the EU on May 1.
Turkey is now under EU pressure to normalize ties with the Greek Cypriots, whose government it does not recognize.
Ankara has expressed support for a new round of peace talks to reunify the island.
It sees a speedy settlement as a way of getting rid of what it considers Greek Cypriot efforts to use Turkey's EU bid to extract concessions from Ankara.
The issue is expected to also figure high on the agenda of Erdogan's meeting with Barroso on Thursday.
Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkey seized its northern third in response to an Athens-engineered coup in Nicosia aimed at uniting the island with Greece.
03/09/2005 14:40 GMT