Resuming peace talks up to Greek Cypriots: Turkish Cypriot leader

Resuming interrupted peace talks on the eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus is up to the Greek Cypriots, said the Turkish Cypriot leader, two days before a planned leaders' meeting. 

"It was wrong that the door was slammed ...  It is in their [the Greek Cypriots'] hands to return [to the negotiation table] by fixing the situation," said Turkish Cypriot President Mustafa Akıncı in a joint press conference alongside Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu on Feb. 21 in Nicosia. 

Akıncı was referring to his Greek Cypriot counterpart, Nicos Anastasiades, who stormed out of a leaders' meeting on Feb. 16 under the auspices of U.N. special envoy Espen Barth Eide, when the controversial issue of the recent "Enosis" law was being talked about. 

Tensions soared over a law passed in the Greek Cypriot parliament that will now permit the celebration of a 1950 referendum, when 96 percent of Greek Cypriots voted for the island to be united with Greece, which is known as "Enosis" in Greek.

Anastasiades denied Akıncı's claims that he had slammed the door and left the meeting, while also accusing Akıncı of storming out of the meeting. 

Eide said it was Akıncı who stormed off but the Turkish Cypriot leader on Feb. 17 accused the U.N. diplomat of "hiding half of the truth."

"The negativity [brought by the passing of the Enosis law] that has been experienced needs to be fixed," said Akıncı on Feb. 21. "We have not stopped the negotiations process." 

Akıncı put two clauses forth for the process to be fixed. 

He said Anastasiades needed to publicly announce that the "Enosis" decision was wrong, which Akıncı said Anastasiades had told him during the latest leaders' meeting, in such a way that the Greek and Turkish...