Cyprus president ready to meet Turkish-Cypriot leader

Cypriot President Nicos Christodoulides insisted on Wednesday that he is ready for a meeting with Turkish-Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar "even tomorrow."

"I have conveyed this desire to him as well, either for a social meeting or as part of the effort to resume talks. I have also proposed a joint visit to the anthropological laboratory on the issue of the missing persons - a humanitarian issue, not a political one - and I hope there will soon be a positive response from him," Christodoulides said.

Those who imagine, he added, that Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots cannot coexist have been proven wrong by history and will be proven wrong in the future.

Tatar, the leader of the northern part of the island occupied by Turkey since 1974, has consistently called for a two-state solution, rejecting the decades-old agreed premise of a bizonal, bicommunal federation.