Cypriot government

European Union leaders will call on Turkey to respect Greek Cyprus's sovereign rights, expressing "serious concern" at fresh tensions between the two countries over oil and gas exploration, a draft summit document showed Oct. 23.

Cyprus's president has suspended talks on reunifying the ethnically divided island in response to Turkey's plans to search for oil and gas in waters where the Cypriot government has already licensed companies to drill.

A cruise liner returning from Greece was pressed into action in rough seas off Cyprus Thursday to rescue some 300 people thought to be Syrian refugees whose trawler had run into trouble.

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras held a lengthy phone discussion with Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades on Wednesday, Cypriot government spokesman Nikos Christodoulidis announced.

By Kari Lundgren

Ryanair Holdings Plc will submit a non-binding offer for Cyprus Airways on Friday as Europe’s No. 1 discount carrier seeks to extend its footprint eastward to an island increasingly popular with Russian and Israeli visitors.

The Cypriot government confirmed on Wednesday that it has consented to former Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide being appointed special adviser to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the Cyprus issue.

LONDON – Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary said on Monday that the airline was not particularly interested in acquiring troubled Cypriot carrier Cyprus Airways, which he said had huge legacy issues.

Ryanair was among nearly 20 companies which last week submitted a non-binding expression of interest in Cyprus Airways, now controlled by the Cypriot government.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has vowed to stand by the Cypriot government in its reunification talks with Turkish-Cypriots after meeting President Nicos Anastasiades in Athens on Monday.

“Greece and Cyprus will continue until the end our peaceful common struggle to overturn the fait accompli of the Turkish occupation,” Samaras said after the talks at the Maximos Mansion.

By Alexandra Kassimi

Aegean Airlines has applied to enter the first stage of the process to sell Cyprus Airways, according to a bourse filing by Greece’s biggest carrier on Wednesday.

Nikos Chrysoloras & Georgios Georgiou

Cyprus wants to start talks with the European Central Bank on a debt swap that would ease the burden on the country’s largest lender, two people familiar with the discussions said.