Junior Partner Pulls Out of Cyprus Coalition

The center-right Diko party in Cyprus said on Wednesday it was pulling out of the government after talks with President Demetris Christofias collapsed.

"The dialogue has terminated, Diko's cooperation with the president has ended," Diko leader Marios Garoyian told reporters.

Government spokesman Stefanos Stefanou said a government reshuffle will be announced "within days."

The president's administration has been under fire over their perceived incompetence in preventing a July 11 munitions blast that killed 13 people, destroyed the country's largest power plant and sparked the political crisis.

Christofias had called on all his ministers to resign after Diko, the junior partner, had called for a reshuffle.

Christofias had been in consultation with Diko, which wants to reset the communist-led government's manifesto based on tougher economic austerity measures and a less compromising stance on the island's decades-old division.

Stefanou said on Wednesday differences over the Cyprus problem were a key reason for the split.

Cyprus has been divided along ethnic lines since 1974, when Turkish troops occupied its northern third in response to an Athens-engineered coup in Nicosia aimed at union with Greece.