Juncker Tells Cyprus to Make Peace Now, UK Offers Land in Event of Deal
Long-divided Cyprus has no better chance than now to strike a U.N.-brokered peace deal, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told the Cypriot parliament on Friday.
"You have to do it now, immediately, because this is an enormous window of opportunity and you have to do it, all together, and you will not have to do it alone," Juncker said.
"The European Union will follow this process day by day and if it is done, the money will be there. I am not promising money, I am describing the future of this great nation," he added.
Juncker called the current negotiations a "crucial moment for Cyprus history."
Greek Cypriot leader Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci are engaged in U.N.-mediated peace talks seen as the best chance in years to reunify Cyprus.
The country has been divided since 1974, when Turkish troops occupied its northern third in response to an Athens-inspired coup seeking union with Greece.
A new round of long-stalled U.N.-brokered peace talks began on May 15.
"I believe that they can solve the Cyprus problem," Juncker said.
"These are the only men who will be able to do now what should have been done in the past. Don't believe that those who are coming after our generation will be able to do it," he added.
Juncker, from Luxembourg, said Cyprus should not let a painful past decide its future, and spoke from personal experience of a war-torn Europe.
"Germany invaded Luxembourg twice in a century. I lost members of my family in concentration camps," he said.
"My father, one of 12 children, was incorporated by force, together with three of his brothers, into the German Wehrmacht. They had to fight, in a hated uniform, against those who were trying to liberate my country."
If Europe could make peace after such tragedies, "why should it not it be possible to do the same here?" Juncker asked.
A divided Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004 following a failed peace plan which effectively saw European law applied only in the government-controlled south.
Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said Friday that the UK is ready to offer a reunified Cyprus large swathes of British bases territory on the island in the event of a peace deal.
"We have made clear that in the context of a settlement, Britain is willing to offer to surrender a significant proportion of the landsurface of the bases to the Republic of Cyprus to allow development," Hammond told reporters after meeting his Cypriot counterpart Ioannis Kasoulides.
"That offer remains on the table, and we hope that it will add to the economic benefits of a settlement being concluded and help to stimulate economic growth in Cyprus in the future," he added.
Britain retains two strategically important military bases on Cyprus which remained sovereign territory after the country's independence in 1960.
Turkish troops occupied the northern third of Cyprus in 1974 in response to an Athens-inspired coup seeking union with Greece.
As part of a 2004 U.N. peace deal, London offered to cede around 50 percent of non-military bases land in the south, but Greek Cypriots in a referendum rejected the settlement blueprint.
Britain confirmed the offer still stands in the event of a peace accord being reached.
The UK launched bombing operations against the Islamic State group in Iraq in September 2014 from its RAF Akrotiri air base on the south coast near Limassol.