Border of the U.N. buffer zone in Nicosia, Cyprus, Oct. 1, 2008 (photo by Flickr user peatc licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license).

Greek Foreign Minister Evangelos Venizelos has announced that he will visit Turkey later this month. That comes after Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades suspended peace talks with northern Cyprus last month when Turkey declared plans to search for oil and gas off the southern coast of the island. The island of Cyprus has been divided since 1974 between the predominantly Greek Cypriot south and mainly Turkish north. Only Turkey recognizes the latter as an independent country. The United Nations has maintained a peacekeeping force in Cyprus since 1964, the longest-running U.N. peacekeeping operation in existence. There was optimism for a long-sought […]