UN chief will host Cyprus meeting

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres will convene an informal meeting in April involving Greece, Turkey and Britain to explore a possible end to deadlocked Cyprus peace talks, his spokesman said on February 24.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when Turkey occupied its northern third in response to a coup orchestrated by the military junta then in power in Athens aimed at annexing the island to Greece.

There have been no official UN-sponsored negotiations on the island’s future since a conference in Switzerland – also involving Greece, Turkey and Britain – collapsed in 2017.

“The purpose of the meeting will be to determine whether common ground exists for the parties to negotiate a lasting solution to the Cyprus problem within a foreseeable horizon,” said the statement from Guterres’ spokesman.

The three countries act as guarantors of the island’s sovereignty under the treaty that gave Cyprus independence from British rule in 1960.

The Republic of Cyprus, the only internationally recognised state, is a member of the EU and exercises its authority over the southern part of the Mediterranean island.

THAILAND welcomed the arrival of a Chinese-developed Covid-19 vaccine on February 24.

In Bangkok, authorities took possession of 200,000 doses of a vaccine from Sinovac Biotech Ltd, putting the country on course to kick off a national inoculation campaign.

Sinovac vaccine could prove “a big hand to help Thailand” in its fight against Covid-19, “especially in the areas with high transmission”, said Chulalongkorn University’s Thira Woratanarat.

He noted that Thailand has been overwhelmed with a second wave of infections, with the problem worsened by delayed planning and negotiations with vaccine manufacturers.

Taweesin Visanuyothin, spokesperson for the Thai government’s Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration, on February 23 said the 200,000 doses, excluding 16,300 to be stored in reserve, will be sent to 13 provinces with high infections rates and are economically significant.

The first group of people to get vaccinated includes medical workers, those in close contact with Covid-19 patients and people with certain chronic illnesses, and those aged 60 years or older, Xinhua News Agency reported.

Panyapiwat Institute of Management’s China-ASEAN Studies director Tang Zhimin said the shipment of Sinovac’s vaccine is “a great move” for Thailand to jump start vaccinations and catch up with the ASEAN neighbours that had already gotten off their campaigns.