28/02/2008 11:54 NICOSIA, Feb 28 (AFP)
Communist party leader Demetris Christofias was to be sworn in as president on Thursday after vowing to renew contacts with Turkish Cypriots in a new drive to end Cyprus's 34-year division.
Christofias, who won an election run-off in the Greek Cypriot south of the island on Sunday and ousted President Tassos Papadopoulos, plans to announce his cabinet after taking over as head of state.
The swearing-in ceremony is due to take place in parliament at 1400 GMT.
EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou, the son of a former president, is expected to return to Cyprus as foreign minister in a new coalition government led this time by the communist party AKEL, according to local media.
The Christofias lineup was held up by horse-trading over the distribution of ministries.
The AKEL leader was to outline his government's programme to parliament and then head to the presidential palace, where Papadopoulos was to hand over the reins. The cabinet was to be announced at the palace and sworn in on Thursday.
The 61-year-old Soviet-educated builder's son has agreed to meet Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat to try to end a stalemate in reunification efforts under his hardline predecessor Papadopoulos.
Christofias, who was parliamentary speaker, heads AKEL, Cyprus's largest political party which although founded on Marxist-Leninist ideals is considered more socialist than communist in practice.
His election has been welcomed by the international community as a boost for efforts to reunite Cyprus after Papadopoulos led Greek Cypriots in rejecting a UN peace plan in 2004 that was overwhelmingly backed by Turkish Cypriots.
The rejection of the plan meant a divided Cyprus joined the EU in May 2004, complicating Turkey's own efforts to join the bloc.
Press reports have suggested that as a goodwill gesture a new crossing point over the UN-patrolled buffer zone may be opened in the heart of the walled old city of Nicosia, the world's last divided capital.
The plan has been on hold for the past four years amid rows between Papadopoulos and Talat over Turkish forces deployed in the area of the proposed Ledra Street crossing.
Christofias on Wednesday met with the Nicosia ambassadors of three of the UN Security Council's permanent members China, Russia and the United States.
"I conveyed... my wish to resume the dialogue with the Turkish Cypriots, but also stressed that such a dialogue must not revoke anything the Security Council has approved so far," he said, quoted by state news agency CNA.
Talat said on Monday called for rapid talks, a proposal widely supported by the international community.
"The period before us is the period... to resolve the Cyprus problem," Talat said, warning that failure to clinch a lasting settlement could "lead to the permanent division of Cyprus".
But analysts warn against expectations of an early breakthrough.
"The change of government in Nicosia should not be seen as an indication that people have changed their mind in relation to the substance of their 'no' vote in April 2004," said University of Nicosia professor Andreas Theophanous.
"The mainstream view is that the UN plan was an extremely imbalanced plan," he wrote in an electronic newsletter.
"It is unlikely that Turkey and the Turkish-Cypriot leadership will change their policy over Cyprus because there has been a government change in the Republic of Cyprus".