Around the World: Turkey

Rivals support EU bid

Greece and Cyprus said yesterday they supported Turkey's bid to become a full member of the European Union and needed its help to end the island's decades-old division.

The division of Cyprus has defied mediation for decades, remaining a key obstacle to Turkey joining the EU and a source of tension with Greece, its neighbor and partner in NATO. "This is an issue which we can either solve and therefore (will) unite us, or keep us divided," newly elected Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou told journalists in Nicosia, Cyprus's ethnically split capital.