Illinois Senator offers US help for Cyprus peace talks

Illinois Senator Richard Durbin said he offered assistance to Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat and his Greek Cypriot counterpart Demetris Christofias.

"We don’t have a specific offer. I mean, what we said was available to help. And again, it is for both sides to decide what that help might be," the Illinois Democrat told AP after talks with Christofias.

Durbin, who will travel on to Greece and Turkey this week, said his three-day Cyprus visit is not as an official representative of President Barack Obama.

But he added he will convey to both the U.S. president and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton the message that the peace talks are "an opportunity in history that we shouldn’t miss".

"We should do everything we can if were asked or called on to make this work," he said.

The Illinois senator met Talat on Monday.

Durbin, accompanied by Illinois State Finance Minister Alexi Giannoulias, also met Tuesday with Oktay Kayalp, mayor of Gazimagusa in the Turkish side of the island. In addition to the Cyprus question, economic issues were high on agenda of the meeting, the Anatolian Agency reported.

Cyprus has been divided since 1964 when Turkish Cypriots were forced to withdraw into enclaves.

Talat and Christofias began peace talks in last September after a four-year hiatus, marking the first major push for peace since the failure of a U.N. reunification plan in 2004, which was approved by Turkish Cypriots but overwhelmingly rejected by Greek Cypriots.