Cyprus commemorates victims in 1974 military coup

The wailing of sirens resounded over Cyprus at 08:20 local time on Sunday, the very time when a coup was engineered by a group of Greek officers in an attempt to unite the island with Greece decades ago.

President Tassos Papadopoulos and other high ranking official attended a ceremony held at a church for those killed during the 1974 military coup.

Papadopoulos also laid wreaths at the tombs of coup victims at a cemetery in Nicosia.Cyprus was divided in 1974 when Turkey militarily intervened and occupied the north of the island following the coup.

The United Nations, joined by the European Union in recent years, have kept pushing the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot sides to negotiate a solution to the three-decade-long problem.

But the island still remains split due to lack of trust between the two communities and refusal of their leaderships to make significant compromises.