Communist hopes to unite Cyprus

President-elect might first have to prove his mettle with Western leaders.

Communist leader Dimitris Christofias won Cyprus' presidential runoff Sunday, pledging to restart moribund talks to reunify the island, and immediately agreeing to meet the leader of the breakaway Turkish Cypriots.

Jubilant supporters flooded the streets of Nicosia, waving Cypriot and Che Guevara flags, honking car horns and lighting flares.

"We have a common vision ... to reunite our people, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots," Christofias said in his victory speech.

"I extend a hand of friendship to the Turkish Cypriot people and their leadership," he said, thanking Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat for telephoning to congratulate him.

An official at Talat's office said the two men indicated they wanted to meet soon but did not immediately set a date.

Christofias' victory makes strategically important Cyprus a rarity among its European Union partners -- a country led by a president with firmly Communist roots. His AKEL party grew out of Cyprus' outlawed Communist Party in the 1940s.

The 61-year-old Soviet-educated history professor won with 53.37 percent of the vote to 46.63 percent for former Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides.

Both had campaigned on promises to reunify the island, split since 1974, when Turkey invaded after a coup aimed at uniting Cyprus with Greece.

Reunification would remove one of the obstacles to Turkey's efforts to join the European Union.

John Sitilides, chairman of the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center's Southeast Europe Project, said Christofias might need to launch a "diplomatic campaign in Washington and European capitals, probably just initially, to reassure leadership circles ... that we're not talking about Fidel Castro or Kim Il-sung here, but a Euro-Communist like one finds in almost every Western European country, but one that happens to have ascended to the ultimate position of leadership."