White House mourns death of former Cyprus president

The White House on Monday offered condolences over the death of former Cyprus president Glafcos Clerides, hailing his efforts to heal the division of his country. "The people of the United States were saddened to learn of the passing of former President Glafcos Clerides on Friday," White House Spokesman Jay Carney said in a statement. "With courage and commitment, he helped to lead his country first to its independence and later, amidst the violence of 1974, to the restoration of constitutional order," he said. Carney said the United States will never forget the "profound personal sympathy and support" Clerides offered after U.S. Ambassador Rodger Davies and his Cypriot assistant Antoinette Varnava were shot and killed outside the American embassy in Nicosia, capital of Cyprus, in August 1974. Clerides, 94, served two presidential terms between 1993 and 2003, during which he had tried to reunify his ethnically split island country. He initiated talks with the Turkish Cypriot community in 1968, aimed at bringing back together the island's Greek and Turkish Cypriots after they fell apart shortly after independence from Britain in 1960.