UN Secretary-General Kofi Anan said today if Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders did not agree on a peace deal at a meeting in the Hague on March 10th, his efforts to forge an agreement would end.
"If one party or the other says no [on March 10th] there is no doubt that this is the end of road," Mr Annan told reporters as he boarded a plane to head back to New York.
Earlier today, Annan said the two sides had accepted his call to meet him in the Hague on March 10th to tell him whether they were prepared to submit a draft UN-backed plan to public referendum.
The east Mediterranean island has been divided since a Turkish invasion in 1974 triggered by a brief Greek Cypriot coup engineered by the military then ruling Greece.