Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash on Tuesday said that he had approved the new coalition government headed by Mehmet Ali Talat, reports reaching Nicosia from northern Cyprus said. 

"I have approved the cabinet list and have appointed Mehmet Ali Talat as prime minister," Denktash told reporters at his residence in the northern half of Nicosia.

Talat's Republican Turkish Party (CTP), which strongly supports the reunification with rival Greek Cypriots, formed the coalition with the Democrat Party (DP) of Serdar Denktash, son of the veteran Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash.

Serdar Denktash will be foreign minister and deputy prime minister in the new cabinet, according to the reports.

The formation of the new cabinet followed weeks of haggling between supporters and opponents of a UN blueprint to reunite Cyprus.

The two parties in the coalition, the CTP and the DP, have agreed that their primary goal will be to work to find a solution to the decades-old division of Cyprus in time for the island's accession to the European Union in May, the reports said.

Cyprus, an eastern Mediterranean island, has been divided into the Greek Cypriot-controlled south and Turkish Cypriot-controlled north since the Turkish invasion in 1974 in the wake of a short-lived coup seeking union with Greece.

The United Nations had been trying to find a comprehensive settlement to the Cyprus issue, but its efforts failed early last year after Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash refused to accept a peace plan put forward by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan that proposed holding simultaneous referendums on the two sides. 

(Xinhua News Agency January 14, 2004)