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Iran: Bad Weather Hampers Search for Missing Plane

Relatives of Iranian passengers, on board the Aseman Airlines flight EP3704, react as they gather near Tehran's Mehrabad airport on February 18, 2018. ATTA KENARE / AFP
Relatives of Iranian passengers, on board the Aseman Airlines flight EP3704, react as they gather near Tehran's Mehrabad airport on February 18, 2018. ATTA KENARE / AFP
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Iran: Bad Weather Hampers Search for Missing Plane

Relatives of Iranian passengers, on board the Aseman Airlines flight EP3704, react as they gather near Tehran's Mehrabad airport on February 18, 2018. ATTA KENARE / AFP
Relatives of Iranian passengers, on board the Aseman Airlines flight EP3704, react as they gather near Tehran's Mehrabad airport on February 18, 2018. ATTA KENARE / AFP

Iranian rescue teams battled severe weather Monday as they searched for the wreckage of a passenger plane that disappeared high in the Zagros mountains the previous day with 66 people on board.

Several helicopters that had deployed at dawn to hunt for Aseman Airlines flight EP3704 were forced to return to base, officials said.

"Unfortunately due to strong winds and fog reducing visibility, it was not possible for helicopters to continue their search," a Red Crescent official told the ISNA news agency.

The deputy governor of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province was quoted by state media as saying the wreckage was found near Dengezlu city, in Semirom county, in Isfahan province.

A few minutes later, Iran's Civil Aviation Organisation said it could not confirm the wreckage had been discovered.

Officials said hundreds of mountaineers, supported by dogs and drones, were operating around the 4,409-meter Dena mountain.

The ATR-72 twin-engine plane, in service since 1993, flew early Sunday from Mehrabad airport towards the city of Yasuj, some 500 kilometers to the south.

The plane's emergency locator transmitter was reportedly not functioning, helping to explain the difficulty in finding the wreckage.

A team of crash investigators from French air safety agency BEA was set to arrive in Iran later on Monday.

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Türkiye Insists on Two States for Ethnically Divided Cyprus as the UN Looks to Restart Peace Talks

UN Secretary General's Special Representative in Cyprus Colin Stewart, center, Cyprus' President Nikos Christodoulides, left, and the Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar talk as they attend the UN's end of year reception at Ledras Palace inside the UNbuffer zone in the divided capital Nicosia, Cyprus, Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)
UN Secretary General's Special Representative in Cyprus Colin Stewart, center, Cyprus' President Nikos Christodoulides, left, and the Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar talk as they attend the UN's end of year reception at Ledras Palace inside the UNbuffer zone in the divided capital Nicosia, Cyprus, Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)
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Türkiye Insists on Two States for Ethnically Divided Cyprus as the UN Looks to Restart Peace Talks

UN Secretary General's Special Representative in Cyprus Colin Stewart, center, Cyprus' President Nikos Christodoulides, left, and the Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar talk as they attend the UN's end of year reception at Ledras Palace inside the UNbuffer zone in the divided capital Nicosia, Cyprus, Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)
UN Secretary General's Special Representative in Cyprus Colin Stewart, center, Cyprus' President Nikos Christodoulides, left, and the Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar talk as they attend the UN's end of year reception at Ledras Palace inside the UNbuffer zone in the divided capital Nicosia, Cyprus, Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

Türkiye on Wednesday again insisted on a two-state peace accord in ethnically divided Cyprus as the United Nations prepares to meet with all sides in early spring in hopes of restarting formal talks to resolve one of the world’s most intractable conflicts.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Cyprus “must continue on the path of a two-state solution” and that expending efforts on other arrangements ending Cyprus’ half-century divide would be “a waste of time.”
Fidan spoke to reporters after talks with Ersin Tatar, leader of the breakaway Turkish Cypriots whose declaration of independence in 1983 in Cyprus’ northern third is recognized only by Türkiye.
Cyprus’ ethnic division occurred in 1974 when Türkiye invaded in the wake of a coup, sponsored by the junta then ruling Greece, that aimed to unite the island in the eastern Mediterranean with the Greek state.
The most recent major push for a peace deal collapsed in 2017.
Since then, Türkiye has advocated for a two-state arrangement in which the numerically fewer Turkish Cypriots would never be the minority in any power-sharing arrangement.
But Greek Cypriots do not support a two-state deal that they see as formalizing the island’s partition and perpetuating what they see as a threat of a permanent Turkish military presence on the island.
Greek Cypriot officials have maintained that the 2017 talks collapsed primarily on Türkiye’s insistence on permanently keeping at least some of its estimated 35,000 troops currently in the island's breakaway north, and on enshrining military intervention rights in any new peace deal.
The UN the European Union and others have rejected a two-state deal for Cyprus, saying the only way forward is a federation agreement with Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot zones.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is preparing to host an informal meeting in Switzerland in March to hear what each side envisions for a peace deal. Last year, an envoy Guterres dispatched to Cyprus reportedly concluded that there's no common ground for a return to talks.
The island’s Greek Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides says he’s ready to resume formal talks immediately but has ruled out any discussion on a two-state arrangement.
Tatar, leader of the breakaway Turkish Cypriots, said the meeting will bring together the two sides in Cyprus, the foreign ministers of “guarantor powers” Greece and Türkiye and a senior British official to chart “the next steps” regarding Cyprus’ future.
A peace deal would not only remove a source of instability in the eastern Mediterranean, but could also expedite the development of natural gas deposits inside Cyprus' offshore economic zone that Türkiye disputes.