Mr George Iacovou, a former government minister, last night conceded defeat to his opponent in the second round of the republic's seventh contested presidential election, as the incumbent Cypriot President Glafkos Clerides took an unassailable lead in the count.
The official vote was later declared to be 50.8 per cent for Mr Clerides and 49.2 for Mr Iacovou.
Britain's Foreign Secretary, Mr Robin Cook, speaking on behalf of the rotating EU presidency, said he hoped the re-election of Mr Clerides would help the search for peace on the divided island. He hoped to see new efforts to reunite the Greek and Turkish communities of Cyprus, he added.
He also said he hoped negotiations with Cyprus on entering the European Union would get off to a good start at the end of March.
Polling yesterday was brisk and peaceful as 94 per cent of Greek-Cypriot voters cast their ballots in the contest. Voting in Cypriot elections is compulsory and those who fail to vote face being fined.
It was a brilliantly clear day, but a cold, cutting wind from the Anatolian steppes drove voters to seek shelter in their cars or sent then hurrying home as soon as they emerged from polling stations at neighbourhood schools.
Although Mr Iacovou (51) had won 40.6 per cent of the vote in the first round to for 40.1 per cent for Mr Clerides (78), the president was expected to be re-elected by a slim margin. Aware that every vote counts in the small electorate of 450,000, the candidates' parties flew home 11,000 expatriates from Europe and the Gulf to vote.
A stir was caused when a bus carrying 40 Turkish and Turkish-Cypriot journalists crossed the Green Line to observe the polling. As press cards were being handed around, a Turkish journalist, Mr Habil Yilmaz, realised he had forgotten to leave his pistol at home in the Turkish occupied sector of the capital.
The journalist handed the gun to the surprised official, who immediately turned over the weapon and Mr Yilmaz to police officers in a car accompanying the bus.
While Mr Yilmaz went to police headquarters, the bus proceeded to the Lycavitos elementary school, where Turkish-Cypriot journalists spoke to Mr Clerides as he and his wife cast their votes. Through them, he sent a message to Turkish-Cypriots: "We all must look to the future and not to the past . . . We must work together for a just, viable and workable solution of our problem."
A police spokeswoman later told The Irish Times that Mr Yilmaz returned to the north without his weapon but was "welcome to return here anytime".
Both candidates have pledged to form a broad-based national government so that the Greek-Cypriot community will present a united front in UN-brokered negotiations with the Turkish-Cypriots for a political settlement based on a bizonal, bicommunal federation and the parallel EU accession talks beginning in March.
Paradoxically, Mr Clerides, who represents the right-wing "Hellenist" tendency, is considered to be more "concessionist" than Mr Iacovou, an independent backed by the communist Akel Party which cultivates close relations with left-wing Turkish-Cypriot groupings.
