NICOSIA, Cyprus, Nov. 15 (UPI) -- Glafcos Clerides, whose political life in Cyprus was spent attempting to unify his island country's ethnic Greek and Turkish population, has died at age 94.
Clerides was president of Cyprus from 1993 to 2003, and oversaw his country's admission to the European Union in 2004, the Cypriot newspaper Famagusta Gazette reported Friday.
The newspaper Cyprus Mail, in an obituary, noted Clerides was shot down over Germany in World War II, and escaped interment twice. After the war he became a lawyer, fighting British colonial rule until Cyprus' independence in 1960, and a politician supporting the Greek Cypriot side against representatives of the Turkish Cypriot minority.
He spent most of his final days after the 2007 death of his wife, Lila, at his seaside home in Meneou, the Cyprus Mail said, adding he gave his life to Cyrus "wholeheartedly and tirelessly for over half a century."
