Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has begun a historic visit to Cyprus, declaring the two countries’ warming ties a “natural relationship”.

Britain is “very hopeful” that full-fledged talks to reunify ethnically divided Cyprus will be launched in September, a senior Foreign Office official said today.

The leaders of Cyprus’s rival Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities were meeting today to try to clear up disagreements which have strained attempts to reunify the ethnically divided island.