Nicosia  - Former hardline Cypriot president Tassos Papadopoulos died following a long battle with cancer on Friday, radio reports said. He was 74.

Born Tassos Nikolaou Papadopoulos in 1934 in Nicosia and educated as a lawyer after studying law at King's College in London, he served as the President of the Republic of Cyprus from 2003 to 2008.

In 2003 he campaigned for presidential elections on a platform that that he would allegedly be able to secure a better deal in the Cyprus dispute with the Turkish Cypriots than the incumbent Glafkos Clerides.

But peace talks were deadlocked after Papadopoulos led the Greek-Cypriot rejection of a UN reunification plan in a 2004 referendum. Turkish Cypriots had overwhelmingly voted in favour.

Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot leaders launched a new round of peace talks in September and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat had said he hoped a breakthrough could be found by the end of the year.

The island has been split since 1974 after Turkey invaded the northern third of the island in response to a short-lived coup initiated by Greece.

The ongoing conflict in Cyprus also threatens Turkey's aspirations of joining the European Union. Ankara started EU entry talks in 2005 and the Cyprus problem has proved one of the main stumbling blocks in negotiations. (dpa)