This 2003 file picture shows Clerides waving to the public as he left a polling station during the presidential elections.
Two-time former Cypriot president Glafcos Clerides died yesterday, aged 94, his personal doctor told reporters.
“Unfortunately, at 6.20pm (1620 GMT) our historic leader passed away,” Joseph Kasios said outside the Nicosia clinic where Clerides had been hospitalised.
The doctor said that members of the veteran politician’s family were with him at the time of death.
Earlier, the Cyprus News Agency quoted Kasios as saying that Clerides was in a “very critical and irreversible” condition.
Clerides, a World War II veteran, was admitted to Evangelistria clinic on Wednesday in a “very grave condition”, the doctor said.
Born in Nicosia on April 24, 1919, Clerides founded the ruling right-wing DISY party in 1976 and served as the eastern Mediterranean island’s president from 1993 to 2003 in back-to-back terms.
An AFP reporter said that flags were flying at half-mast outside the ruling party headquarters after news of Clerides’s death.
Doctors had said his condition had deteriorated seriously and that he had become very weak.
Kasios said yesterday morning that there was no “specific health problem” but Clerides has faced serious illnesses in the past few years, which, combined with his advanced years, aggravated his condition.
Clerides was seen as instrumental in guiding Cyprus towards accession to the European Union in 2004.
But despite his own support for reunification efforts, Cyprus entered the bloc a divided island after Greek Cypriots voted in a referendum the same year to reject a UN plan that would have reintegrated the breakaway Turkish Cypriot north.