"I will be meeting with (Turkish) Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan in the next few months. We haven't yet set the date but it will be very soon," he told a joint press conference following  a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
 
Papandreou said Cyprus had long divided Turkey and Greece and required a solution "sooner the better." Turkey has about 30,000 troops in northern Cyprus and Erdogan has said Ankara would consider a withdrawal if there was a deal. 

"We do need to liberate this island from that kind of activity and that kind of situation," Papandreou added.