Ethnically split Cyprus' rival leaders say they're ready for UN-led meeting to restart peace talks

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NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — The rival leaders of ethnically divided Cyprus said Monday that they’re ready to take part in a U.N.-led gathering next month that could pave the way to a resumption of formal talks after an eight-year hiatus to resolve one of the world’s most intractable disputes.

But it remains moot whether the meeting will successfully bridge a widening chasm that separates the leader of the breakaway Turkish Cypriots Ersin Tatar and the island’s Greek Cypriot president, Nikos Christodoulides, on what a future peace deal should look like.

Both Tatar and Christodoulides held separate talks with U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo to prepare the ground for the mid-March meeting that will also bring together officials from Cyprus’ so-called guarantors: Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom.

DiCarlo said that U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres remains committed to helping both sides move forward with formal negotiations, while Christodoulides repeated that continued ethnic division can't be Cyprus’ future.

“As we see in our neighborhood, there are no frozen conflicts,” Christodoulides said.

Cyprus has been split along ethnic lines for more than a half-century. In 1974, Turkey invaded the island in the immediate wake of an Greek junta-backed coup mounted by supporters of union with Greece.

Nearly a decade later, Turkish Cypriots declared independence in Cyprus northern third, where Turkey maintains more than 35,000 troops. Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004, but only Greek Cypriots in the south where the island’s internationally recognized government is seated enjoy full benefits.

Numerous U.N.-sponsored rounds of peace talks ended in failure, the most recent being in 2017. Following the collapse of those talks, Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots opted out of reunifying Cyprus as a federation composed of Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot zones — a framework that all previous negotiations had operated under.

Instead, they insist on what is essentially a two-state deal under which Turkish Cypriots would have “sovereign equality and equal international status” like the majority Greek Cypriots, Tatar said Monday.

In turn, Greek Cypriots reject any peace deal that would formalize the island’s partition. They also reject a Turkish and Turkish Cypriot demand for a post-settlement permanent Turkish troop presence and military intervention rights ceded to Ankara.

Indicative of the gulf separating the two sides is an ongoing disagreement on which additional crossing points should open across a 180-kilometer (120-mile) U.N.-controlled buffer zone to ease the flow of people to and from either side. There are currently eight such crossing points that are open.

Tatar said that the meeting next month would take place on March 17-18, but Cypriot government spokesman Constantinos Letymbiotis said that the United Nations will confirm the exact dates in due course.

DiCarlo also met with leading women from both communities on ways to boost the engagement of women in peace efforts.