NICOSIA (AFP) — Rival Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders are set to meet later this month, the United Nations announced on Monday, as efforts to reunify the divided island intensify after Greek Cypriots ditched their hardline leader of the past five years.
After his first meeting with the island's new President Demetris Christofias, UN chief of mission Michael Moller said no date had yet been fixed for the meeting with Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat but he expected it to be later in March.
"We are preparing for a meeting between Mr Christofias and Mr Talat before the end of this month," Moller told AFP. "We are working for a meeting for the second half of March. There are no specific dates yet."
The victory of communist leader Christofias in a presidential election last month has raised hopes of a new drive to end Cyprus's 34-year-old division.
His hardline predecessor Tassos Papadopoulos had led Greek Cypriots in rejecting a UN reunification plan in a 2004 referendum and talks went nowhere during his term of office.
Christofias was elected on a platform of intensifying negotiations with the Turkish Cypriots and has vowed since taking office last week to meet Talat as soon as possible.
"The president conveyed to Mr Moller his willingness to make initiatives and take actions that are helpful in cultivating the appropriate climate for talks to resume," government spokesman Stephanos Stephanou told reporters.
"He reaffirmed his willingness to participate in an exploratory meeting with Turkish Cypriot leader Mr Talat soon," he said. "The effort is for this meeting to start before the end of this month."
Last week, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on the new president to make a goodwill gesture to help rebuild confidence, something the international community has also been pushing, and on Sunday Christofias said he was ready to push for a comprehensive settlement.
"My reply to Mr Erdogan is that we are more than ready, if Turkey is also ready, to find a solution," he said.
Christofias said he accepted the principle of a federation between the island's two communities but said a deal also needed to end the Turkish occupation of the north.He said he wanted a settlement "which will end the occupation and will restore the country's independence, territorial integrity, the unity of the Republic of Cyprus in the framework of a federation and human rights of all Cypriots."
The Greek Cypriot leader said that as a goodwill gesture he was also willing to consider the opening of two more crossing points across the UN-patrolled Green Line that divides the island.
"We are ready, under certain preconditions, to open the crossing point at Ledra Street (in the heart of the divided capital Nicosia), just as we are ready to open a crossing at Limnitis" in the northwest of the island, he said.
Talks on opening the two new crossings -- to supplement five currently in operation -- had run into repeated obstacles under Papadopoulos's presidency.
The Ledra Street crossing would reopen the main commercial thoroughfare through the heart of Nicosia which is currently blocked in the middle by the Green Line.
The Limnitis crossing would allow much easier access from the capital to the currently isolated Pyrgos area of the northwest of the island through the breakaway Turkish Cypriot north.
Greek Cypriot rejection of the 2004 reunification plan, which was overwhelmingly approved by Turkish Cypriots, meant that a divided island joined the European Union that year.
Cyprus has been split along ethnic lines since 1974 when Turkish troops occupied its northern third in response to a Greek Cypriot coup seeking union with Greece.
The breakaway state in the north, which Turkish Cypriot leaders declared in 1983, is recognised only by Ankara.
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