Cyprus peace deal hangs in the balance as leaders resume talks

NICOSIA: Rival Cypriot leaders have resumed United Nationsbacked talks aimed at resolving four decades of division on the Mediterranean island, with hopes of a breakthrough high but a key territory dispute unsettled.

Seen by experts as the last best chance to reunify Cyprus, the makeor-break discussions in Switzerland could lead to a multi-billion-euro deal or scupper prospects of solving one of the world’s longest-running political problems.

“It can go either way since there are still substantial differences. But they are clearly in the final phase of the talks,” Hubert Faustmann, professor of history and political science at the University of Nicosia, said.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkish troops occupied its northern third in response to an Athens-inspired coup seeking union with Greece.

Greek Cypriot leader Nicos Anastasiades and his Turkish Cypriot counterpart Mustafa Akinci spent five days this month in the Swiss resort of Mont Pelerin discussing potential territorial readjustments – seen by analysts as the trickiest issue to resolve.

That round finished short of a deal, but it is hoped that two more days of talks could produce a map of internal boundaries for a future federation of Greek- and Turkishspeaking states on the island.

“It sounds to me ... as though they made a lot of progress last week and they are in the stage where one last burst of activity can really settle that,” British High Commissioner in Cyprus Matthew Kidd told reporters on Friday.

“And I guess they wouldn’t have agreed to go back this weekend if they did not think so too.”

The Turkish invasion saw thousands of Greek and Turkish Cypriots displaced.

Territory is an intractable problem for the talks, since any agreement would inevitably involve a redrawing of existing boundaries and see members of both communities ousted from their current homes.

The leaders are said to be close on the percentage of territory to be governed under Turkish Cypriot jurisdiction.

Anastasiades wants the once Greek Cypriot town of Morphou – currently in the Turkish-controlled north – returned, but Akinci has said he will not countenance a deal that would see its 18,000 Turkish Cypriot residents uprooted again.