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