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Cyprus’s president said on Thursday there were “serious prospects” that long-stalled talks to reunify the island could resume between the estranged Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities.
Nicos Anastasiades said negotiations between the two sides on drafting a joint communique outlining principles of a settlement were at a “delicate point”.
“It appears there are serious prospects for a substantive joint statement which would satisfy the basic principles governing a Cyprus settlement, and lead to a resumption of negotiations,” Anastasiades told journalists after briefing Greek Cypriot party leaders on Thursday.
Peace talks stalled in mid-2012. The United Nations had difficulty brokering a resumption because the two sides failed at the outset to agree on the wording of a joint statement of what sort of settlement they wanted.
Diplomatic sources said the United States was instrumental in pushing for a breakthrough. A senior official of the U.S. State Department was on the island on Feb. 4.
Cyprus was split in a Turkish invasion in 1974 triggered by a brief Greek-inspired coup. Its status as a European Union member state – effectively run only by Greek Cypriots – gives it veto rights over Turkey’s EU membership aspirations.
REUTERS