Cyprus leaders to meet U.N. chief on Nov 18

The Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders will meet U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in New York on November 18 to take stock of U.N.-mediated talks aimed at reuniting the Mediterranean island that has been divided for 36 years, the United Nations announced on Saturday.
The announcement said the meeting would take place "in the framework of the ongoing negotiation process." It gave no further details, but Ban is compiling a report on the status of the peace talks, which is due out in November.
Progress has been slow, and the two leaders are still discussing how to reconcile property disputes, one of several topics that need to be resolved.
The U.N. mediator in the talks, former Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, expressed hope last month that a deal on the divided island could be brokered by the end of the year.
Downer told Reuters in an interview he was convinced leaders of the two rival communities wanted a deal, but that compromise was required from both sides.
"It would be good to get the bulk of the work done by the end of the year," he said. "Just in terms of the negotiations they can do it, whether they will I don't know. But they can do it."
Downer oversees meetings between Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu and Greek Cypriot leader Demetris Christofias. The United Nations has never laid out a specific timetable for the conclusion of the talks.
Discussions on relinking Cyprus as a federation involve questions of power-sharing, the re-mapping of boundaries and how many of Cyprus's thousands of internally displaced can return to their homes.