CYPRUS: First crossing points in a decade could open in October

Greek Cypriots will be ready for the opening of two crossing points, at Dherynia and Lefka in the north, at the beginning of October, a well-informed source told the Cyprus News Agency (CNA).

They would be the first crossings to open to enable the free movement of Cypriots across the Green Line in eight years.

CNA said the opening of the two crossings is expected to be discussed during the meeting which President Nicos Anastasiades will have on September 28 in New York with the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres.

Greek Cypriot negotiator Andreas Mavroyiannis, and the Greek Cypriot head of the bicommunal Technical Committee on Crossing Points, Sotos Zackheos, have inspected the works underway at Lefka, in the Nicosia district.

The Greek Cypriot side says it will finish work on the Lefka crossing by the end of this month and it will be technically ready for the opening of both crossing points, at Dherynia and Lefka, at the beginning of October.

Asked about the Dherynia crossing point, in the Famagusta district, an official source said that the Greek Cypriot side is ready for its opening, but a manned Turkish military post has not yet been removed from the area.

The leaders had agreed in 2015 that these two crossings should be made ready for people movement.

The opening of more crossings is seen as an essential element of trust building between the two communities that lived in virtual isolation of each other until Turkish Cypriot authorities paved the way for free people movement in 2003.

Currently, there are seven official crossing points between the Turkish-held north and government south, but the last crossing to open was in 2010