Rival Cypriot leaders agreed on Friday to open the first crossing points in eight years across the Island’s divide in a move to improve the climate of deadlocked Cyprus negotiations, the UN said.
“The leaders are pleased to announce that on 12 November 2018, crossing points at Lefka/Aplici and Dherynia/Derinya will be open,” a UN statement said after the leaders meeting.
Cypriot 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 of the island and government south, but the last crossing to open was in 2010.
Greek Cypriot president Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci met inside the UN compound in Nicosia’s buffer zone to try and move closer to resuming Cyprus reunification talks that crashed 15 months ago.
The UN statement said the leaders “had a frank exchange of views on the way forward. They confirmed their readiness to engage constructively with (UN envoy) Ms. Jane Holl Lute, who will be visiting the island on 31 October”.
UN chief Antonio Guterres has instructed Lute to gauge the “true extent” of convergence on key issues and the willingness of the sides to incorporate novel proposals as part of an overall solution.
He said in his recent report to the UN Security Council that a peace deal to reunify Cyprus was “still alive” despite the collapse of talks at an UN-backed Swiss summit in July 2017.
There have been no official Cyprus negotiations between the two sides since then.
Anastasiades tweeted Friday: “We have reaffirmed that the solution sought is a Bi-zonal Bi-communal Federation. I explained to Akinci and discussed my proposal for a more functional solution by decentralising some powers.”
He has yet to elaborate on what his proposals are on a “looser federation”.
The United Nations has made clear it will not fully engage in a new peace process unless Cypriot leaders are committed into entering negotiations in a spirit of compromise.
Friday was only the second time the two leaders have met face-to-face and one of those was a dinner date in April.
The last talks aimed at reunifying the island as a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation collapsed in Switzerland last year after the UN chief failed to get the parties to agree on a post-settlement security arrangement for Cyprus.
It was the first time Cyprus talks involved the guarantor powers of Britain, Greece and Turkey.
Under the island’s 1960 treaty of independence, the three countries secured intervention rights to safeguard the island’s sovereignty, but the Greek Cypriots want these scrapped while the Turkish Cypriots are reluctant to do so.
The other stumbling block is that Anastasiades wants all Turkish troops to leave the island after a solution is reached while Akinci is opposed to this idea.
Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when Turkish troops invaded and occupied its northern third in response to a coup sponsored by the military junta then ruling Greece.
Tensions in the region heightened after Nicosia stepped up its search for natural gas reserves, a move opposed by Turkey.
The EU — of which Cyprus is a member state while Turkey is not — condemned Turkey’s actions in the eastern Mediterranean in trying to block oil and gas exploration in Cyprus’ maritime zone.
