GENEVA (AP) — Rival sides in Cyprus’ decades-old dispute have exchanged some “creative ideas” on bridging differences over future security arrangements that could help reunify the east Mediterranean island, United Nations officials said Wednesday.
Overcoming these clashing views is a key objective of peace talks, which have resumed at the Swiss resort of Crans-Montana.
The exchange of ideas came at the start of a key round of U.N.-sponsored peace talks between Nicos Anastasiades, the Greek Cypriot President, and the Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci
Joining the leaders were top officials from Cyprus’ three so-called ‘guarantors’, Greece, Turkey and Britain, whose input is essential in formulating a new post-reunification security structure for the island, which has a combined population of 1.1 million.
“There was, I would say a remarkably positive attitude,” U.N. Under-Secretary General Jeffrey Feltman told reporters.
Feltman added that he felt reassured over the “forward-looking nature” of the comments made at the talks.
The security issue is pivotal to a peace deal to reunify Cyprus as a federation — and by and large the most difficult.
Greek Cypriots want a peace deal removing the 35,000 or so troops that Turkey has kept in the breakaway Turkish Cypriot north since 1974 when it invaded following a coup led by supporters of union with Greece. They also want military intervention rights granted to the guarantors under Cyprus’ 1960 constitution expunged.
But the minority Turkish Cypriots see the troops as their only protection and want them to stay — Turkish officials have said the removal of all troops is a non-starter.
Anastasiades has previously proposed an international police force to ensure security and U.N. oversight to enforce it.
U.N. envoy Espen Barth Eide said the Cypriot leaders and other diplomats would take up security in more detail during an afternoon session. Parallel discussions will take place on other outstanding issues such as how power will be shared on a federal level and how much territory will comprise the two sides’ federal zones.
Eide said achieving a comprehensive deal Crans-Montana is “hard, but not impossible.” Short of that, the UN envoy said what’s aimed for is a breakthrough that would “lead the leaders to tell each other that Cyprus will reunify.”
“It is the best chance and after this morning I feel even better about this chance,” said Eide.
If there is a deal, it will be put to a vote in both communities later this year, the U.N. envoy said.
About a dozen Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot activists from the peace group #UniteCyprusNow waved flags and held placards reading “peace” and “unite Cyprus now” outside the hall where the peace talks are taking place.
“We want the leaders to know that the people are watching and they’ll be held accountable for their actions,” activist Andromachi Sophocleous said by phone from Crans-Montana.
