(Bloomberg) -- Cyprus’s president accepted an invitation to a UN-brokered meeting that will attempt to restart talks on unification of the divided island, although it’s unclear if Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar will agree to attend.
A Aug. 13 meeting in New York has been proposed with the aim of kick-starting discussions on the decades-old Cyprus problem, Nikos Christodoulides said in a speech late Saturday, according to a transcript sent from his office.
Christodoulides added that he hopes holding the meeting “will lead to positive results that cannot be other than the resumption of talks.”
There’s no guarantee, though, that Tatar will accept the invitation from United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
“There is no common ground for the resumption of negotiations on the Cyprus issue,” the Turkish-Cypriot presidency cited Tatar as saying in a statement carried by Turkey’s state-run Anadolu agency. “There is no need to meet in a tripartite or any other format.”
European Union member Cyprus — less than half the size of New Jersey — was effectively partitioned in 1963 when fighting erupted between its two main ethnic groups: Greek-speaking and Turkish-speaking Cypriots.
It was fully divided in 1974 after Turkey captured the northern third of the island with the aim of protecting minority Turkish Cypriots. That followed an Athens-backed coup by supporters of union of the whole island with Greece, then ruled by a military junta. The island has been divided ever since.
Numerous UN-led efforts over the decades to reunify the eastern Mediterranean nation on the basis of a bi-zonal federation have failed. The most recent effort came in 2021, when officials from Turkey, Greece and the UK — guarantor powers under an agreement that ended British colonial rule in Cyprus — joined top Greek- and Turkish-Cypriot politicians in Geneva for three days of talks.
The enduring Cyprus problem has strained relations between NATO members Greece and Turkey, and a solution would pave the way to fix other long-standing issues as well.
It could help with Turkey’s own bid to join the EU, aid in solving maritime border disputes between Turkey, Cyprus and Greece, and provide an alternative route to pump natural gas from the eastern Mediterranean into Europe via a pipeline through Cyprus to Turkey.
This month’s meeting also comes at a time of heightened tensions in the broader region.
Cyprus, Greece and the UK continue to support a solution based on a bi-zonal federation, while Turkey and the Turkish Cypriot administration favor the creation of two separate states.
The self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is recognized only by Turkey. The Republic of Cyprus, which is internationally recognized, officially has sovereignty over the entire island but is only able to govern in the south. Turkey doesn’t recognize the ROC.
--With assistance from Sotiris Nikas and Inci Ozbek.
(Updates with Turkish news agency statement in fifth paragraph.)
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