Cypriot leaders make headway towards fresh Geneva talks

By Canberk Yuksel

NEW YORK (AA) - Turkish Cypriot President Mustafa Akinci on Monday announced progress towards a Geneva peace conference in June for a "win-win" on the divided island.

Akinci told reporters in New York that his meeting with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Greek Cypriot leader Nicos Anastasiades on Sunday night had injected "common sense and logic" into the ongoing talks.

He said the path had now been cleared for a "win-win" situation in search of political equality on Cyprus.

Akinci had lamented before Sunday's meeting with Anastasiades and Guterres of a "bottleneck" in the talks due to the Greek side's "persistent preconditions".

The Eastern Mediterranean island has been divided since 1974, when a Greek coup was followed by violence against the island’s Turks, and Ankara's intervention as a guarantor power.

Akinci and Anastasiades have been involved in reunification talks to create a federal state since May 2015.

The pair met several times in Geneva last year, but their last meeting in February was fraught with controversy over a Greek Cypriot decision to introduce a commemoration of the 1950 Enosis referendum on unification with Greece.

Both sides had agreed on most of the issues in the reunification deal but the sticking points, including a security and guarantees system, remain unresolved.