- Title: Cyprus leaders start week of crunch peace talks
- Date: 9th January 2017
- Summary: GENEVA, SWITZERLAND (JANUARY 9, 2017) (AGENCY POOL) **** WARNING CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY **** ANASTASIADES AND EIDE WALKING IN CORRIDOR DELEGATION ENTERING MEETING ROOM AKINCI ENTERING MEETING ROOM AKINCI STANDING INSIDE ROOM DELEGATIONS BEHIND ROUND TABLE AKINCI SITTING EIDE, SPEHAR AND OTHER MEMBERS OF UNITED NATIONS DELEGATION SITTING AKINCI LOOKING ON ANASTASIADES TALKING
- Embargoed: 24th January 2017 09:28
- Keywords: peace talks Mustafa Akinci Nicos Anastasiades reunification
- Location: GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
- City: GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
- Country: Switzerland
- Topics: Diplomacy/Foreign Policy,Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA0025YCZO07
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Leaders of ethnically split Cyprus settled down for a week of intensive talks in Geneva on Monday (January 9), seeking to reach the outline of a peace deal to end decades of division.
Hoping to succeed where others failed, Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci and Greek Cypriot leader Nicos Anastasiades were meeting at the United Nations headquarters in the Swiss city for three full days of discussions.
The talks would subsequently broaden to include other nations with a stake on the strategically placed island on Thursday.
New U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who was expected to attend the conference on Thursday (January 12), has described the talks as an "historic opportunity" for a breakthrough.
Power-sharing, redrawing property boundaries and security issues in a future reunited homeland are key sticking points in negotiations that have resulted in logjams in the past.
However, mediators are keen to capitalize on the momentum of two moderates at the helm of their communities before domestic election cycles dislodge the process.
Cyprus's Greek and Turkish Cypriots have lived estranged since 1974, when Turkey invaded the island's north after a brief Greek-inspired coup. The seeds of partition were sown years earlier soon after independence from Britain in 1960.
Today, the island of just over one million inhabitants is split with Turkish Cypriots in the north and Greek Cypriots in the south, separated by one of the world's oldest U.N. peacekeeping forces. - Copyright Holder: POOL (CAN SELL)
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