Cyprus' Greek president to attend UN backed meeting with Turkish leader

Nicos Anastasiades, the Greek president of the ethnically divided Cyprus, on February 25, said that he would attend a UN-backed meeting with the leader of breakaway Turkish Cypriot with full “political will” to resume the otherwise dormant peace talks. The meeting, scheduled for April 27 to 29 in Switzerland, would also be attended by foreign ministers of Cyprus' three “guarantors” — Greece, Turkey and Britain. Anastasiades has expressed a strong will to get on common grounds with Ersin Tatar, who was chosen as the President of breakaway Northern Cyprus in 2019.

The Republic of Cyprus, located in the Mediterranean Sea, is ethnically divided between Greeks and Turks. While Turkey and Northern Cyprus have suggested that a two-state solution was the only way out of the island’s conflict, the other side does not doesn’t support such a formula. Both Cyprus and Greece, have called for a "bizonal federation" as the only solution for the reunification of the Mediterranean island.

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Ankara's shift 

The meeting would mark the latest attempt to get both the sides ink an accord to establish peace on the Island. The meeting is also jeopardized by Ankara’s recent shift from its call on establishing a federal sytem consisting of Greek and Turkish speaking nations to the establishment of a sovereign state. Besides, the issue of Cyprus, Turkey and Greece have been at loggerheads on a variety of other matters such as control over a sliver in the Meditation Sea. 

The relationship between Greece and Turkey has been alternating between periods of hostile acts and reconciliation ever since Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century. The TCG Cesme, a research vessel, was deployed in the Aegean Sea in March earlier his year for conducting a hydrographic surveyor “scientific and technical research” concerning earthquakes. However, Greece had opposed Ankara’s move, saying it was against the spirit of renewed dialogue between the two. The Turkish government, on February 23, accused the Greek military of harassing a Turkish research vehicle in the west of the Islands of Lemnos in the Aegean Sea. 

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(With inputs from the Associated Press)