Nicosia, Feb 10 (AP) The rival leaders of ethnically divided Cyprus said Monday that they're ready to take part in a UN-led gathering next month that could pave the way to a resumption of formal talks after an eight-year hiatus to resolve one of the world's most intractable disputes.

But it remains moot whether the meeting will successfully bridge a widening chasm that separates the leader of the breakaway Turkish Cypriots Ersin Tatar and the island's Greek Cypriot president, Nikos Christodoulides, on what a future peace deal should look like.

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Both Tatar and Christodoulides held separate talks with UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo to prepare the ground for the mid-March meeting that will also bring together officials from Cyprus' so-called guarantors: Greece, Turkiye and the United Kingdom.

DiCarlo said that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres remains committed to helping both sides move forward with formal negotiations, while Christodoulides repeated that continued ethnic division can't be Cyprus' future.

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“As we see in our neighbourhood, there are no frozen conflicts,” Christodoulides said.

Cyprus has been split along ethnic lines for more than a half-century. In 1974, Turkiye invaded the island in the immediate wake of an Greek junta-backed coup mounted by supporters of union with Greece.

Nearly a decade later, Turkish Cypriots declared independence in Cyprus northern third, where Turkiye maintains more than 35,000 troops.

Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004, but only Greek Cypriots in the south where the island's internationally recognised government is seated enjoy full benefits.

Numerous UN-sponsored rounds of peace talks ended in failure, the most recent being in 2017. Following the collapse of those talks, Turkiye and the Turkish Cypriots opted out of reunifying Cyprus as a federation composed of Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot zones — a framework that all previous negotiations had operated under.

Instead, they insist on what is essentially a two-state deal under which Turkish Cypriots would have “sovereign equality and equal international status” like the majority Greek Cypriots, Tatar said Monday.

In turn, Greek Cypriots reject any peace deal that would formalise the island's partition. They also reject a Turkish and Turkish Cypriot demand for a post-settlement permanent Turkish troop presence and military intervention rights ceded to Ankara.

Indicative of the gulf separating the two sides is an ongoing disagreement on which additional crossing points should open across a 180-kilometre UN-controlled buffer zone to ease the flow of people to and from either side. There are currently eight such crossing points that are open.

Tatar said that the meeting next month would take place on March 17-18, but Cypriot government spokesman Constantinos Letymbiotis said that the United Nations will confirm the exact dates in due course.

DiCarlo also met with leading women from both communities on ways to boost the engagement of women in peace efforts. (AP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)