U.N. envoy takes pulse for Cyprus reunification bid

Senior United Nations official began three days of talks on Monday with Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders, taking the pulse for negotiations on reunifying the divided island, expected in three months' time.

A spokesman for the United Nations mission in Cyprus said Under-Secretary General for Political Affairs Lynn Pascoe "is here to try to determine how the U.N. can best help the efforts of the parties to relaunch the process for negotiations".

Greek and Turkish Cypriots have been estranged since a Turkish invasion in 1974 triggered by a brief Greek inspired coup. Peace talks collapsed in 2004 when Greek Cypriots rejected a U.N. reunification blueprint accepted by Turkish Cypriots.

The Greek Cypriots represent Cyprus in the European Union and have a veto over the EU accession bid of Turkey, which keeps some 30,000 troops in north Cyprus.

Greek Cypriot leader Demetris Christofias, elected president a month ago, has vowed to press ahead with reunification talks with Mehmet Ali Talat, the Turkish Cypriot leader.

"I'm always optimistic," Pascoe told reporters after a meeting with Christofias on Monday.

Both sides have agreed to resume peace talks by the end of June. Aides have launched
consultations on negotiation topics including property and territory disputes as part of preparation for talks.

The sides are in the meantime expected to dismantle a poignant symbol of decades of division when they open up the Ledra Street thoroughfare in the centre of divided capital Nicosia to pedestrians in early April.

The street runs across the east-west ceasefire line bisecting Nicosia and marks the spot where the first seeds of division were sown in the late 1950s, when Cyprus was still a British colony.