NICOSIA, 6 September 2007 — Rival Greek- and Turkish-Cypriot leaders held a rare face-to-face meeting yesterday, but in three and a half hours of talks they failed to make headway on ending the island’s 33-year division.
Neither Cyprus President Tassos Papadopoulos nor Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat took reporters’ questions after the meeting on neutral ground in the UN-patrolled buffer zone.
Looking stiff and uncomfortable, the two leaders also failed to pose together for photographers ahead of the meeting as they have before talks in the past. It was left to the meeting’s host, UN mission chief Michael Moeller, to read out a brief and carefully worded statement.
He praised the “constructive atmosphere” of the meeting but announced no breakthrough, not even a date for new talks.
The two leaders “agreed to continue their contacts through the United Nations and to meet again when appropriate,” he said.
