Turkish Cypriot President Mustafa Akıncı held a "detailed and fruitful" meeting yesterday with the United Nations special envoy on Cyprus talks, Jane Holl Lute.
The closed-door meeting between Akıncı and Lute at the presidential palace in Nicosia lasted around two hours.
Speaking after the meeting, Turkish Cypriot presidential spokesman Barış Burcu said both sides held a "detailed and fruitful meeting" and are expected to meet again today.
Lute, who arrived on the island for consultations with both sides as part of the resumption of Cyprus talks, held a meeting with Greek Cypriot leader Nicos Anastasiades on Sunday.
Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when a Greek Cypriot coup was followed by violence against the island's Turks and Ankara's intervention as a guarantor power. The Greek Cypriot administration is a member of the European Union and is internationally recognized by all nations except Turkey, which in turn remains the only country that recognizes the TRNC (Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus).
The U.N. has sought a peace deal to unite Cyprus under a federal umbrella that could also define the future of Europe's relations with Turkey, a key player in the issue. The Turkish side has always been a supportive actor to U.N.-led negotiations to find a just and viable settlement to the Cyprus issue. However, the peace talks on the ethnically-divided island have yielded no results so far. Turkey has been blaming Greek Cypriot intransigence for the failure of the talks, with rejections of several agreements and proposals in 1986, 1992, 2014 and, most recently, in July 2017.
