NICOSIA, April 16 (Xinhua) -- The leaders of the estranged Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities met over dinner on Monday night to explore the possibility of resuming the Cyprus peace negotiations which collapsed last July.
It was the first meeting in almost ten months between Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades, who represents the Greek Cypriot community, and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci, since their negotiations for the reunification of the eastern Mediterranean island stalled at a conference at Crans-Montana, Switzerland.
Journalists and cameramen were held back from the meeting.
The dinner meeting was hosted by United Nations (UN) Secretary-General's Special Representative in Cyprus, Canadian diplomat Elizabeth Spehar, who held several separate meetings with the two leaders before bringing them together.
As the two leaders made their way to her residence in the buffer zone, groups and organizations from both Cypriot communities gathered outside the entrances to the old Nicosia airport which serves as the headquarters of the UN peace mission in Cyprus.
The organizers of the rally said its aim was to "mobilize and impress" on the two leaders the need for an immediate breakthrough and resumption of the talks based on the framework of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres without any preconditions.
A delegation of the bi-communal Peace Initiative United Cyprus, which brings together more than 70 organizations working for peace and reunification, had a meeting with Spehar earlier in the day.
They handed her a message addressed to the two leaders urging them "to live up to the expectations" of Cypriots and reconvene a negotiation process that would lead to an agreed solution.
However, statements ahead of the meeting showed that the two leaders did not see eye-to-eye on the terms of resuming their negotiations, which UN diplomats said had come close to an agreement before last summer's setback.
Anastasiades wants the negotiations to start from where they left off last July and be conducted in line with a framework set down by Guterres, before he sent each party to the disagreement to reflect on the situation.
Akinci, acting in line with a policy set down by the Turkish government, wants a strict time-limit for the conclusion of the negotiations and also demanded participation in the Cypriot government's planning for natural gas exploration, which is strongly disputed by Turkey.
Sources quoted by national television reported that the most that can be expected from the meeting is a joint call to the UN Secretary General to appoint a temporary special advisor to Guterres to look into the prospects and conditions for the recommencement of the talks.
There was also speculation about new confidence building measures, including the opening of two new crossing points to facilitate the movement of people across the line dividing Cyprus into south and north.
The opening of the crossing points, on which work has been going on for several months, has been demanded by organizations from both communities working towards a reunification of Cyprus.
