NICOSIA, Feb. 26 (Xinhua) -- The leaders of the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities met for the first time in five months and announced a series of confidence building measures, but failed to agree on the resumption of peace negotiations, the United Nations mission in Cyprus said on Tuesday in a statement.
The statement said that Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci met for more than three hours, discussing both the terms for the resumption of the Cyprus reunification talks, and measures to boost confidence between the two communities.
It added that they agreed to link the two sides' mobile telephony networks and the joining of the electricity grids of the two sides, two measures originally decided in 2015 but never implemented.
The UN statement also said that the leaders decided on other measures, including the exchange of cultural works and the clearance of nine areas believed to be minefields.
It said that Akinci had announced his side's decision to hand over a host of religious icons and other artefacts stored in a mediaeval castle in the city of Kyrenia.
The meeting was presided over by UN permanent representative in Cyprus Elizabeth Spehar as another UN activity on Cyprus was under way in Athens.
UN official Jane Holl Lute met at about the same time with Greek Foreign Minister George Katroungalos in Athens to discuss the prospects of resuming the peace negotiations for the reunification of the eastern Mediterranean island stalled since July, 2017.
Lute, a personal envoy of the U.N. secretary general, had earlier met in London with British officials and is scheduled to soon travel to Ankara to discuss with Turkish government officials about the termination of guarantee rights held by Greece, Turkey and Britain.
Anastasiades and Akinci exchanged views on the terms of reference of renewed negotiations but the UN statement kept silence on this issue.
However, Akinci said after the meeting that he floated Turkey's view that the negotiations cannot restart before June, claiming that they would be disturbed by upcoming elections in Cyprus and Greece for new European Parliament deputies and possibly national elections in Greece for a new parliament.
Speaking after the meeting, Anastasiades said they had agreed with Akinci to do their best to draft the terms of reference that would allow the two sides to return to a "creative and effective dialogue."
He described the meeting as friendly, adding that this did not mean that they agreed on everything.
The eastern Mediterranean island was partitioned when Turkey occupied the northern part of Cyprus in 1974, in response to a coup by the Greek military rulers at the time.
