AFTER A four-year hiatus the leaders of the estranged Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities have launched intensive peace talks that are regarded as the best chance in a generation to reunite the EU's only divided state.
For the first time in 34 years each side is represented by a moderate leader committed to a settlement.
The good personal chemistry between the president, Demetris Christofias, who heads the Greek Cypriot community, and Mehmet Ali Talat, the Turki
sh Cypriot leader, is vital.
Both are pragmatic leftists who have known each other for years, share a degree of trust and address each other as "comrade".
"It is the time to end the long-lingering Cyprus problem and to give to the Cypriot people the better future they deserve," Mr Christofias said after meeting Mr Talat at a derelict airport in the UN-patrolled buffer zone dividing Nicosia.
Mr Talat agreed: "We are confident we will succeed in concluding a comprehensive agreement as soon as possible, and hopefully this year."
"If these two moderates (Cypriot leaders] cannot solve the Cyprus problem, then nobody can," Hubert Faustmann, an associate professor of international relations at the University of Nicosia, said.
The two sides have agreed to reunite as a bi-zonal, bi- communal federation, in which the two communities would live largely in separate areas and run their own affairs but have a strong central government to represent the island abroad.
They differ on how this might be achieved, however. Mr Christofias insisted yesterday that an agreement must be a federal model and not a partnership of separate states.
The island has been divided since in 1974.
