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Cyprus peace talks to restart 'within weeks'

April 7, 2015

Peace talks on ethnically-divided Cyprus will resume soon, according to the area's UN envoy. Both sides have taken a half-year break amid an argument over offshore gas reserves.

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Zypern Nordzypern Fahne Türkei 20.07.2014
Image: AFP/Getty Images

The peace talks will resume "within weeks, not months, from today," said Espen Barth Eide, a Norwegian diplomat who oversees the Cyprus peace process for the UN.

Eide said Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu agreed to resume talks, after presidential elections in the breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus on April 19.

"I see no obstacle to a very early resumption of talks once the election process in the north of Cyprus is done," Eide said.

Cyprus was divided in 1974 between the Turkish North and Greek-supported South, during an invasion by Turkey that followed a coup by supporters of a union with Greece. Peace talks were halted last year after Turkey launched a search for gas, in waters where the Cypriot government has licensed companies to drill.

jr/msh (Reuters, AP, AFP)