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UN envoy in Cyprus to test climate for peace

A file picture shows Jane Holl Lute taking part in a meeting on UN peacekeeping in London on September 8, 2016

A United Nations envoy on Monday began contacts with Cypriot leaders to gauge whether the time is ripe to revive talks on reunifying the island a year after they collapsed. Jane Holl Lute, a former US deputy secretary for homeland security, has been tasked with conducting consultations with the Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders. On Monday she met Greek Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades for nearly three hours and made no comment afterwards. Later she is scheduled to cross the UN-patrolled ceasefire line to go north to hold talks with Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci. Lute is due to depart for New York on Tuesday and return to Europe once dates are confirmed for her consultations in Athens, Ankara, London and Brussels, the Cyprus News Agency said. She is expected to compile a report on her findings for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres who appointed Lute to see if the sides had narrowed their difference since the failure of a Swiss summit in July 2017. The last talks aimed at reunifying the island as a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation collapsed in Switzerland a year ago after the UN chief failed to get the parties to agree on a post-settlement security arrangement for Cyprus. It was the first time Cyprus talks involved the guarantor powers of Britain, Greece and Turkey. Under the 1960 treaty of independence, the three countries secured intervention rights to safeguard the island's sovereignty, but the Greek Cypriots want these scrapped while the Turkish Cypriots are reluctant to do so. The other stumbling block is that Anastasiades wants all Turkish troops to leave the island after a solution is reached, while Akinci is opposed to this idea. Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when Turkish troops invaded and occupied its northern third in response to a coup sponsored by the military junta then ruling Greece. Rival Cypriot leaders failed to revive their island's moribund peace process after an UN-backed informal dinner date in April -- their only meeting since the failed summit. Tensions in the region heightened after Nicosia stepped up its search for natural gas reserves, a move opposed by Ankara. The EU -- of which Cyprus is a member state while Turkey is not -- condemned Turkey's actions in the eastern Mediterranean in trying to block oil and gas exploration in Cyprus' maritime zone.