Cyprus reunification 'within reach', claims John Kerry

Efforts to reunify Cyprus got their biggest boost yet when the US secretary of state, John Kerry, announced that a solution to one of the world’s longest-running disputes was finally “within reach”.

Sounding a rare note of optimism during a flying visit to the divided island on Thursday evening, Kerry hailed the “tangible progress” that had at last been made after decades of fruitless negotiations to end its ethnic split.

“I am more convinced than ever that a settlement is within reach. This will not happen automatically, but it can be done,” he told reporters after holding talks with the Mediterranean island’s Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders.

“A united Cyprus can stand as a beacon for peace in a troubled region of the world.”

The US secretary of state, who was forced to hold back-to-back meetings because of a tight schedule during which he will visit Athens on Friday, said Washington was focused on resolving the problem “at the highest levels”.

“It has been a priority for me and President Obama,” he insisted, adding that the pro-solution stance of president Nicos Anastastiades, who leads Cyprus’s internationally recognised Greek Cypriot-controlled south, and Mustafa Akinci, who heads the Turkish-run north, had given him cause for hope. “I am impressed with both Nicos and Mustafa. Our focus must be on what we can change. Today I have witnessed that desire.”

The two men, moderates who have shown an unusual willingness to make concessions, began holding talks shortly after Akinci’s electoral victory in May. Negotiations were intensified in November with both leaders agreeing to a further three meetings this month in the hope of making headway on the thorny issues of property, security and territorial adjustment – issues that, once settled, would underpin the “bi-zonal, bi-communal” federation reunifying their country. The politicians kick off the latest round on Friday in Nicosia’s abandoned airport, a potent reminder of the island’s partition within the UN-patrolled buffer zone that bisects the capital.

Cyprus has been at the forefront of a diplomatic flurry. Kerry’s visit was preceded by Sergei Lavrov, his Russian counterpart, making a similar tour on Wednesday. Last month, the British foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, also expressed optimism that a breakthrough was possible when he held talks in Nicosia.

On Tuesday, Turkey’s prime minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, flew to the self-proclaimed republic of northern Cyprus with the expressed purpose of meeting Akinci.

Ankara, which seized the island’s northern third after an abortive attempt at union with Greece prompted a Turkish invasion in 1974, has stoked much of the optimism by displaying an unprecedented accommodation and desire to resolve the dispute.

In a first for a Turkish leader, Davutoğlu uploaded a photo on his Facebook page of himself and Anastasiades smiling in the presence of the European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, at Sunday’s EU-Turkey summit in Brussels.

Ankara neither recognises the Republic of Cyprus nor Anastasiades as its president.

Both men were subsequently pictured standing next to one another in the “family photo” of heads of state taken at the end of the summit.

“Everyone seems keen to encourage the sense that we are on the verge of a historic agreement,” Dr James Ker-Lindsay, a Cyprus expert at the London School of Economics told the Guardian. “Symbolically, the family photo cannot be underplayed. The fact that Davutoğlu was willing to stand next to the Cyprus president was hugely significant and positive.”

Any deal would have to be endorsed by both communities in a public referendum. The last time Cyprus came close to reunification in 2004, Greek Cypriots roundly rejected the prospect of living with their compatriots under a UN-brokered blueprint known as the Annan plan. Even if an agreement is reached, analysts say hardliners on either side (but especially in the south) could yet scupper the process.