UN chief convenes informal talks on Cyprus in Geneva next week

GENEVA (Reuters) -United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres is hosting talks next week in Geneva to discuss the future of Cyprus, with Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders, and representatives from Greece, Turkey and Britain, a U.N. spokesperson said on Friday.

"The informal meeting ... will provide an opportunity for a meaningful discussion on the way forward on the Cyprus issue," said U.N. spokesperson Michele Zaccheo at a Geneva press briefing.

The talks are seen as a way to try to break a deadlock in negotiations that stalled in 2017.

President Nikos Christodoulides has been invited to attend as leader of the Greek Cypriot community alongside Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar, the head of a breakaway Turkish Cypriot state in north Cyprus recognised only by Turkey.

The foreign minister of breakaway northern Cyprus, Tahsin Ertuğruloğlu, last week downplayed the likelihood of progress.

The island was split in a Turkish invasion in 1974 after a brief Greek-inspired coup, following years of sporadic violence between Greek and Turkish Cypriots almost immediately after independence from Britain in 1960.

(Reporting by Emma Farge, Editing by Miranda Murray and Alex Richardson)

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