The leaders of Cyprus’s divided communities met yesterday for the first time in a year but made no apparent progress in relaunching stalled peace talks, harming Turkey’s EU accession bid.

Greek-Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos and Turkish-Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat left the three-hour meeting, hosted by the United Nations in an airport compound abandoned in fighting in 1974, without making any statements to the media. Looking stiff and uncomfortable, the two leaders also failed to pose together for photographers as they have after previous meetings. It was left to the meeting’s host, UN mission chief Michael Moeller, to read out a brief and carefully worded statement. “They agreed to continue their contact through the United Nations and to meet again when appropriate,” Moeller told reporters. Diplomats had said they did not expect a major breakthrough because of Greek-Cypriot elections in February and disputes on the peace talks agenda. The two leaders had last met in July 2006. “They agreed on the need for the earliest start of the process, and discussed other issues, leading to a comprehensive settlement,” Moeller added. The conflict is a source of tension between NATO allies Greece and Turkey, which invaded the Mediterranean island in 1974 after a brief Greek coup.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband had said earlier in in Ankara that the talks were “potentially very important for the Cyprus issue.”

Turkey’s EU entry hopes are complicated because Cyprus is already a member of the bloc, with veto rights over Ankara. A July 2006 deal outlining a two-track process of Turkish-favored discussions on confidence-building, and tackling harder issues, such as displaced people’s rights advocated by the Greeks, was never carried through due to disputes over what took precedence. (Combined reports)