BRUSSELS (AP) – Turkish-Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat yesterday said his side will still need security guarantees from Turkey even if it accepts a significant reduction in Turkish troops as part of a deal to end the 34-year-old division of the island.

Talat said he accepted that the troops could be pulled out to a level to be agreed on in the talks with the Greek-Cypriot government in the south.

He is due to open a second round of talks today with Cyprus President Dimitris Christofias in a new drive to reunify the island.

“It is very clear that Turkish troops, other than the agreed number, will be withdrawn from the island,” Talat said at a think-tank conference in Brussels, Belgium. “It will drop down to an agreed number... all this will be negotiated.” He referred to an earlier plan to forge an agreement between the two sides, which limited troop deployments to what he called a “symbolic” level of 950 from Turkey and 650 from Greece.

However, in a stance likely to rankle the other side, Talat said the Turkish Cypriots wanted Turkey to continue to guarantee their protection.

“Our position is to keep the guarantee and protection agreements applied,” Talat said.

Despite the differences, Talat was optimistic that an agreement can be found by the end of this year, or at the latest by June, when European Parliament elections are due. A reunification agreement would allow the Turkish Cypriots to enter the European Union, which Cyprus joined in 2004.

The Turkish-Cypriot leader said the biggest stumbling block to a deal with the Greek Cypriots was the question of property rights for people displaced by the conflict in 1974.

“It will somehow affect everybody, almost everybody, so that will be the most thorny issue,” he said, adding that the two sides had agreed to first tackle issues relating to political power-sharing before turning to the property question.