Leaders of divided Cyprus to meet on November 20, officials say

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NICOSIA (Reuters) -Leaders of ethnically-split Cyprus will meet on November 20, officials said on Monday, marking their first encounter since the election of a new Turkish Cypriot leader last month.

Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman and Greek Cypriot leader Nikos Christodoulides will meet at the residence of the envoy to the United Nations peacekeeping force on the island. The announcement of the meeting was issued simultaneously by the Greek and Turkish Cypriot sides.

Erhurman, a centre-left moderate, won by a landslide in a presidential election in the breakaway Turkish Cypriot state on October 19, pledging to work to revive stalled U.N. talks on reunifying Cyprus.

The meeting was for the two to “become acquainted”, a statement from Erhurman’s administration said. A spokesperson for Christodoulides said he was going to the encounter with “constructive and sincere political will”.

Cyprus was split in a Turkish invasion in 1974 after a brief Greek-inspired coup, following years of intermittent ethnic strife which caused the breakdown of a power-sharing administration and the dispatch of a U.N. peacekeeping force in 1964.

The conflict is a source of tension between NATO allies Greece and Turkey and complicates Ankara’s long-frustrated ambitions of joining the EU.

(Reporting by Michele Kambas; Editing by Alex Richardson)