Cyprus leaders in talks to end 35-year deadlock

CYPRUS’s rival leaders held productive talks over their divided island’s future yesterday in their first substantive meeting aimed at ending an almost 35-year stalemate, a United Nations envoy said yesterday.

Cyprus President Dimitris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader, Mehmet Ali Talat, did not reveal details of their almost four-and-a-half-hour meeting in an abandoned airport inside the UN-controlled buffer zone splitting the two sides.

But UN special envoy, Alexander Downer, was positive.