Cypriot reunification still seems a distant prospect

In the early hours of this morning, the tired-looking Secretary General of the UN took to the stage in Switzerland to announce the first major failure of his tenure.

“I’m very sorry to inform you that despite the very strong commitment and engagement of all the delegations and different parties, the conference on Cyprus was closed without an agreement being reached,” said Antonio Gutteres.

The week-long talks in the mountain resort of Crans-Montana were the culmination of two years of negotiations to try to stick Cyprus back together. It is a daunting task: although tiny, with an area less than half the size of Wales and a total population of 1.2 million, the island is deeply divided. Ten years of violence between the Greek and Turkish speaking communities and political brinkmanship between Athens and Ankara eventually led to a Greek coup in 1974, followed by a Turkish invasion in the north. Since then, a UN-controlled buffer zone has split the Greek-speaking republic in the south from the Turkish-speaking breakaway, recognised only by Ankara, in the north.