After 42 years of separation and more than a decade since the failure of the Annan Plan, a negotiated settlement to reunify the island of Cyprus is coming more sharply in focus.
Some say that this may be the last chance to strike a deal in a very long time.
President Nikos Anastasiades and the Turkish-Cypriot leader Mustafa Ak?nc? have tied their political survival to making a success of the ongoing negotiations. But hard nuts, such as territorial adjustments, remain to be cracked. The professed commitment of regional powers to guarantee a deal is partly driven by the desire to exploit energy resources in the Eastern Mediterranean.
The EU, for its part, is eager to end the legal fiction that the entire island is a member state.
How real are the chances to obtain a deal and what are the consequences of success or failure?
