NICOSIA, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Greek and Turkish Cypriot workers turned their Labor Day celebrations on Tuesday into a rally to press their leaders to engage in new negotiations aimed at ending the four-decade partition of Cyprus.
Workers from both sides converged on the U.N. controlled buffer zone separating the Greek and Turkish Cypriot sector of the capital Nicosia for a joint May Day celebration.
Their meeting late on Tuesday turned into a rally for the resumption of the stalled negotiations as speakers from both sides time and again urged the community leaders not to delay any more the restart of the peace negotiations.
Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades, representing the Greek Cypriot Community, and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci, were reported by political analysts as moving closer to the resumption of their deadlocked talks.
Negotiations to reunite Cyprus collapsed in July 2017 as the two sides could not reconcile their differences over security arrangements and power sharing.
The United Nations, which preside over the on and off negotiations since the late 1970s, expect the two sides to move in unison and suggest to the secretary general ways to move ahead.
Decades of negotiations have ironed out most of the differences, but there are core gaps which have to be bridged.
