Negotiations between Cyprus leaders stall on agreement for additional crossing points.

NICOSIA – An encounter involving the two leaders in Cyprus, a nation divided along ethnic lines, concluded without a consensus on Monday. The parties were unable to finalize a deal intended to foster trust, which encompassed the establishment of fresh crossing points across a buffer zone regulated by the United Nations.

Following the meeting, Nicos Christodoulides, the Greek Cypriot president, and Ersin Tatar, the Turkish Cypriot leader, issued a joint statement declaring that their envoys have been tasked with continuing discussions, with plans for another face-to-face meeting “in the coming days.”

The two leaders convened for a period nearing two hours at the official residence of Colin Stewart, the head of mission of the U.N. peacekeeping force stationed in Cyprus. Their objective was to finalize an agreement concerning the establishment of additional crossing points along specific junctures within a 180-kilometer (120-mile) U.N.-controlled demilitarized zone running through the island.

But the leaders left the meeting without announcing any crossing point openings. They affirmed in the joint statement that they “both believe that opening of new crossing points is critical to promote people-to-people contacts, strengthen economic ties and build trust.”

The dispute appears to be over the location of the crossing points, which would be of mutual benefit. Christodoulides said after the meeting that Tatar rejected a specific crossing point location and “wasn’t ready” to agree on a package of eight trust-building initiatives that included the setting up of joint committees on youth affairs, as well as a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

“Everything depends on when the Turkish side is ready,” Christodoulides said.

There are eight such crossing points along the entire length of the buffer zone, enabling people from each side to cross daily — many, primarily Turkish Cypriots, to work — since the first such crossings opened in April 2003.

But people on both sides want to see more such crossing points opened to ease and speed up their commutes across the dividing line that was cemented in 1974 when Turkey invaded a few days after a coup mounted by supporters of uniting the island with Greece.

A Turkish Cypriot declaration of independence is recognized only by Turkey, which maintains more than 35,000 troops in the island’s northern third.

A crossing point deal would have given a much-needed boost to U.N. efforts to get formal talks on resolving the island’s ethnic division up and running again after a seven-year hiatus. The United Nations will host Christodoulides and Tatar along with senior officials from the island’s so-called guarantors — Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom — in Switzerland in March to figure out how to get negotiations back on track.

But an insistence by Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots on ditching a U.N.-endorsed plan to reunify Cyprus as a federation made up of Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot zones and demanding a two-state deal instead has dampened hopes of a peace deal.

Greek Cypriots won’t sign up to any deal that formally partitions the island, and they oppose any clause, as demanded by Turkey, to permanently station Turkish troops on the island and to grant military intervention rights to Ankara.