Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci met at an old roadside inn, the Buyuk Han (Great Inn), built during the Ottoman era. Accompanied by the leaders of both sides of the divided city of Nicosia, the two men took a Sunday stroll and then drank coffee – one ordered Greek and the other ordered Turkish… but the taste was the same.

As aroma wafted around them, the two leaders chatted. UN Special Adviser for Cyprus Espen Barthe Eide told reporters that the two leaders “shared their vision for a united Cyprus.”

As a sign of goodwill and a mutual commitment to peace, the two leaders decided to work on a number of confidence-building issues. Anastasiades disclosed the coordinates of 28 minefields dotting a mountain range in the occupied north and Akinci announced that people crossing any of the seven north-south checkpoints along the UN-controlled buffer zones no longer need to fill out an application mandated by the occupation regime, so that the process could be sped up.

The next meeting is to take place on May 28.