by Our Foreign Desk

CYPRIOT President Nicos Anastasiades followed up his agreement to meet newly elected Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci this weekend by announcing last night that he will provide him with details about minefields in the north of the island.

This development is one of a series of moves that Mr Anastasiades hopes will foster trust for a resumption of reunification talks.

He undertook to hand over details and maps on 28 anti-personnel minefields along the Pentadaktylos mountain range.

The minefields were planted before the island was split in 1974 after Turkey invaded in response to a coup by supporters of the far-right colonels’ junta in Greece.

The two men are due to meet on Saturday in the first meeting between Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders since September.

President Anastasiades put talks on hold in October in protest against Turkey’s exploration for gas in waters where Nicosia has licensed companies to drill.

The national president also agreed to transfer administrative control of Muslim places of worship in the south of the country to the Turkish Cypriot religious authority.

Moreover, Turkish-speakers will be hired to assist Turkish Cypriots at government-run administrative service centres.

President Anastasiades praised a bid by football officials from both sides of the divided island to unify the sport under a single administrative roof.

He explained that the measures stem from his “strong conviction for the need to create a climate of trust that would bolster the negotiating process.”

The president expressed his pleasure with Mr Akinci’s willingness to discuss his proposal for opening up Varosha, a suburb of the coastal town of Famagusta in the north that has turned into a virtual ghost town after being fenced off and kept under Turkish army control since 1974.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had earlier rebuked Mr Akinci for suggesting that Ankara should deal with Turkish Cypriots as equals.

Mr Akinci had said that he favours a relationship “between brothers” with Turkey rather than one where the “motherland” dictates terms.

Mr Erdogan said in response that Turkey bankrolls the budget for northern Cyprus, has made sacrifices for it and will continue to consider it as its “child.”