Turkish Cypriot President Mustafa Akinci canceled a meeting to discuss Cyprus' future over the Greek Cypriot administration's failure to annul its controversial Enosis law, sources from the presidency said Wednesday.
The sources, who asked not to be named due to restrictions on speaking to the media, said that Akinci decided not to take part in a leaders' meeting scheduled for Thursday in the island's buffer zone.
The reunification talks -- brokered by UN Special Cyprus Envoy Espen Barth -- were launched in May 2015 to discuss a permanent settlement for the divided Mediterranean island.
But the talks stalled over the Greek Cypriot parliament's vote last Friday to introduce a yearly public school commemoration of a 1950 referendum in which Greek Cypriots voted overwhelmingly for Athens to take over the island, an idea known as Enosis.
On Monday, Akinci urged Greek Cypriot leader Nicos Anastasiades not to approve the decision. Talks on Tuesday were cancelled amid disagreement over the Enosis move.
Akinci said that the idea of Enosis and the events it triggered had been tragic for Cyprus.
The eastern Mediterranean island was divided into a Turkish Cypriot state in the north and a Greek Cypriot administration in the south after an Enosis-inspired 1974 military coup was followed by violence against the island's Turkish population, and the subsequent intervention of Turkey as a guarantor power.
The Cypriot issue remains unsolved despite a series of discussions which resumed in May 2015.
The main goal is to find a political solution, as the sides seek to reunify the island under a federal system after more than 40 years of division.
Cyprus' three guarantors -- Turkey, Greece, and the United Kingdom -- were assigned when it gained independence from Britain in 1960.
