NICOSIA, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Supporters of peace negotiations on both sides of the dividing line which separates Turkish and Greek Cypriots have the upper hand after separate elections in the two communities, political analysts said on Tuesday.
Nicos Moudouros, a specialist on Turkish and Turkish Cypriot affairs, said Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci handed the task of forming a new "government" of the breakaway Turkish Cypriot state to the leader of a leftist pro-negotiations party after elections earlier this month.
He said that the coalition "government" by two leftist and two center Turkish Cypriot parties is certain to support an early resumption of the stalled peace negotiations between Greek and Turkish Cypriots.
On the Greek Cypriot side, voters in a presidential election on Sunday sent two supporters of the peace negotiations to a run-off vote on Feb. 4, blocking the way to a candidate who said that if elected would seek a change of the terms of the talks.
Moudouros told a private radio station that such a move would lead to a prolonged stalemate as Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots would almost certainly reject changing the terms of reference of the negotiators to seek a federal state solution under which the two communities would share power.
Outgoing center-right President Nicos Anastasiades and leftist politician Stavros Malas, who have almost identical views on the Cyprus peace process, received a total of almost 66 percent of the votes in Sunday's election, giving a boost to the prospects of an early resumption of the negotiations.
"Given the fact that opponents of the negotiations said that they should consider the result of the election as a referendum for adopting a new line in the talks, the electoral result should be considered as a clear mandate for the continuation of the peace process," Moudouros said.
"Whoever is elected in the runoff on Sunday, it is certain that he will seek an early resumption of the negotiations," he added.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who presided over a failed conference on Cyprus in July, said that he would be prepared to call a new round of negotiations only after the leaders of the two communities jointly asked him to do so.
A UN Security Council resolution made available in Nicosia on Tuesday urged the leaders to put their efforts behind further work on reaching convergences on the core issues and to intensify work on practical reunification measures.
"The UN Secretary General's Good Offices remain available to assist the sides, should they jointly decide to re-engage in negotiations with the necessary political will," the resolution said.
The resolution extended for six months the mandate of a UN peacekeeping force which controls a buffer zone between Greek and Turkish Cypriot areas since Turkey occupied the northern part of Cyprus in 1974, in response to a coup by the military rulers of Greece at the time.
