Athens/Nicosia  - Polling started Saturday in the internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus, as the divided island's Greek Cypriots cast their votes in the European Parliament elections.

Forty-seven candidates compete for six seats on the eastern Mediterranean island.

Polling at the 1,092 voting centres began at 6 am (0400 GMT) until noon, and after a one-hour break is to continue until 8 pm (1100 GMT). About 526,060 Greek-Cypriot residents in the southern part of the island, which joined the EU in 2004, are elegible to cast their ballots.

The European elections take place only in the internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus, the breakaway Turkish-controlled north in not a member of the European Union.

Some 1,305 registered Turkish Cypriot voters living in the south will cast their ballots at five centres across the island.

Officials expect voter turnout to match the last elections in 2004, the first time Cypriots had elected members of the European Parliament. Cyprus recorded had the second-highest voter turnout of the bloc at 72.5 per cent, behind Malta.

The island's reunification has been a major campaign issue between the ruling left-wing AKEL party and its main rival, the rightist DISY.

The parties have been attacking each other on their differing views on the Cyprus problem, where progress on the issue is intertwined with Turkey's EU membership bid.

Cypriot President Dimitris Christofias, leader of the communist rooted AKEL party came to power in February 2008, promising to reinvigorate the divided island's stalled peace process.

Christofias has had dozens of meeting with his Turkish-Cypriot counterpart Mehmet Ali Talat but progress remains slow.

Despite renewed efforts to solve the problem, EU diplomats say that the ongoing conflict over Cyprus has become the bloc's single biggest problem in two key areas: It is troubling Turkey's bid to join the EU and it is complicating the bloc's relationship with Europe's premier military power, NATO.

The Mediterranean island has been divided since a Turkish invasion in 1974 sparked by a brief Greek-inspired coup. Greek Cypriots have lived in the south of Cyprus and Turkish Cypriots in the north, split by a United Nations-supervised buffer zone which runs through the heart of the island's capital Nicosia.

The 35-year-long conflict continues to pose a headache for diplomats, most recently in 2004, when Greek Cypriots rejected a UN settlement blueprint a week before the island joined the EU as a divided state.

Both ethnic communities agree, on paper, to rejoining the island as a bizonal and bicommunal federation, but disagree on how it will work.

EU officials have said that progress in the Cyprus reunification talks will be essential to move Turkey's slow-moving EU accession process forward.

Turkey refuses to recognize the Republic of Cyprus, even though it is itself a candidate to join th e club of which the republic is now a member. It has also refused to open its ports and airports to Greek-Cypriot ships and planes. (dpa)