Athens/Nicosia  - Rival leaders on Cyprus have made "significant" progress to reunite the divided Mediterranean island in renewed peace talks after a year-long effort, a UN envoy said Thursday.

"The first reading has now been completed," said Alexander Downer, UN special advisor to the secretary general. "Certainly from the perspective of the United Nations, we would say that this is good progress and it shows that there have been significant progress in these negotiations."

The eastern 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.

Greek and Turkish Cypriots launched renewed peace talks last September, but the pace has been slow after nearly 40 meetings at an abandoned airport inside the UN-controlled buffer zone.

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

An opinion poll published last week showed almost three quarters of Greek Cypriots believe the talks will once again fail.

Both ethnic communities agree, on paper, to reuniting the island's two halves as a bizonal and bicommunal federation in the latest round of UN-led peace talks, but disagree on how it will work. Other disputes include the complex issue of property rights lost during the invasion.

Cyprus' leaders have agreed to put any peace deal to a simultaneous referendum in both communities.

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

Ankara's EU membership talks, which began in October 2005, have been partially frozen because of the situation on the island.

Greek Cypriots say they will not agree to Turkey joining the bloc as long as the island is partitioned. Ankara's progress in membership talks will be assessed later this year.(dpa)