Athens/Nicosia - Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders on the divided Mediterranean island of Cyprus agreed on Friday to open a new checkpoint linking the sides during the latest round of reunification talks, UN official said.

UN officials said the Cypriot President Dimitris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat decided during their 34th meeting in the context of direct negotiations for the opening of the Limnitis checkpoint.

The checkpoint, located in the north-western village of Limnitis and a long-standing demand from locals, is expected to facilitate the movement to and from the northern Turkish occupied areas of the island.

It was not immediately clear when the crossing point would open.

During a brief visit to the island on Thursday, European Commission President Joe Manuel Barroso said the EU would help finance part of the cost of the new checkpoint.

"The two leaders decided to proceed with the opening of the Yesilirmak/Limnitis crossing point under normal rules of existing crossing," said Taye-Brook Zerihoun, the UN special representative for Cyprus.

Observers say the opening of the latest checkpoint, the seventh linking the island's Greek and Turkish Cypriots separated by a UN buffer zone, is a sign of hope that an end is at last in sight to a division that has divided the island for decades.

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.

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

Greek and Turkish Cypriots launched renewed peace talks last year, but the pace towards reaching any kind of settlement has been slow.

The last time that hopes of a historic reconciliation and reunification of the divided island were raised was with the opening of the Ledra Street crossing in the heart of the Cypriot capital Nicosia last April.

Both ethnic communities agree, on paper, to rejoining the island as a bizonal and bicommunal federation in the latest round of UN-led peace talks, 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.

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 for Turkey to join the bloc as long as the island is partitioned. Ankara's progress in membership talks will be assessed later this year. (dpa)