Athens/Nicosia  - Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders were set to meet on Friday to access whether reunification talks to end the decades-old division of the eastern Mediterranean island will proceed as planned for next month.

The meeting between President Dimitris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat will be their first formal encounter since agreeing in March to resume talks to end the division of Cyprus.

In recent weeks, Christofias said working and technical groups from both sides of the divided Mediterranean island were having problems trying to narrow their differences before leaders begin peace negotiations.

The Cypriot president is expected to ask Talat for more time before launching negotiations in Fridays meeting.

A panel of six working groups and seven technical committees, from both sides of the ethnic divide, are covering preparatory reunification issues ranging from environmental protection, health, security, power-sharing, culture, ways of linking the island's two economies as well as property and territory disputes.

With newly-elected Christofias in office, expectations are running high for a breakthrough in peace efforts to reunite the island which has been divided since 1974 after Turkey invaded the northern third of the island in response to an Athens-led coup to reunite the island with Greece.

UN attempts to reunify the island have repeatedly stalled. The latest was in 2004 when former president Tassos Papadopoulos led the Greek Cypriot rejection of a UN reunification plan in a referendum - although Turkish Cypriots overwhelmingly voted in favour.

The two divided sides of Cyprus have agreed in principle to rejoin the island as a bizonal federation, but until now have not been able to agree a procedure. (dpa)