Athens/Nicosia - Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders will meet each other on May 23 to access prospects for the launch of new reunification talks for the divided Mediterranean island, government spokesperson Stefanos Stefanou said Thursday.

In March, Cypriot President Dimitris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat agreed to resume peace talks to end the island's decades-old division.

Since then, a team of experts from both communities are meeting daily to prepare the groundwork for negotiations.

The 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.

Stefanou did not provide details of the May 23 meeting between the two leaders.

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 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 on how it will be carried out. (dpa)