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Nicosia Mayor Eleni Mavrou, who played an important role in the opening of the Ledra Street (Lokmacı) crossing in Nicosia, said opening such crossings has positive as well as negative effects.

“More communal contacts is better for mutual understanding, but at the same time it creates an impression of normalization of the situation, which is not desirable,” Eleni Mavrou told the Turkish Daily News.

Boundary restrictions in divided Cyprus were relaxed by the Turkish Cypriots in 2003, and five crossing points have opened since. Ledra Street becomes the sixth, but its symbolism injects momentum in a renewed reunification drive.

The main shopping street in Cyprus' divided capital symbolized the island's ethnic partition. The opening of the crossing last month also symbolized revival of hopes for an overall peace deal, since it was one of the first initiatives undertaken by the government of the Progressive Party of Working People (AKEL), which won the elections in the south.

Mavrou, a prominent member of AKEL said she is in favor of more communal contacts. “It helps renew friendships, especially for older people. And for younger people, it helps them to make acquaintances,” said Mavrou, who was in Istanbul last weekend to participate in an international conference.

Having more crossings also boosts economic cooperation, according to Mavrou. But on the political dimension it has some negative effects: “When there is no activity at the political level for a solution, then this gives an impression of normalization. It works both ways – on the one hand it intensifies the will for a solution, but on the other hand, since things seem normal, it looks like there is an urgent incentive to find a solution.”

But Mavrou the positive outweighs the negative: “We have more to gain than we have to lose by more communal contacts."

Mavrou, a member of parliament at the time, had said yes to the U.N.-brokered Annan Plan rejected overwhelmingly by the Greek Cypriots in a referendum in 2004.

Greek Cypriot President Demitris Christofias, who has agreed to end a four-year stalemate in peace talks by setting up working committees for full-fledged negotiations, does not accept the Annan plan as a basis for negotiations.

“There are two reasons for that. First of all the Annan Plan was a product of a certain time. We cannot go back in time. But more importantly, there is the psychological aspect. It would have created a negative environment to start negotiating a framework which has already been rejected by the Greek Cypriots.”

Mavrou said, however, that some of the Annan Plan's provisions could be used up to some extent in a new framework.

Mavrou believes recent political developments, mainly the closure case filed against Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), will no doubt affect the efforts to find a solution.

“It creates an uncertainty. The Turkish government will focus on what will take place internally and won't probably have time to deal with other issues,” she said, noting: “In a way it leaves an empty space. Turkey is an important actor.”

Mavrou is a staunch believer in the necessity to find a solution to the Cyprus problem. “In the course of the last 30 years there has been many disappointments. It's not so easy to say I am optimist. But I believe so strongly that Cyprus can not survive divided, I believe we will have to find a solution,” she said.

The reason why the Greek Cypriots decided to oust former President Tassos Papadopoulos and replace him with AKEL's Christofias is both the fear of partition but also more willingness to find a solution according to Mavrou.

“The years that followed the referendum gave the opportunity to see how things can develop,” said Mavrou, noting that a lot of Greek Cypriots understood better the danger of partition.

Mavrou in Turkey in 2004 to learn Turkish :

Nicosia's Greek Cypriot mayor can speak a little Turkish. She said she understands better than she speaks the language. Mavrou came in 2004 to Istanbul and went to a language school for a month to learn Turkish.

“It was right after the referendum. I felt there won't be a solution to the problem in the near future. So I had more time to learn the language. I came to Istanbul to learn Turkish,” she said.