The peace efforts had begun around the time of the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus, which split the multiethnic Republic of Cyprus into the Turkish-majority north and the Greek-majority south.
The north later declared independence as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, although Turkey is the only United Nations (UN) member to recognise this.
A ceasefire has been in place ever since, but a permanent solution has not been agreed to, and UN peacekeepers still operate a buffer zone between the two regions.
[1] There are two major approaches to resolve the Cyprus dispute: the reunification of Cyprus into a single state (as attempted in the Annan plan) and the two-state solution, which would legalise the current status quo.
The majority of the international community supports the reunification of Cyprus into a single state, as does the Republic of Cyprus.