Rival Cypriot leaders were to meet on Wednesday to set the stage for intensive negotiations in a new UN-backed push to reunify the Mediterranean island after three decades of failed diplomacy.

Both seen as pro-settlement moderates, President Demetris Christofias, a Greek Cypriot, and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat will meet at UN mission chief Taye-Brook Zerihoun's residence in Nicosia's buffer zone.

The two have agreed to establish a secure hotline to facilitate direct phone contact during the intensive talks process which is expected to see them meet at least once a week.

Open-ended timeline

The negotiation process has an open-ended timeline but the United Nations has warned that the talks can not go on indefinitely without tangible progress being made along the way.

Wednesday's meeting starting at 10am (0700 GMT) is expected to deal with procedural matters and substantive negotiations are to begin on 11 September.

The buildup to the talks has been clouded by the refusal of Turkish Cypriot authorities to allow Greek Cypriot pilgrims to travel via Limnitis in the remote northwest of the island to attend a church service.

"We should not be surprised by shows of bad faith such as the above just before the start of negotiations," said the Cyprus Mail, an English-language Greek Cypriot newspaper.

"There are groups in both communities which want the process to fail."

But on a positive note, hundreds of Turkish- and Greek-Cypriot peace activists rallied on Monday night outside the Ledra Palace Hotel in the capital's buffer zone chanting for a reunified Cyprus.

Talat, meanwhile, has raised the possibility of a settlement by the end of 2008. "It depends on the Greek-Cypriot side, if they have the will I am sure we can find a solution by the end of the year," he said in a television interview.

He insisted that any deal would have to provide for two politically-equal "constituent states," a concept which has been anathema to the Greek-Cypriot community which makes up more than 80 percent of the island's population.

Confidence-building measures

Preparatory talks at committee level since March have been accompanied by confidence-building measures, notably the opening of a crossing in Ledra Street linking south and north in the symbolic heart of Nicosia.

It is the first intensive push for peace since a UN reunification plan was approved by Turkish Cypriots but overwhelmingly rejected by Greek Cypriots, just a week before the island joined the European Union in 2004.

Optimists are pinning their hopes on the personal chemistry and shared left-wing politics of the two leaders.

Christofias, who heads the communist Akel party, was elected in February on a platform of relaunching peace efforts. Talat, who heads the leftist Republican Turkish Party, led the Turkish Cypriot "yes" vote in 2004.

Any agreement the leaders reach will then have to be sold to the two communities in simultaneous referendums.

United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon has appointed former Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer as his special envoy to oversee the negotiations. He will be present when the talks are officially launched.

"I came back here with a degree of optimism because I know that the leadership is committed to a successful negotiation process," Downer told reporters on his arrival in Cyprus on Monday.

"I have no illusions on how difficult this is."

Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when tens of thousands of Turkish troops occupied its northern third in response to an Athens-engineered Greek Cypriot coup seeking union with Greece.

Ankara has always insisted on retaining the right to intervene that it obtained along with London and Athens in the treaties which gave the island independence from Britain in 1960.

AFP