UN chief Antonio Guterres said he held "very constructive" separate meetings with rival Cypriot leaders on Tuesday, ahead of trilateral meetings to weigh the prospect of fresh negotiations nine years after the peace process collapsed. Decades of UN-backed talks have failed to reunify the divided island, with the last major round of peace talks in Switzerland collapsing in July 2017. Observers say no meaningful progress on Cyprus is possible without Ankara's backing because of Turkey's status as a guarantor power. Advertisement AdvertisementAdvertisement AdvertisementThat meeting was just after Erhurman won a landslide victory in elections in northern Cyprus, beating the Ankara-backed outgoing president Ersin Tatar, who backed a two-state solution. By contrast, Erhurman, who advocates reunification of the island, had campaigned for the resumption of negotiations with the Greek Cypriots.