Turkey agrees access to Cyprus army zone graves in search for missing

ATHENS (Reuters) - Turkey has agreed to allow access to graves in military zones in war-split Cyprus in a major breakthrough to a decades-old search for persons missing in past conflict, a team working under U.N. auspices said on Thursday. Turkey has formally agreed to let exhumation teams inspect 30 known suspected burial sites in closed military areas in northern Cyprus, the Committee For Missing Persons (CMP) said in a statement released through the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Nicosia. Access would be given over a three-year period. More than 2,000 Greek and Turkish Cypriots disappeared in a 1974 war and intercommunal violence on the island over the decade prior to that. Cyprus was split in a Turkish invasion in 1974, triggered by a brief Greek-inspired coup. There are extensive Turkish army facilities in northern Cyprus, a breakaway Turkish Cypriot state recognised only by Ankara. There has been a significant thaw in relations between the two estranged sides in recent months following the election of Turkish Cypriot moderate Mustafa Akinci as the breakaway state's leader and progress in reunification talks. The CMP has been carrying out exhumations at sites since 2006, but has never been allowed to carry out work in army zones. With more than 1,000 Cypriots still missing, the CMP's most difficult task is getting eyewitnesses to come forward despite possible fear of retribution. "We stressed that time is running out to obtain critical witness information," the CMP said in a separate news release. Access would start in January 2016, with ten sites to be excavated each year, the CMP said. (Reporting by Michele Kambas; Editing by Tom Heneghan)