FEW places reveal the anguish of a frozen conflict better than the 180km long buffer zone between the internationally recognised Republic of Cyprus and the breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). In Nicosia, the island’s divided capital, barbed wire and sandbags separate a fashionable café from an abandoned bookshop. The former opened last year. The latter closed in the summer of 1974, when Turkish troops invaded the north of the island following years of ethnic bloodshed and a Greek Cypriot coup. Deeper in the demilitarized zone, a flock of sheep graze along the runway of an old international airport, a cavernous time capsule littered with broken glass and forty years of bird droppings. An airplane rusts nearby. The scene does not inspire much hope. But analysts believe that a solution to the Cyprus dispute may be more likely now than at any time in the past decade. What has changed? Reunification talks between the Greek south and the Turkish north started less than a year after the Turkish invasion. The closest they came to fruition was in April 2004, when a plan brokered by the United Nations was put to a nationwide referendum. (Turkish Cypriots backed the deal. Their Greek neighbours rejected it by a three-to-one margin. A week later, Cyprus entered the EU as a divided island, with the north effectively frozen out of the bloc and recognized by only one country, Turkey.) The election of Mustafa Akinci as president of the TRNC in the spring of 2015 breathed new life into the peace process. Both Mr Akinci and the Greek Cypriot leader, Nicos Anastasiades, now say that a settlement is possible by the end of the year. The Eurasia Group, a consultancy, puts that likelihood at 60%. The islanders themselves are less optimistic. In a recent poll, 62% of Greek Cypriots said reunification seemed no closer today than one year ago

Many of the pieces needed for a solution are in place. Mr Akinci and Mr Anastasiades, having met at least 25 times, report that consensus is within reach in several areas, including governance, property, and the application of EU law in the north. Turkey, which has enough problems to deal with inside its own borders, has publicly backed an agreement. Without Cyprus on board, Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government cannot hope to unlock stalled membership talks with the EU. (Mr Anastasiades stresses he will “never” drop his veto on the negotiations “unless Turkey gives some signs that they mean business.”) The changing regional energy map also favours a deal. Greek Cypriots know that reunification might be their only chance to market the island’s offshore gas deposits, possibly through an Israeli pipeline to Turkey (assuming those two also manage to reconcile). “If we have a solution, we will be able to exploit our natural gas,” says one former negotiator. “If not, nobody knows how Turkey will behave.”

Yet the road to a deal remains mined with misgivings and disagreements over territory, power sharing and security guarantees. In the economically stunted north, any agreement will have to allay fears of a flood of Greek Cypriot capital and underrepresentation in the governing bodies of a united island. To be palatable in the south, it will have to ensure property restitution and the withdrawal of the 40,000 Turkish troops stationed in the TRNC. Another hurdle is the cost of a settlement. Even with a mix of remedies, including reinstatement and property swaps, compensating the 160,000 Greek and 40,000 Turkish Cypriots who abandoned their homes in the 1970s will cost billions of euros. There is fear that the momentum is ebbing. The talks have already slowed ahead of a May 22 parliamentary vote in the south. In the north, Mr. Akinci faces potential pushback from a newly formed cabinet headed by hardliners. An increasingly unpredictable Turkey may yet throw a wrench in the works. “The longer the talks go on, the greater the chance that we could see problems arise,” says James Ker-Lindsay at the London School of Economics. After four decades of talks and spilled ink, Cypriots have reason to hope for the best and prepare for the usual.