Divided Cyprus Taking Its Case to U.N. Today : Peace talks: Leaders of the two republics on the Mediterranean island--one Greek, the other Turkish--will try to end a 16-year-old stalemate.

Within the 16th-Century Venetian walls of Nicosia’s Old City, the division of Cyprus is traced by rusting strands of barbed wire, vacant, booby-trapped shops and two-man U.N. foot patrols.

The buffer zone separating Greek Cypriots from Turkish Cypriots is little more than 10 yards wide at some points. It is uncomfortably quiet here. On both sides, behind dirt bunkers and oil-drum barricades, guards armed with West German G-3 rifles watch for movement.

“You point that camera at them, and they’ll point a rifle at you,” warned Capt. Chris Hand of the Canadian U.N. contingent.

The antagonisms of this divided island in the eastern Mediterranean have resisted reconciliation for decades, but today, another attempt to break the stalemate will be made. At U.N. headquarters in New York, under the auspices of Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar, the leaders of the two communities will meet for the first time since June.

George Vassiliou, president of the Republic of Cyprus, and Rauf Denktash, president of the breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, have given no indication that they have any new ideas.

“There are difficulties, and we cannot foretell the outcome of this effort,” Vassiliou said recently. “But if we go to New York overstressing the difficulties, the danger of non-success becomes even greater. . . . The degree of progress will depend on the attitude of the other side.”

The attitude of Denktash, whose unilaterally proclaimed state is recognized only by Turkey, has been marked by open reluctance to go to New York at all. Turkish Cypriot sources suggest that it will be a short visit.

Both men cling to long-held formulas for reconciliation. Relations between Greek and Turkish Cypriots were shaken in the years after independence from Britain in 1960, and shattered in 1974 when a coup engineered by a military regime in Greece opened the door for a Turkish invasion of the island.

After two weeks, the fighting was stopped along a line that roughly coincides with the Green Line that now divides the island, 110 miles from Morphu Bay on the northwest coast to the port city of Famagusta in the east.

Within months, an estimated 200,000 Greek Cypriots who lived in the north and 70,000 Turkish Cypriots from the south had fled or were driven across the Green Line into the protective arms of their ethnic brethren. Today, fewer than 1,000 live outside their communal boundaries. Cyprus and the Cypriots are effectively divided.

Today’s meeting will be the latest in a long series of reconciliation talks. Vassiliou, elected in 1988 on a pledge to deal with what diplomats call “the Cyprus problem,” has stepped up the contacts, meeting for more than 100 hours with Denktash, usually at the offices of the U.N. representative here.

Vassiliou, a businessman who wants to keep talking to the Turkish Cypriots, nevertheless endorses a longstanding Greek Cypriot demand for political reconciliation, the “three freedoms”--freedom of movement, freedom of settlement and freedom to buy property.

This fundamental demand marks Denktash’s greatest concern--that the ethnic Greeks, who make up more than 80% of the island’s population, will overwhelm the Turkish Cypriot community.

Denktash, a lawyer, prefers a political arrangement that would continue the present reality, a Turkish Cypriot community living apart with its own culture and religion, Muslim, as opposed to the Christian Greek Cypriots.

And he demands “political equality” in representation.

Both men have put forth proposals for a federation, but Denktash wants it “bizonal,” and he wants the Turkish troops to remain in the north to ensure it. Vassiliou, on the other hand, supports a federation with a strong central government, representation based largely on population, the “three freedoms” and withdrawal of the Turkish forces.

Bridging the gap would require not only some sort of compromise formula, but overcoming heartfelt emotional issues. There are, for instance, more than 1,600 Greek Cypriots still listed as missing in the fighting of 1974. Their relatives demand an accounting.

Less often raised is the fate of 700 reportedly missing Turkish Cypriots. Both sides remember bitterly the intercommunal atrocities committed in the turbulent 1960s. More recently, the emigration of an estimated 45,000 to 60,000 Turkish settlers from the mainland have colored attitudes on both sides of the line.

Perez de Cuellar is expected to suggest some ice-breaking steps--goodwill gestures--while discussions continue on the formidable problem of some new form of government.

BACKGROUND

Settled by the Greeks in antiquity, conquered by Turkey in 1571 and taken over by Britain in 1914, Cyprus is the largest island in the eastern Mediterranean. It supports diverse and often antagonistic races and traditions. More than 75% of the population speaks Greek and belongs to the Orthodox Church, while more than 20% is Turkish-speaking Muslim. In July, 1974, Greek Cypriot extremists, in collusion with the military junta then ruling Greece, overthrew President Makarios and established a rightist government dedicated to enosis, or union with Greece. Five days later, Turkish forces landed in northern Cyprus.