BRUSSELS — After earlier offering to be another broker to try to bring a divided Cyprus together again 47 ½ years after a Turkish invasion occupied the northern third, the European Union is hoping the political will to do it is there.

The EU’s top foreign diplomat, Josep Borrell, blogged that, “The Cyprus problem is clearly an EU problem: Cyprus is a member state of the Union, now and after reunification; regional stability and prosperity in the Eastern Mediterranean is closely bound to a solution to the Cyprus problem,” without offering any ideas.

He said that during a visit to the split capital of Nicosia that he felt  “a positive determination” on both sides to return to talks and seek a solution although Turkey said there isn’t and wants a permanent partition with two separate states.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is planning to bring the two sides together in Geneva from April 27-29, along with the three guarantors of security, Turkey, Greece and the former Colonial ruler the United Kingdom.

But there are signs that’s likely dead in the water before it starts, with Turkey continuing to drill offshore for oil and gas in defiance of soft EU sanctions and insisting on only talking about two states.

That would, if accepted, give recognition to the occupied northern third that is isolated in the world while the Greek-Cypriot legitimate government is a member of the EU that Turkey has fruitlessly been trying to join since 2005.

Greek Prime Minister Nicos Anastasides talked on the phone with Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades about the dilemma that’s gone unsolved for generations and been a graveyard for diplomats who have floundered and failed to make real progress since then.