Talks in Switzerland this week on Cyprus's decades-long stand-off mark a "unique opportunity" and the "best chance" to solve the conflict, the UN mediator said Tuesday.

"It's a unique opportunity, because after all of these decades of division it is possible, it is possible to solve, and I really hope that this is the spirit by which everybody goes into this meeting," Espen Barth Eide told reporters in Geneva a day before the UN-led reunification talks begin in the Alpine ski resort of Crans-Montana.