Turkish Cypriots voted in a new leader Sunday, with challenger Mustafa Akinci beating incumbent Dervis Eroglu in a run-off poll that could accelerate UN-backed efforts to reunify the long-divided island. Akinci, a former mayor of Nicosia in the breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and vocal advocate of reconciliation with the internationally recognised government, had won 60.4 percent of votes with 678 of 693 ballot boxes counted, organisers said.
Celebrations began soon after results were announced at Akinci's office in north Nicosia, a few hundred metres (yards) from a UN-controlled buffer zone that separates the Turkish and Greek Cypriot sides of Europe's last divided capital.
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