NICOSIA, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- Former UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali met Cyprus President Demetris Christofias on Monday and said he is confident that a solution to the long standing Cyprus problem is possible.

    Boutros-Ghali, on a private visit in Cyprus to meet law associates and old acquaintances, added that because there had been failures it does not mean that efforts to reach a settlement must stop.

    "There is never such a thing as a last chance, but patience is always needed," Boutros-Ghali added.

    During his Cyprus visit he also met two former Cyprus presidents, George Vassiliou and Glafkos Clerides, as well as ex-Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash, with whom he had worked for a long time on the Cyprus problem in the early 1990s.

    He was the first UN secretary general to submit one of several plans on the problem, which however failed to lead to a solution.

    "The UN was involved in many other problems at the time. When you have a problem in Yugoslavia, in Mozambique, in Salvador, a war in Cambodia, a problem in South Africa and between the Palestinians and the Israelis, you have not a priority," he told Xinhua in an exclusive interview before starting his round of meetings.

    He also blamed the parties involved in the Cyprus problem. "As an arbitrator I want to be successful. But if there is not a political will between the two parties of the dispute, I will not take care of this problem but pay attention to another dispute," he said.

    Boutros-Ghali said his Cyprus plan was simple in conception and it was aimed at bringing together the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities, which had been separated after the 1974 Turkish military intervention following a coup engineered by the Athens military junta.

    "The Turkish young generation and the Greek young generation had not seen each other for almost 20 years. My idea was to facilitate people go to each other," Boutros-Ghali said.

    His plan included bringing the occupied ghost town of Famagusta(also known as Varoshia) and the idle Nicosia International Aiprort under UN administration and using both sites as venue of co-operation and intermixing of the two communities.

    "It was important for people from the Greek side to talk to the people of the Turkish side, to promote common projects. This would offer the infrastructure which facilitates peace," he pointed out.

    His plan, which came to be known as the "Ghali Ideas" was not put into force because the two sides in Cyprus failed to agree on approach arrangements to the two sites and on security issues.

    Boutros-Ghali said a solution to the Cyprus problem will be found eventually, even on a step-by-step basis, but presently he sees several obstacles to a settlement.

    "The international economic crisis makes the superpowers reluctant to act, the European Union is not ready to play a role and Turkey's effort to join the European Union further complicates the situation," he said.

    After years of stalemate, two pro-settlement community leaders, Demetris Christofias and Mehmet Ali Talat, have been engaged since September 2008 in negotiations aimed at reaching a solution to the Cyprus problem. But no significant progress has been made so far due to the gap between the two sides on key issue such as power-sharing and property.