Five things to know about Cyprus

Paris (AFP) – The eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus has been divided along ethnic lines since Turkish troops invaded its northern third in 1974.

Issued on: 10/07/2024

The Mediterranean island of Cyprus has been divided along ethnic lines for the past 50 years

 © Iakovos Hatzistavrou / AFP/File


The internationally recognised Republic of Cyprus, which controls the Greek Cypriot southern two-thirds of the island, is a member of the European Union.

Here are five things to know about Cyprus:

Aphrodite and empires

Cyprus is the mythical birthplace of the Greek goddess of love Aphrodite, who, legend has it, rose out of the foam near the ancient city of Paphos.

The island's strategic location at the crossroads between east and west has made it a target for a succession of empires from the Assyrians and early Greek settlers to the British.

It was given by Roman general Mark Anthony to his Egyptian lover Cleopatra and used by England's King Richard the Lionheart as a staging post during the Crusades.

For 300 years, it was part of the Ottoman Empire before the British took control in 1878. After an insurgency by fighters seeking union with Greece, the British granted Cyprus independence in 1960.

50 years of division

The UN-controlled Green Line in Nicosia separates the Turkish-occupied north of Cyprus from the southern Greek Cypriot side © Hasan MROUE / AFP/File

Turkish troops invaded and occupied the northern third of the island in 1974 in response to a coup sponsored by the military junta that ruled Greece at the time.

Ankara's intervention followed a decade of intercommunal tension and violence between the Greek majority and the Turkish minority and the deployment of UN peacekeepers.

Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004 still a divided island. Greek Cypriot voters had rejected a UN reunification plan that was approved by Turkish Cypriots in a simultaneous referendum.

A new UN-backed peace push was launched in 2008 but collapsed in 2017.

Holiday island

With its year-round sunshine, sandy beaches and crystal-clear waters, Cyprus has long been a holiday destination.

With its sandy beaches and crystal-clear waters Cyprus has long been a tourist destination © Etienne TORBEY / AFP/File

Around 3.8 million tourists visited in 2023.

Before the division, the international jet set graced the beaches of Famagusta on the east coast. Actress Sophia Loren owned a house there, and it was a favourite of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

On the south coast, the largest casino resort in Europe opened in July 2023, with the authorities hoping it will attract an extra 300,000, high-spending tourists annually.

Russian money

Cyprus is home to a large Russian diaspora, especially Limassol on the south coast, nicknamed "Moscow on the Med".

It has faced allegations that it has been a hub for Russian money-laundering enabling oligarchs to bypass Western sanctions.

It has cracked down on those named by the United States and Britain for allegedly helping Russians to evade sanctions imposed over the Ukraine war.
Influx of asylum-seekers

Varosha, in the fenced off area of Famagusta, in the Turkish-controlled north of the divided island of Cyprus © Amir MAKAR / AFP/File

As the EU's easternmost member, Cyprus has been heavily affected by the exodus of refugees from Syria since civil war erupted in 2011.

EU figures show Cyprus has the highest number of first-time asylum applications relative to population in the 27-member bloc.

Five percent of the 915,000 people living in the south are asylum seekers.

© 2024 AFP

Hope and resignation as Cypriots mark 50 years of division



By AFP
July 9, 2024

Cyprus marks a half-century of division this month - Copyright AFP/File Amir MAKAR
Daniel Capurro and Benoit Finck

Cyprus marks a half-century of division this month, with the unresolved conflict between Greek and Turkish Cypriots branded on the landscape in a UN-patrolled buffer zone that cuts across the island.

Ghost villages, watchtowers and streets blocked off by concrete-filled oil drums offer a daily reminder of the brief but seismic events of 1974 that split the country in two.

As Cypriots contemplate the five decades since their communities were torn apart, many see little reason for optimism after witnessing round after round of abortive reunification talks, the most recent in 2017.

Demetris Toumazis had been due to finish his military service in the Greek Cypriot National Guard on July 20, 1974. Instead, he found himself fighting an invading Turkish army.

Taken to Turkey as a prisoner, he returned three months later to a divided homeland.

“Nobody expected things to turn out the way they did, and it’s 50 years now and there’s still no solution, and there’s no hope,” Toumazis said.

George Fialas, a fellow Greek Cypriot veteran of the conflict, told AFP that reunification was “a lost cause”.

“I don’t believe that we will be back (reunified),” he said.

Fialas too was performing his military service that summer. Like Toumazis, he was posted close to his family home in Varosha, a suburb of the costal city of Famagusta that was then the island’s premier beach resort.

He described chaotic scenes during the invasion with little information available, deadly air strikes and no news of his family just a few kilometres away.

“I didn’t know where they went, and they didn’t know where I was… there was no communication,” Fialas said. It would be months before he saw them again.



– Intercommunal violence –



The invasion was the culmination of a fractious period in the island’s history.

A British colony since 1878, Cyprus became independent in 1960, but only after a bloody four-year insurgency by Greek Cypriots seeking union with Greece.

Instead, Britain, Greece, Turkey and Cypriot leaders negotiated for the island to become independent under a delicately balanced constitution.

This guaranteed representation for the Turkish Cypriots, who then made up around 18 percent of the population, and forbade both union with Greece or Turkey and partition.

That system collapsed in intercommunal violence in late 1963 that prompted Turkish Cypriots to retreat into enclaves before international peacekeepers deployed.

An uneasy status quo lasted a decade, before the military junta in Athens instigated a coup on July 15, 1974 seeking to unite the island with Greece.

Turkey responded by landing troops on the island’s north coast.

It was during the invasion that Toumazis and his mortar unit were captured outside Nicosia when Turkish tanks burst through National Guard lines and surrounded them.

“The whole line was broken,” he said. “We were behind factories — we had no idea what was happening and so we were stuck there.”

He was eventually taken to Turkey, only returning to Cyprus in October, by which time most of his family had fled abroad.



– Changing attitudes –



In 1983, the north unilaterally declared independence as the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus, a state recognised only by Ankara, which keeps thousands of troops on the island.

The United Nations, whose peacekeepers patrol the buffer zone between the two parts of the island, is making a push for new talks, but Stefan Talmon, an expert on Cyprus at the University of Bonn, doubts there will be any breakthrough.

“Any solution would mean that each side has to compromise and has to give up its sole decision-making power for its community. And I don’t think that either side is interested,” he said.

A new UN envoy was appointed this year hoping to rekindle talks, but decades of failure have left little grounds for optimism.

“We have now had at least two or three generations that… never knew a united Cyprus,” Talmon said.

Huseyin Silman, a 40-year-old from Nicosia who works at the Turkish Cypriot Global Policies Center think tank, said the younger generation, who grew up after the opening of crossing points between north and south in 2003, gave him hope for the future.

“When I was in school, the history books were quite one-sided. They were teaching us that it was all the Greek Cypriots’ fault, that Turkey came and saved us, and Greek Cypriots were our enemies and they killed us,” he said.

Younger Cypriots, however, had grown up in an era when crossing between the two sides is as simple as presenting an ID card.

“They’re establishing more and more youth organisations, where Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots are participating together,” Silman said.

“Cyprus is too small to be divided.”

Despite the existence of the crossings, the two communities still live apart. The invasion turned Cyprus into an island of displaced people, with more than a third of Cypriots forced from or fleeing their homes in 1974.

The Varosha that Fialas and Toumazis knew is now a ghost town and a symbol both of displacement and decades of failed diplomacy.

Toumazis left Cyprus to study abroad and never moved back. He has no plans to mark the anniversary.

“I don’t see why we should celebrate,” he said.


Key dates in Cyprus’s post-independence history

By AFP
July 9, 2024

Turkish soldiers in Yialia on September 9, 1974 following their invasion of Cyprus following a Greek-backed coup - Copyright AFP/File -

This month marks 50 years since the dramatic events of 1974 left the Mediterranean holiday island of Cyprus divided to this day.

On July 15, 1974, the military junta then in power in Athens engineered a coup in Cyprus seeking to end its independence and unite the island with Greece.

Five days later, Turkish troops landed on the north coast, beginning an invasion that saw them occupy a third of the island, including Turkish Cypriot neighbourhoods of the divided capital Nicosia.

AFP looks at key dates in the island’s history:



– 1960: Independence from Britain –



On August 16, 1960, Cyprus becomes independent from Britain after a guerrilla campaign waged by fighters aiming to unite the island with Greece.

Its constitution guarantees representation for the Turkish Cypriots, who at the time make up around 18 percent of the population, and forbids both union with Greece or Turkey and partition.

In December 1963, violence erupts between the two communities as Greek Cypriot leaders seek to override parts of the constitution. Turkish Cypriots withdraw to enclaves, some of them defended by armed fighters.

In March 1964, a UN peacekeeping force for Cyprus (UNFICYP) is established.

Between 1963 and 1974, around 2,000 people are listed as missing in clashes between the two communities.



– 1974: Coup triggers invasion –



On July 15, 1974, members of the Greek Cypriot National Guard overthrow president Archbishop Makarios in a coup sponsored by the military junta then ruling Greece.

On July 20, Turkey, invoking a 1959 agreement with Greece and Cyprus’s then colonial ruler Britain, invades the north of the island saying its aim is to protect the Turkish Cypriot minority.

Three days later, the collapse of the juntas in both Athens and Nicosia leads to an interim administration and the eventual restoration of Makarios.

On July 30, Turkey, Greece and Britain meet in Geneva and establish a 180-kilometre (112 mile) long Green Line patrolled by UN troops dividing the island.

The Greek Cypriot community says the conflict left 3,000 dead and 1,400 missing. It also led to major population movements affecting around 162,000 Greek Cypriots and 48,000 Turkish Cypriots, according to the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO).



– 1983: Turkish Cypriots break away –



On November 15, 1983, Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktas proclaims a breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in the 38 percent of the island controlled by Turkish troops. It is recognised only by Turkey.



– 2003: Crossing the Green Line –



In April 2003, as peace talks falter, Turkish Cypriot authorities allow Greek Cypriots to visit the north and Turkish Cypriots to travel in the other direction across the Green Line for the first time.



– 2004: Greek Cypriot ‘no’ vote –



On April 24, 2004, Greek Cypriot voters overwhelmingly reject a UN reunification plan approved by Turkish Cypriots in a simultaneous referendum.

On May 1, Cyprus joins the European Union still a divided island, with Turkish Cypriots denied the full benefits of membership.



– 2008-2017: Peace talks collapse –



On September 3, 2008, the leaders of the two communities enter intensive UN-sponsored peace talks, which are joined by the three treaty powers Britain, Greece and Turkey before collapsing in 2017.



– 2020: Turkish Cypriots elect nationalist –



In October 2020, Turkish Cypriots elect nationalist Ersin Tatar, an ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as their leader.

Tatar narrowly defeats pro-reunification incumbent Mustafa Akinci, in what is widely seen as a symptom of growing Turkish Cypriot disillusion over the prospects for a deal.