A peek into Cyprus' buffer zone and fifty years of occupation
Nine months of war in Gaza, two and a half years of invasion in Ukraine, Cyprus feels forgotten. For fifty years, the country has been occupied and divided by barricades, fences and barbed wire intertwined with buildings known as the Green Line. On one side are Greek Cypriot soldiers; on the other, Turkish Cypriots and settlers from Turkey. In the middle, a demilitarised buffer zone with abandoned houses and empty streets where only the United Nations blue helmets have access and cats, which cross both sides oblivious to geopolitics. And us, for a brief moment.
With 36% of its territory occupied, Cyprus became a member of the European Union twenty years ago. The north of the island, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, is only recognised by Turkey. The rest of the world considers the entire island the Republic of Cyprus. Nicosia is the only occupied and divided European capital, with a checkpoint in the middle of Ledra Street, the main commercial street in the centre, where pedestrians can cross to both sides. We just have to show our passports and we are in no man's land. There is a sheltered corridor and we show our passport again. As soon as we enter the north we are greeted by a young man with a tray of Turkish delights: “Hello ma’am, do you want to try?” From now on we need Turkish liras to pay in the many restaurants and tourist shops that fill this side of Nicosia's historic center. Foreigners wander the streets and monuments and return to the south, where Valentinos Pangalos lives.
“Do you know why it’s called the Green Line?” asks the 62-year-old Greek Cypriot. “Before 1974, we had problems in 1963 and 1964. A British general - we had the British here - took a pencil and started to draw a line separating the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriots and the pencil was green”.
Cyprus was part of many civilisations and empires until it declared independence in 1960 with an agreement between Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom that provides for the right to intervene if the constitutional order is changed. Years of clashes followed between the Greek Cypriot majority and the Turkish Cypriot minority until a Greek coup deposed the legitimate government. In July 1974, Turkey invaded Cyprus invoking the Guarantee Treaty to defend the Turkish Cypriot community. In leaflets dropped by the Turkish planes at the time and shared today on the Internet one can read: "To the Turkish and Greek People of Cyprus. We bring you peace, brotherhood and freedom" with a smiling man holding the Cypriot flag with his arms wide open. Another one, portrays a village with a Turkish and Greek house side by side. The text says: “We do not want bloodshed in any way. We have known you as friends... and we still consider you as friends... We have just came to demand an account from those who are responsible for the island being benighted and who have mislead you... Your beautiful island will be again common property of you and of Turkish Cypriots whom you have known for centuries as your brothers. Once we accomplish this goal, we will return to our homeland... We do not want land, but justice". Yet, 150,000 to 180,000 Greek Cypriots and around 50,000 Turkish Cypriots were displaced, thousands more died and Turkey never left.
The only divided European capital
In the historic centre of Nicosia, the Venetian wall separates the road from a football field where some boys are playing. Above, the fabric flags of Cyprus and Greece flutter as the wind blows. A few meters back, the metal flags of the Republic of Northern Cyprus and Turkey don't need wind to stretch. Sometimes the buffer zone is just a few meters wide and it is possible to see the lights of the houses on the other side. Others, it is several kilometers wide and all you see is abandoned buildings. “There is a Greek school and an Orthodox church”, points out Valentinos Pangalos from a waist-high metal gate with a United Nations shed. “You can see the holes.” In many buildings you can see bullet holes in the walls.
A small garden with pots and flowers blends into what seems to be an abandoned field. There are no fences or barbed wire here. There is a motorcycle frozen in time, walls of what were once houses with carved names of women and villages, stacked sandbags and a white stone tomb with a small blue fence. It belongs to Tryfon Tryfonos, a Greek Cypriot soldier shot dead by the Turks in 1983. This was not the first nor the last incident between the two sides. In the most recent report on the operation in Cyprus, the United Nations Secretary-General counted 303 violations in the buffer zone.
There is also a long dark seemingly abandoned trench. On the surface, always the raised flags. And cameras. Lots of surveillance cameras. A number that António Guterres says is “unabated”. According to the report, the Republic of Cyprus has installed surveillance cameras at 31 locations along the Green Line, six of which are within the buffer zone, making a total of 79 installations. Turkish forces have installed four additional cameras, bringing the total to 110. Further on, some pallets make for an improvised gate. The footsteps on the high grass interrupt the silence of yet more abandoned fields. There are 346 km² along 180 km of no man's zone with land, houses and shops abandoned by many women and men.
The ghost town is now a tourist attraction
“We are all refugees here” is one of the first things Valentinos Pangalos says when we meet. “My house is in Famagusta, the closed city”, better known as the ghost town of Cyprus. The beaches, the high-rise hotels by the sea and the vibrant social life used to attract thousands of visitors, including celebrities like Elizabeth Taylor. All that ended in August 1974, when the Turkish army bombed the number one tourist destination in Cyprus.
Valentinos Pangalos is one of the 26,000 Greek Cypriots who fled, leaving everything behind. Famagusta was taken by the Turkish and the modern district of Varosha was completely fenced. A 1984 United Nations resolution calls for the city to be handed over to the UN and says only residents who have been forced to leave have the right to resettle. But fifty years later, Famagusta is a tourist attraction by decision of the Turkish-Cypriot government. Visitors can dive into the Mediterranean, sunbathe on the beaches with the decrepit hotels behind them, stroll through some of the deserted streets and photograph the buildings consumed by nature. But Valentinos Pangalos cannot return home. He is a refugee in his own country and his greatest pain is a tourist attraction.
The accommodated status quo
For outsiders, the occupation and division of the island seems like a contented reality. A system that works. Cyprus is a stable and prosperous country with beaches full of tourists and cities like Limassol full of modern skyscrapers. In a bar in the centre of Nicosia, customers watch a game on a television set against the Green Line and houses overlook the buffer zone. Greeks and Turkish Cypriots can cross both sides - some go to the north to fill up the tanks with cheaper fuel. Others make a point of not going because they feel that showing their identification to travel in their own country means validating the occupation.
All of this is experienced naturally. After all, it has been fifty years - half a century - in which talks for reunification have made little progress. The Annan Plan proposing a federation was rejected by 76% of Greek Cypriots in the 2004 referendum on the grounds that it disproportionately favoured Turkish Cypriots and gave Turkey increased influence over the country. Yet, the idea of a bizonal and bicommunal federation persists. “There is a huge civil society industry here fueled by European Union and United Nations funds that supports this kind of seventy year proposal for Cyprus. It is a racist solution, it is against European Union acquis. It is a solution proposal for the creation of a Turkish Cypriot State and a Greek Cypriot State, the names are going to be like that, ethnic definitions. There is going to be different votings for each community, rotation of the presidency (...) There is going to be a limitation on how many Greek Cypriots can live in the other state and vice versa (...) It's a freakish system”, says Oz Karahan, leader of the Union of Cypriots. “Cyprus is not divided, it is occupied. So, it cannot be reunified, it can only be liberated.”
The Union of Cypriots was create in 2011 "when there were huge demonstrations against Turkey in the occupied area by Turkish Cypriots. There were around fifty to eighty thousand people on the streets.". Since then, the main policy of the organisation is to tell the world what is happening in Cyprus because, according to Oz Karahan, "unfortunately the political elite in Cyprus is also accommodated.".
Son of a Turkish Cypriot mother, Oz Karahan grew up in Famagusta. He is part of the Turkish Cypriot minority living in the south. “A bizonal, bicommunal federation, dividing people according to their ethnicity into two regions, would be impossible because Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots lived in the same place, they were mixed. People don't know this in Europe or other parts of the world. Almost every village was mixed”.
Illegal settlement like in Palestine
For Oz Karahan, all the problems in Cyprus - corruption, environment, migration - are related to the occupation and the worst thing about the occupation is the Turkish settlement policy. “The troops can leave easily but the real name of the occupation is illegal settlement, like in Palestine.” Oz Karahan accuses Turkey of bringing settlers from the mainland to oppress Turkish Cypriots who historically do not identify as Turkish. During the Ottoman Empire, Greeks, Latins and Catholics adopted Turkish symbols to not pay taxes - they were known as linobambaki.
“In 1975, when these people [Turkish from mainland] came, then the disaster for Turkish Cypriots started. Cultural oppression, that's the biggest problem. Most of the Turkish Cypriots left Cyprus. They live in the United Kingdom, there are some in Canada, the United States and Australia… but mostly United Kingdom, North London. There are maybe five times more Turkish Cypriots in North London than in Cyprus at the moment,” says Oz Karahan.
It's difficult to specify numbers. Those from the north that indicate a balance in the population are contested by critics of the occupation who claim that the Turkish inhabitants have already surpassed the indigenous Turkish Cypriot population. In a 1987 report, the United Nations were already concerned about “the policy and practice of the implantation of settlers in the occupied territories of Cyprus” saying that this constitutes a form of colonialism and an attempt to illegally change the demographic structure of the country. Many Turks live in houses that belonged to Greek Cypriots who fled south and already have children and grandchildren born in Cyprus. For Oz Karahan, these people are products of a crime against humanity and should be deported.
Cyprus' strategic location
In addition to Turkey, there are other countries on this Mediterranean island that Oz Karahan says have no interest in solving the Cyprus issue. Since 1960, the United Kingdom has maintained two military bases in sovereign overseas territories on the island. An investigation by Declassified UK reveals that American planes have been taking off from British air bases to Israel confirming rumors that the US is also present and France has a bilateral military agreement with Cyprus. “On this small island there are five NATO military forces - the United Kingdom, Turkey, Greece, France and the United States of America (...) This is NATO's unsinkable aircraft carrier. This current situation is best one for them. The last thing they want is the liberation of Cyprus.”
Cypriots are concerned about military movements in the territory and the risk this poses for the country. Earlier this year, activists took to the streets in protest after the Akrotiri air base was used to launch Typhoon fighters that attacked the Houthis in retaliation for attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea. More recently, the leader of Hezbollah publicly threatened Cyprus if the country helps Israel in the war against the Lebanese group.
Despite being best known for its beaches with crystal blue water, Cyprus is the closest European Union country to the Middle East. Located 160 km from Lebanon, some remember hearing the loud port explosion in 2020 “as if it was here.” It is also less than an hour's flight from Israel and the proximity to the war in Gaza is noticeable every time we turn on the cell phone location in Larnaca, the port city where humanitarian aid is shipped to Gaza, only to see that we are in Beirut airport. This is due to Israeli interference in GPS signals to prevent attacks and it has caused disruption even to commercial flights. Cyprus is also just a few hours by boat from Syria, making the island a refuge for those fleeing conflicts in the region.
A refuge for those fleeing war
It is not difficult to understand why Cyprus is the European Union country with the highest number of asylum requests per capita, according to Eurostat in 2023. In April this year, President Nikos Christodoulides said that the country was in a “state of crisis” with an increase in the arrival of boats from Lebanon.
Many Cypriots fear that the arrival of mainly Muslim migrants poses socioeconomic, demographic and security risks. Once again, Oz Karahan blames the Turkish occupation. In the north, universities considered illegal by the Cypriot government because they do not comply with the education standards of the Republic of Cyprus, attract students from poorer countries in Africa and Asia with cheap tuition fees and promises of work and even entry to Europe. But the reality is disappointing and some try to enter the south by crossing the Green Line. The Republic of Cyprus considers the entire island one country so the government does not build walls between the north and the south - in fact, in the occupied part it is possible to see projects financed by the European Union - which facilitates the entry of migrants.
Unable to send these people back to the north due to a lack of reception infrastructure for asylum seekers, the Cypriot government has tried to increase the number of voluntary returns to countries of origin and has stopped accepting applications from migrants in the buffer zone, who end up stranded in no man's land, without any infrastructure, dependent on emergency aid from the United Nations, who is pressuring the Cypriot government to start their asylum process.
A problem with no solution in sight
Sitting at Café Erma, an oasis in a boiling Nicosia, I ask Oz Karahan what the solution is to end half a century of occupation and division. Diplomacy, he says, with a strategy based on observation of other similar liberation struggles. “There is a crime against humanity happening here, which is the illegal settlement policy. We have to use international law - I'm talking about the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice - against Turkey as they are doing with Israel (...) We have to do normal diplomacy and public diplomacy. Boycott and sanctions movement. We don’t have. If you go to a store in Cyprus, you see a lot of things made in Turkey.”
After visiting the country, the United Nations special envoy to Cyprus asked the Greek and Turkish communities to pressure the leaders to resume negotiations. In an open letter published earlier this month, María Ángela Holguín Cuéllar, appointed by António Guterres after facilitating the historic peace agreement between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), says that Cyprus has been “frozen in time” and asks people to think about a “common future”.
But the United Nations solution continues to be a bizonal and bicommunal federal state. Just like the Cypriot government whose President Nikos Christodoulides promised good news before the end of the year. The problem is that not all Cypriots agree with this solution and the government of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus wants to be recognised as an independent state. But Oz Karahan says that Turkey has no interest in a two-state solution because it has nothing to gain from a legitimate state. “Because the occupied area is not recognised, it is away of the world banking system, Turkey does money laundry over there. It is away from Interpol. Turkey is hiding all the criminals over there. (...) Some progressive Turkish politicians call it “colon” because it cleans all the dirty things. Turkey will never let it because big countries need this kind of satellite locations to clean their stuff.”
More than 2,000 missing persons
Oz Karahan agrees that things may seem accommodated “but they are not accommodated in people’s hearts”. According to the Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus, more than 2,000 Cypriots were reported missing during the inter-communal conflict in 1963-64 and the Turkish invasion in 1974 and half a century later, hundreds have still not been found.
In the village of Assia, in the Famagusta region, there are around 83 missing, says Valentinos Pangalos. “Anggela’s [his wife’s] father was arrested at home, alive. He never came back.” He was loaded in a truck and taken to Nicosia. Years later, the family learned that he was executed and buried in the village of Ornithi with other people. “After killing them, they buried them and, years later, they went to where they were and removed the bones. They dispersed them so that no one would find the people’s entire bodies,” says Valentinos Pangalos.
The family survived thanks to the matriarch who speaks Turkish and was able to negotiate their evacuation with the soldiers. More than that is hard to know because the hardship and atrocities are muted in memories that no one wants to relive. A few years ago, the family received news that some of the father's bones were found in humanitarian excavations but they did not accept them. They want the whole body and not some little pieces that would close the case.
Every year, the sirens go off at 8:20 am on July 15 to mark the Greek coup and at 5:30 am on July 20 to mark the Turkish invasion. This year, they also mark fifty years that many Cypriots lost their homes and loved ones. And fifty years of no solution in sight.