Stark divide on show as Cyprus marks 50 years since Turkish invasion

NICOSIA: Cyprus on Saturday marked 50 years since Turkish troops invaded the Mediterranean island, with comments from the Turkish and Cypriot leaders demonstrating the stark divide that remains.

The Greek-Cypriot president of Cyprus, who seeks a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation under a UN framework, said there was no other option but reunification.

But in an address at about the same time on the other side of a UN-patrolled buffer zone, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan rejected a federal solution and said he saw no point in continuing UN-led negotiations on the island’s future.

As dawn broke in the internationally recognised south of the island, sirens wailed at 5:30 am (0230 GMT), the time that Operation Atilla began in 1974.

The invasion led to the conquering of one-third of Cyprus and displacement of about 40 percent of the population.

The buffer zone, where abandoned buildings crumble, cuts across the island with border controls separating Greek Cypriots in the south from Turkish Cypriots in the north.

The United Nations says around 40,000 Turkish soldiers also remain in the north.

Decades of UN-backed talks have failed to reunify the island, and the last round collapsed in 2017 after meetings in Crans-Montana, Switzerland.

“We believe that a federal solution is not possible in Cyprus. It is of no benefit to anyone to say let’s continue negotiations where we left off in Switzerland years ago,” Erdogan said in the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), which is only recognised by Ankara.

“The Turkish Cypriot side should sit at the table as equals with the Greek Cypriot side. We are ready to negotiate and achieve lasting peace and a solution,” he said before watching a parade that included marching bands and armoured military vehicles.

Turkish and TRNC flags flew side-by-side.

On the other side of Nicosia, the world’s last divided capital, President Nikos Christodoulides unveiled busts of officers killed in the fighting. He also laid a wreath at a war memorial where ceremonial gunfire sounded.

Greek flags waved on graves that stretched out in rows around them as mourners placed flowers and incense.

More than 750 Greek Cypriots and almost 200 Turkish Cypriots remain missing, says the bi-communal Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus which tries to find and return their remains to loved ones.

Before the anniversary, some Greek Cypriot veterans of the fight against the invasion told AFP they saw no hope for reunification.

“Perhaps, what was completely broken in 1974, cannot be fixed,” the English-language Cyprus Mail newspaper wrote in an editorial Saturday.

“They probably consider reunification too big a risk to take,” it said, and most people on both side “have no experience other than that of a divided country.”

A United Nations envoy, Colombian diplomat Maria Angela Holguin, wrote in an open letter this month of a need to “move away” from past solutions and to “think differently”.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis was set to visit Cyprus on Saturday evening to attend the commemorations alongside Christodoulides.

Mitsotakis in May visited Erdogan in Ankara, the latest sign of warming ties between the NATO neighbours.

On the eve of the anniversary, Turkey’s parliament adopted a resolution calling for an “end to the inhumane isolation imposed on Turkish Cypriots”.

The European Union -- to which Cyprus belongs -- stressed the need for all parties to seek a peaceful resolution “on the basis of relevant UN Security Council resolutions.”

Irfan Siddiq, Britain’s high commissioner to Cyprus, said on social media platform X that, “Too many opportunities for re-unification have been missed.”

In a similar vein, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, in a report this month to the Security Council, said “resolution of the Cyprus issue is long overdue”.

Guterres regretted “the gradual militarisation that is under way on the island”.

The invasion was triggered by a coup in Nicosia backed by the military junta in Athens and aimed at uniting Cyprus with Greece.

The treaty that granted Cyprus independence from Britain in 1960 banned union with Greece or Turkey as well as partition and made London, Athens and Ankara guarantors of Cyprus’s independence, territorial integrity and security.