Stark divide remains as Cyprus marks 50 years since Turkish invasion

Cyprus on Saturday (21 July) marked the 50th anniversary of the bloody invasion of the Mediterranean island by Turkish troops with both sides as divided as ever over the territory’s future.

As Greek Cypriots mourned those killed and still missing since the 1974 convulsion of violence, Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides said there was no other option but reunification.

Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004 still divided after Greek Cypriots overwhelmingly rejected a UN plan to end their differences with Turkish Cypriots. Officially the entire territory of Cyprus is EU territory.

But in an address on the other side of the UN-patrolled buffer zone which separates the two communities, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan rejected the federal model championed by the United Nations, saying he saw no point in relaunching talks on a blueprint which had been repeatedly rejected.

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

The invasion led to the capture by Turkey of one-third of Cyprus and the displacement of about 40% of the population.

The buffer zone – where abandoned buildings lie crumbling after decades of neglect – cuts across the island with border controls separating Greek Cypriots in the south from Turkish Cypriots in the north.

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

“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,” Erdoğan said.

“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 military vehicles.

Turkish flags flew side-by-side with flags of the breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus which is still only recognised by Ankara four decades after it was proclaimed by Turkish Cypriot leaders.

Tears flow, decades on

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

“Whatever Mr Erdoğan and his representatives in the occupied areas do or say, Turkey, 50 years later, continues to be responsible for the violation of human rights of the entire Cypriot people and for the violation of international law,” Christodoulides told reporters.

Tears flowed for those who died during the invasion.

Under a hot sun at the war memorial, a mother clad in black cried over the tomb of her son. She ran her hand gently over a photo of the young man attached to a marble cross. Other women wiped their eyes nearby.

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.

‘Too big a risk’

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.

“They probably consider reunification too big a risk to take,” it said.

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

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

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said the Cyprus question was a European one.

“We will continue to firmly support Cyprus in the efforts to reunify the last divided EU member state, in line with the relevant UN Security Council resolutions,” which call for a bizonal, bicommunal federation, she said.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who joined Christodoulides for the commemorations, pledged his government’s “unwavering support for the new effort that must reunify the island within the framework of United Nations resolutions”.

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.

(Edited by Georgi Gotev)

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