The Cyprus problem, told in facts and dates

The division of Cyprus is the first thing you notice in Nicosia, where a UN strip cuts through the old city, and it’s a sensitive subject. I tell it my way, with facts, dates and no adjectives. For the long view, from the Neolithic onwards, start with the history of Cyprus.

A state built on power-sharing

The Republic was born in 1960 with a very particular constitution. According to the UN, the presidency went to a Greek Cypriot and the vice-presidency to a Turkish Cypriot, with cabinet posts shared seven to three. In the House, 35 seats were Greek Cypriot and 15 Turkish Cypriot, the House itself records.

The balance didn’t last. On 30 November 1963 President Makarios proposed thirteen amendments to the constitution, and on 21 December fighting broke out between the two communities. Turkish Cypriots withdrew from the government and the House, where their seats remain empty. On 4 March 1964 the Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 186, which created the UN peacekeeping force, UNFICYP.

The summer of 1974

The UN sums it up like this. On 15 July 1974 the National Guard, under the direction of Greek officers, staged a coup against the government of President Makarios. On 20 July Turkey began military action along the north coast, citing the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee. The ceasefire took effect on 16 August at six in the evening, and the positions held at that moment are today’s buffer zone boundaries.

From that moment the Republic has not governed the northern part of the island in practice, an area of roughly 3,355 km² out of 9,253, by the Spanish foreign ministry’s figures. How many people live on each side, with the figures that exist, is in the population of Cyprus.

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The Green Line

The buffer zone, which everyone calls the Green Line, runs about 180 km from Kato Pyrgos in the north-west to Dherinia in the east, according to the UN. Its width ranges from under 20 metres in old Nicosia to about 7 km near Athienou. Altogether it covers around 3% of the island, and I look at it closely in the Green Line in Cyprus.

There’s life inside it. According to the UN, over 10,000 people live or work in villages and civil use areas inside it, and in Pyla the two communities share the same village, the only place where that happens. The same source counts 47 suspected hazardous areas with mines or explosive remnants. The zone is interrupted by the British base at Dhekelia, where the UN doesn’t operate.

1983 and the question of recognition

On 15 November 1983 the Turkish Cypriot leadership declared the so-called ‘Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus’. Three days later the Security Council passed resolution 541, deploring the declaration, calling it legally invalid and urging every state to recognise no Cypriot state but the Republic. Only Turkey recognises it, and gov.uk states that the British government doesn’t.

Varosha, the former resort district of Famagusta, has its own story. Resolution 550 of 1984 considers it inadmissible for anyone other than its inhabitants to settle there and calls for it to be handed to UN administration. In 2020 and 2021 the Security Council called for the partial reopening announced there to be reversed, and the EU deplored it.

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From open crossings to the EU

In April 2003 the first crossing points between north and south opened, and people have crossed routinely ever since. On 1 May 2004 Cyprus joined the EU as a de facto divided island. The EU treats the whole island as its territory but suspended EU law in the north until there’s a settlement, and a 2004 regulation governs the movement of people and goods across the Green Line.

Talks go on. The Crans-Montana summit broke up without a deal in July 2017, the Spanish foreign ministry records, and UNFICYP remains on the ground. If you want to cross, I go through it step by step in crossing to northern Cyprus, and the question of whether the island is Greek or Turkish is answered in is Cyprus part of Greece.

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