Divided Cyprus: Leaps of doubt

The divided island keeps foiling outside efforts to bring peaceful reunification

A BIZARRE cultural event, involving artists from both the island's communities (and other countries), is taking place this month on the “green line” that bisects Cyprus. On a Turkish-Cypriot soccer field, nets have been replaced by barbed wire; nearby a tower of speakers blasts out rock music. Entitled “Leaps of Faith”, the show is meant to make people think more broadly about an island whose Greek-Turkish stand-off is sometimes an excuse to dodge other issues, from immigrants' welfare to the role of women.

“Unresolved ethnic conflict is used by people who want to make society more traditional and authoritarian,” says Yannis Papadakis, a social anthropologist who has made a study of the “dead zone”, or no man's land, that cuts through Nicosia.

Sadly, the show's optimistic title is still not reflected in the island's general mood. It is two years since the Turkish-Cypriots who run the north first allowed free movement across the green line; and one year since a United Nations plan to reunify the island as a loose federation was accepted by Turkish-Cypriot voters but overwhelmingly rejected by Greek-Cypriots. Politically, a final reconciliation still looks as remote as ever. There is no let-up in the game of “pass the diplomatic parcel”, which the island's politicians have played for 30 years, to the exasperation of outsiders. The only change is that, since the Greek-Cypriot government joined the EU last May, the game is followed as keenly in Brussels as in New York.

At least as surreal as any art show is the continuing squabble over an aid package of €259m ($333m) that the EU promised the Turkish-Cypriots, partly to reward their vote in favour of the UN plan. The Greek-Cypriots insist that they want their neighbours to get the money. But the Turkish-Cypriots won't take the cash unless they win a bigger prize along with it: the opening to EU traffic of ports and airports in the north. To this the Greek-Cypriots say no.

This week Tassos Papadopoulos, the Greek-Cypriot president, seemed uncomfortable when he was reported, both by Turkey and the UN, to have shown openness to fresh peace moves during discussions in the margins of the Victory Day celebrations in Moscow. Mr Papadopoulos insisted that nothing more than talks about talks was in the offing. “Let's not rush to greet the resumption of a new initiative. There is still a long road ahead of us before the new dialogue is sufficiently prepared.” By stressing the need for “careful” groundwork, and ruling out timetables or arbitration, he has secured enough leeway to avoid being bounced into another UN procedure. But whether he wants it or not, an initiative is grinding into action. A Greek-Cypriot envoy is heading for New York next week, and Sir Kieran Prendergast, a senior UN official, will probably visit the island later this month.

If the Greek-Cypriot government feels that it can afford to soft-pedal on UN peace moves, that is mainly because membership of the EU offers it a set of diplomatic aces whose value is only now emerging. For example, some of the 180,000 Greek-Cypriots who fled south in 1974 are now seeking European arrest warrants for developers who build houses on their old land. A Greek-Cypriot court has told a British couple to demolish one such home; the landowner threatens legal action in Britain if the pair fail to comply.

Meanwhile, the Greek-Cypriots are pressing the EU to send a tough message to Ankara ahead of October, when talks on Turkey's entry into the EU are due to start. In the short term, such lobbying may achieve some tactical success. Indeed some Greek-Cypriots hope their EU membership may lead to a solution more favourable than the bizonal, bicommunal federation that they reluctantly accepted, as the basis for further talks, in 1977.

Such gamesmanship is already receiving discreet encouragement in parts of Europe (eg, France and Austria) where a dust-up between Turkey and the EU would be welcome. But as James Ker-Lindsay of Civilitas, a think-tank in Nicosia, also points out, in the longer term no state has more to lose from a bout of Turkish disenchantment with the EU than Cyprus.

The divided island of Cyprus keeps foiling outside efforts to bring peaceful reunification