Introduction to the Cyprus Problem: History and Attempts at Solution

Just this month, President Christodoulides of the Republic of Cyprus and President Tatar of the TRNC agreed to meet in May of this year under the aegis of the UN to kickstart another round of talks for the reunification of the island. Even though this marks the first attempt at political negotiations in an eight-year hiatus, it’s only the latest in a long series of attempts at reunification ranging back almost to the very inception of the Cypriot state itself. 

So what has created what the leaders in both communities, despite their sizeable ideological gaps, see as an opportunity for reconciliation? The answer lies at the tail end of a confusing, contested and troubled history

How did we get here?

The roots of the Cyprus Problem manifest around the beginning of the 20th century. In 1930, amidst a climate of rising anti-colonial political action and driven by a solidifying Greek nationalist identity promoted primarily by a highly influential Orthodox church, Cypriots under British rule demanded the unification of Cyprus. In the 1950s, Archbishop Makarios of Cyprus, later to become its first president, organized a plebiscite on the issue of unification, which received a 95.71% vote in favor with an 89% turnout. But the vote took place in Orthodox churches, so only Greek Cypriots’ voices were heard; the Turkish Cypriots, who at the time made up about 18% of the island, did not have a say.

With the budding political movement for the unification of Greece (Enosis) being met with a moot by the colonial government, the Greek Cypriots eventually took up arms. In 1955, with the help of a Greek military officer Grivas, the Greek Organization of Cypriot Fighters (EOKA) was formed. As discerned from key documents, the Turkish Cypriots were not expressly targeted; the objective was to shake the colonial rulers and dismantle their police force regardless of who was serving. 

Continued pressures from Cyprus’s religious-political echelon and EOKA, as well as changes in the geopolitical climate—a series of bloody decolonizing wars that stretched the ailing Empires even thinner, the loss of the Suez Canal which signified their waning influence in the Middle East especially— culminated in a compromise agreements between Turkish and Greek representatives in Zurich. The result was not what the EOKA fighters had wanted; in 190, Cypru had officially become an independent state, not a part of Greece.

Since then, Cypriots were thrust into a political project that few of them or their leaders had the will or wherewithal to carry out, and the Republic of Cyprus, a nation-state built around a constitutionally mandated bi-communal executive and representative parliamentary quotas, sputtered forward. Very early on, the divergent interests of the Turkish and Greek Cypriots sent the government into a paroxysm, and frustration brewed at what was increasingly seen by both sides as an untenable political arrangement. In 1963, when Makarios III proposed a set of constitutional reforms purportedly to break the governmental deadlock but which weakened the role of Turkish Cypriots in government, intercommunal violence broke out in Nicosia and spread to the whole of Cyprus. Attacks against Turkish Cypriots escalated—the violence in Kokkina provides a standout example—and the enclaves that formed around Kokkina and Lefke marked the end of Turkish Cypriot participation in the government of the Republic of Cyprus as well as the first steps toward self-determination.

And yet the violence continued, and violence in Kophinou and Ayios Theodoros only served to heighten the political divides. In 1971, the initial goal of Enosis was revived under EOKA B, but this time with an important operational shift. In the absence of colonial rule, the governing authority that needed to be dismantled would have to be Makarios III’s democratically elected one. And, this time, the Turkish Cypriots were a target too. 

Cyprus had gained its independence in 1960 under a guarantor agreement signed by Britain, Greece and Turkey—which, among other things, allowed those countries to intervene militarily if the safety of any ethnic group was in danger. So when EOKA B, backed by Grivas and the main political figure, Sampson, staged a coup and forced the democratically elected president out of Cyprus…. Soon after, Turkish troops entered the island and took control of around 36% of it. The decision to enter Cyprus was condemned internationally as an invasion because, instead of leaving after peace was restored, the Turkish army reinforced the politically independent enclaves until, in 1983, when the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus declared independence.

And thus, not long after it had taken off, the Cypriot national project came crashing down. 

How we’ve dealt with it

Ever since then, finding a solution to the ‘Cyprus problem’ has been the central issue in Cypriot politics. 

Talks have revolved around the establishment of a unitary Republic of Cyprus revolving around five major points: two self-governing states (bizonality) that are inclusive to both Greek and Turkish-Cypriots (bicommunality); political equality between these two major ethnic communities; creating a central federal government with an international personality and single citizenship for its citizens. To achieve this, the Greek and Turkish-Cypriot political leaders—since Makarios and Denktaș—have engaged in a tug-of-war.

The closest the two sides have come to a solution was just after the turn of the century, under UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, a strong proponent of the European Union (EU) and pursuant of accession talks. Then-President Glafcos Clerides faced strong pressures from the bloc, which demanded an agreed-upon plan for the unification of Cyprus as a necessary prerequisite for membership. After two years of negotiations and five drafts, an agreed-upon Annan Plan was sent out to both the Greek and Turkish Cypriots to vote on in separate referenda. While the Turkish-Cypriot vote amounted to 65% for the plan, a 76% vote against the plan by the Greek Cypriots marked the end of talks for reunification, at least for a time. 

This was until 2015, when political forces on both sides started to gain new traction toward a solution. The victory of Mustafa Akinci in the North brought to power a Turkish Cypriot politician known for his conciliatory stance, opposite Nikos Anastasiades in the Republic of Cyprus, who had publicly stated that he would like to undertake processes for unification. The two leaders began frequent correspondence, building on past frameworks and making significant progress on foreign policy issues and EU-related matters. Despite occasional setbacks, talks developed until the final conference attended with representatives from all three guarantor powers—Greece, the UK, Türkiye—in Crans Montana, where the final agreement would be made. 

However, after a dramatic UN-led session, the talks collapsed. Akinci lost all his political capital while Anastasiades emerged relatively unscathed, and Türkiye distanced itself from support of any reunification process. The election of Ersin Tatar, a right-wing separatist, following Akinci, showcased the Turkish Cypriots’ diminishing political will for unification. Some say that the situation bodes less well for the Greek Cypriots, who have grown complacent with the status quo of a divided island. 

Post 2017: how do we proceed?

Since the failure in Crans Montana, the election of a new president, Nikos Christodoulides, has brought renewed efforts for a solution. But there are many that doubt that this president, like his predecessor, has any real intention of changing the current status quo.

Still, Christodoulides has met with both President Erdogan and Tatar, and is speaking of beginning talks in the first quarter of 2025. Whether these will be successful remains to be seen.

Photo credits: DJ Mapping on Wikimedia Commons