Cyprus Divided: the History of the Green Line

We recently wrote about our visit to Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus. All day long, we ran into the Green Line that separates the two parts of the city (and the island). We found it really unnerving, but also interesting, so we thought we’d learn a bit more about the history. The differences between the two halves of Nicosia are like what we remember from (separate) stays in Berlin, in 1990 and 1995.

Like Sicily and Crete, two other big islands in the Mediterranean, people have been fighting over Cyprus for millenia. More than 3,000 years ago, the Mycenean Greeks came to the island for trade (mostly copper). A few hundred years after that, the first permanent Greek settlers arrived. Not long after that came Phoenician traders from the city of Tyre, who eventually colonised the southeast of the island. At different times in antiquity, the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Persians, and the Romans ruled over Cyprus. When the Roman empire divided around 290 CE, Cyprus fell to the eastern (Byzantine) half, where it remained for nearly a thousand years. Its history thereafter joins with that of three other great empires, the Venetian, the Ottoman and the British.

Unfortunately, the contested history of the island continues today. From the time of the Ottoman empire, Greeks and Turks have co-existed on Cyprus, sometimes more, sometimes less peaceably. The roots of today’s division go back to the 19th century. During Greece’s successful war of independence (1821-1829), there were calls by the Greeks for union with Cyprus. Cypriot Greeks had supported the Greek war, and the Ottomans in response carried out a series of massacres against them.

Cyprus became a British colony in 1925, as part of the arrangements after the First World War. Calls for union with Greece (by Greek Cypriots) became stronger, and led to counter-calls by Cypriot Turks for partition. In Turkey itself, some for called annexation of the entire island.

Cyprus became independent in 1960, the British retaining only two bases, which they still administer (see map below). The original Cypriot government sought to ensure representation of the minority Turks (then about 20% of the population) through the use of quotas. Greek leaders, however, discontented with the arrangement, began making plans to change the constitution. Violence followed in December, 1963, with the Turks eventually withdrawing from the government and the British deploying a security force in Nicosia.

It was the leader of this British force who, on December 30, 1963, literally drew the Green line (using a green pencil) to create a buffer zone between Greeks and Turks in the capital city of Nicosia. While that was intended as a desperate, temporary measure, from that point to today, Nicosia has been a divided city. On 15 July 1974, the Greek colonels who ruled Greece at the time staged a coup in Cyprus which installed a government aiming to annex Cyprus to Greece. (It was this action that led to the fall of the generals from power.)

Five days later, in response, Turkish forces invaded Cyprus. A ceasefire followed shortly thereafter but on 14 August a second Turkish invasion followed. When the dust had settled, Turkey had control of the northern part of the island, about 40% of the whole. Nicosia’s Green Line was extended clean across Cyprus, from Kato Pyrgos in the west to Paralimni in the east, a distance of about 112 (180 km) miles. In 1983, the Turkish Cypriot parliament declared the northern part of the island to be the ‘Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus’. But only Turkey recognises this government as legitimate.

On 1 May 2004 Cyprus joined the European Union. And, while the EU accepted the whole of the island into the confederation, EU legislation in the northern part is ‘suspended’. Unification talks continue from time to time – every political candidate in Cyprus claims to be in favour – but right now the problems appear to be insuperable.

That said, the buffer zone is anything but abandoned. There are farms and – thanks to the the dearth of people – a wide variety of flora and fauna. And, outside of Nicosia, there are villages located within the zone.

Pedestrians can easily go from Nicosia to North Nicosia at the Ledra Street checkpoint. This border opened up in 2003, and it has been remarkably peaceable, with people on either side going to visit relatives and, in some cases, the houses they used to live in. So perhaps there is hope for the future.