Cyprus-Forum.com

[insan]

Mixed village a model for ethnically split Cyprus?


COPYRIGHT 2009 Financial Times Ltd.

(From AP Worldstream)

Byline: MENELAOS HADJICOSTIS

They live separate lives in a marriage of convenience.

That's how local leader Nejdet Ermetal Enver describes the Greek and Turkish communities in the sleepy coastal village of Pyla. Pyla is the only village in Cyprus where Greek and Turkish residents have remained together after the Mediterranean island was ethnically split in 1974.

Pyla straddles the United Nations-controlled buffer zone that separates Greek Cyprus from Turkish Cyprus. Its fortuitous geography makes it a virtual U.N. protectorate, with U.N. police providing security for its 300 Turkish Cypriots and 1,500 Greek Cypriots.

And that has allowed the two communities to live like partners distanced by a psychological rift, yet cordially sharing the same abode. As politicians try to hammer out a peace deal for Cyprus, Turkish Cypriot Enver predicts the same may one day be true for the entire island.

"It will be separated, but not divorced," he says.

Cyprus split into two parts after Greek residents staged a coup backed by Athens, and Turkey invaded in response. The island is now home to 800,000 Greek Cypriots and 200,000 Turkish Cypriots, and has the last divided capital in the world.

The signs of war are still prominent around Pyla.

A few hundred yards away on the village's southern side, Greek Cypriot conscripts man their posts; on the northern fringe, a Turkish army guard post overlooks the village from atop a hill. About 35,000 Turkish troops in the north still face off against 10,000 Greek Cypriot conscripts in the south along the 112-mile (180-kilometer) buffer zone.

Yet in a way of life that has vanished on the rest of the island, Pyla's Greek and Turkish Cypriots mix daily, frequenting each other's coffee shops and restaurants, building their homes in the same styles.

Loudspeakers blare the muezzin's call to prayer from a minaret a stone's throw away from the Greek Orthodox church's belfry. Many count members of the opposite community among their closest friends.

"When my Turkish Cypriot neighbor's child walks into my home asking for my daughter's help to find something on the computer, I can't in good conscience say that I can't live together with Turkish Cypriots," says Greek Cypriot restaurateur Andreas Kasenides, 48, as he sips coffee at the local social club.

The island's wider ethnic divide still creates a disconnect between friends, colleagues and neighbors holding clashing views of what reunification should be.

Pyla's own fault line is administrative. Greek and Turkish Cypriots elect separate municipal authorities that work well together to provide services, despite rare turf squabbles over issues such as power supply. Turkish Cypriots see the division as crucial to preventing domination by the Greek majority.
"They have their own regulations, we have ours," says 72-year-old Turkish Cypriot Ahmed Mehmet, engrossed in a game of bridge at the local Turkish Cypriot coffee shop. "In my opinion, it's the better system."

Some Greek Cypriots, however, grumble in private. They say the split system is just an excuse for Turkish Cypriots to shirk paying fees for Greek Cypriot-provided services.

Talks between Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat and Greek Cypriot President Dimitris Christofias restarted in September. The talks ended four years of stalemate following a Greek Cypriot rejection of a U.N. peace plan in a referendum. Turkish Cypriots approved it.

But five months of talks have yielded no real progress, and U.N. officials predict many more months of hard bargaining on complex issues such as property arrangements, territorial adjustments and security guarantees. The two leaders say they are committed to reaching a peace deal and enjoy broad support from their communities.

"I say this is the last chance," says Turkish Cypriot Vehbi Mehmet, 50. "These two (leaders), if they don't do it, nobody else will."

Talat wants a more devolved union and higher representation in federal institutions. Christofias wants a strong federal government and a powerful executive to keep any deal from unraveling into formal partition.

"A Cyprus solution is simple," says Pyla leader Enver. "Both sides have to accept they are partners. Turkish C0ypriots will never accept to be dominated, ever, ever."

But nothing is ever simple in Cyprus.

Greek Cypriots fear Turkey is striving to formalize its presence in Cyprus by incorporating intervention rights and a permanent troop deployment into any future deal. They claim Turkey is pulling strings behind the scenes and hampering the peace process.

"A solution doesn't depend on either side," says Greek Cypriot Georgia Antoniou, 55. "It's foreign powers meddling to serve their own interests. If they left it to Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots, this problem would have been solved a long time ago."

Jaded by numerous failed bids at reunification over three and a half decades, some are cynical about the outcome of these talks. But many in Pyla remain hopeful. As Greek Cypriot restaurateur Kasenides puts it: "We are optimistic because we don't have any other choice."


http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/su ... 209007_ITM

Do u believe that had the solution of the Cyprus problem left to Cypriots(right-wing, left-wing matters of course); it would have been solved long ago? How?

[insan]

Hmmm... No one is sure abt whether Cypriots could solve the problem or not without any foreign involvement.