South mourns and north rejoices as Cyprus marks 50 years of ethnic division | Cyprus

Cyprus has marked the landmark anniversary of fifty years of ethnic division amid markedly contrasting scenes: mourning within the south and celebration within the north.

At 5.20am Greek Cypriots within the internationally recognised south awoke to air raid sirens reminding them of the arrival of hundreds of invading Turkish troops on the japanese Mediterranean island 5 many years in the past. Within the Turkish-occupied north, the milestone occasion was trigger for pleasure, with Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, flying in to attend a army parade and fly-past commemorating the “peace operation”.

In a speech, Erdoğan referred to as the breakaway territory, recognised solely by Ankara since unilaterally declaring independence in 1983, as “the apple of our eye, part of our soul”.

He mentioned the dawn of 20 July “put an finish to the 11-year darkness enveloping” the Turkish Cypriots, who constituted 18% of the island’s inhabitants in 1974.

“The Cyprus peace operation saved Turkish Cypriots from cruelty and introduced them to freedom,” he instructed the jubilant crowd who had gathered in Nicosia, the island’s war-split capital, regardless of the blistering warmth.

Turkey launched the amphibious invasion, code-named Attila, 5 days after a coup was ordered and set in movement by the army junta in Athens with the intention of annexing Cyprus to Greece.

The takeover, which noticed the island’s president, Archbishop Makarios III, flee the nation, adopted years of inter-communal violence after a shared administration between Greek and Turkish Cypriots started to unravel after the nation’s independence from Britain in 1960.

Earlier on Saturday, the Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, posted a picture of a blood-stained map of Cyprus on his LinkedIn web page with the phrases: “Half a century for the reason that nationwide tragedy of Cyprus.” The chief was because of take part in occasions marking “the black anniversary” on Saturday night.

Over the course of the month-long Turkish offensive hundreds have been left useless, lacking, tortured, raped and brought prisoner.

By 16 August, the invading troops had seized 37% of the island’s north with an estimated 200,000 Greek Cypriots and 45,000 Turkish Cypriots displaced within the course of.

A long time of UN-brokered reunification efforts have since failed. The nation has not solely earned the popularity as a “graveyard” for mediators however is an emotional challenge that may be a fixed thorn in relations between Nato members Greece and Turkey.

On Saturday Cyprus’s president, Nikos Christodoulides, described the anniversary as a sombre event for reflection and remembering the useless. “Our mission is liberation, reunification and fixing the Cyprus drawback,” he mentioned. “If we actually need to ship a message on this tragic anniversary … it’s to do something attainable to reunite Cyprus.”

Talks have been stalled for the reason that collapse of negotiations within the Swiss Alpine resort of Crans-Montana in 2017 – an unprecedented hiatus that has been attributed to the latest rise in tensions alongside the UN-patrolled ceasefire line dividing the island.

However talking forward of Saturday’s army parade, Erdoğan scuppered hopes for a fast resumption of the peace course of reaffirming his help for a two-state answer that has been rejected outright by Greek Cypriots and fellow member states of the EU.

“A federal answer in Cyprus just isn’t attainable, that is what we imagine,” he mentioned.

Marking what she described as a “tragic anniversary”, European Fee president Ursula von der Leyen reiterated the bloc’s help for the EU’s final divided member state. “Cypriots should dwell in a reunited nation in situations of peace, coexistence, stability and prosperity,” she wrote on X.

“The Cypriot query is a European one. We’ll proceed to firmly help Cyprus within the efforts to reunify the final divided EU member state, according to the related UN safety council resolutions.”

On each side of the island’s ethnic divide, Greek and Turkish Cypriots have been left reeling from the occasions of 1974. Athens’s function within the coup and US army help for the junta then in energy has been more and more singled out for censure.

“The coup of Greeks in opposition to Greek Cypriots was the largest crime to have occurred in trendy Greek historical past,” mentioned Takis Hadjidemetriou, a significant determine of the progressive left now engaged on the fifth quantity of his overview of the island since 1950. “It gave Turkey the chance to invade,” he instructed the Guardian. “Whereas Greece solved its drawback in 1974 starting a brand new period of stability with the collapse of army rule, within the case of Cyprus, the coup introduced disaster from which our island has but to recuperate.”

Globally Cypriot diaspora communities additionally marked the anniversary. Within the UK a whole lot of Greek Cypriots protested exterior the Turkish embassy in central London demanding a “free united Cyprus” and the withdrawal of occupation forces from the Turkish-held north.

In downtown Melbourne components of town centre have been illuminated in crimson to mark the event with neighborhood members slated to attend a flag-raising and wreath-laying occasion within the Australian metropolis on Sunday.

In New York, the Orthodox Archdiocese of America introduced {that a} particular memorial service could be held in honour of those that died or went lacking in the course of the invasion.