Crossing from southern Cyprus into the unrecognised north, a journalist moves through a divided island shaped by conflict, speaking to experts on the ground to uncover Northern Cyprus’s place in the world.
As the final light of day sank below the rooftops, I approached the small cubicle and slid my passport under the window. A tired-looking woman peered at me for a second before scanning the document and returning it without a word. Down a narrow street, closed away from the world by a wooden roof, was the other side of the border. My documents were handed over again, this time to a bald man who ran a hand across his tanned cheeks.
“First time here?“
An obedient nod satisfied his curiosity, and soon the crossing was complete. Ahead was a country that did not exist.
When Cyprus gained independence from Britain in 1960, tensions were already brewing between the island’s two ethnic groups. Greek Cypriots favoured Enosis–unification with Greece–while Turkish Cypriots supported Taksim–the partitioning of the island into two states.
Fourteen years of violence followed, culminating in 1974, when a coup supported by the Greek military junta took place, aiming to carry out Enosis. In retaliation, Turkey invaded the northern side of the island in an attempt to protect the Turkish Cypriots who lived there. Just like that, the island was split in two, and for the fifty years since, this is how it has remained. A buffer zone, known as the Green Line, stretches 180km from coast to coast, separating the opposing sides: two sides with two governments, two armies, and two passports.
Beyond the tensions, the troops, the border, or ethnicity, what divides the states the most is recognition. The Republic of Cyprus to the south is universally recognised: it’s a member of the European Union and the United Nations, and is a holiday destination for tourists globally. The same cannot be said for its northern neighbour.
Turkey’s invasion in 1974 was illegal under international law, meaning no country except Turkey itself has ever recognised the independence of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. It is cut off from the wider geopolitical world: a truly unrecognised territory.
It would be easy to refer to which ethnic group arrived first on the island, but that argument is not relevant according to Tufan Ekici: “You can trace back whatever you want, however you want. At the end of the day, these people used to live together.”
Tufan is an expert on Northern Cyprus and a professor at Ramapo College in the US. He suggests that the state’s unofficial status is largely superficial:
“International law doesn’t allow it to be recognised but, unofficially, it is,’ Tufan says as he sips his coffee. ‘When I came to the US for the first time, they put a stamp on my passport. The guy didn’t even know what a Northern Cypriot passport was. He had to ask his manager but, in the end, they put a stamp on it. That doesn’t mean they recognise it, but they allow it.”
Tufan makes a valid point. Regardless of its status, Northern Cyprus has received funding from the European Union, has representative offices in many nations, and is home to universities with international exchange programmes.
Despite limited EU support, Northern Cyprus still receives most of its aid from Turkey, with hundreds of millions of pounds being sent annually. Unfortunately, this hasn’t translated into the levels of development it should.
“With the amount of funding we’ve received, we should be much more developed than the other side of Cyprus!” Tufan exclaims. “But, because Northern Cyprus is a de facto nation, you can’t really monitor where the money is going.
“The money was used for good in the beginning but, as it kept on coming, the local officials started abusing it. They started fostering a clientelism culture: an “I will only help the people who keep me in power” mentality. Turkey was aware of it but didn’t really care as long as these people do what they want them to do.”
Although corruption has reduced in recent years, the trafficking of drugs and women is still a serious problem in Northern Cyprus. However, Tufan promises that visitors will be safe.
“To an ordinary citizen, it sounds unsafe,” he admits, “but for a vacation, it’s a wonderful place to be in. It has a lot more unspoiled locations.”
Even after the reassurance, stepping past the border in Nicosia and into Northern Cyprus seemed a step into the unknown. What would be on the other side?
The answer was normality. Old limestone buildings wound away down narrow streets, and the warm autumn breeze carried the sound of bargaining shopkeepers. Household brands had been replaced by independent restaurants and knock-off designer stalls, but everything else was relatively unchanged. The smell of Mediterranean spices lingered as people dined outside, their faces dimly lit by the cigarette butts glowing in their mouths.
After choosing Pasatiempo for dinner, the restaurant owner, Nazım, soon came out to greet me. He had studied in the Netherlands, but always wanted to be a business owner in his home nation: “I did neuropsychology, but I never wanted to do it as a profession; I always wanted to open up restaurants in the old city.”
His reason was simple. “I want this old city vibe to exist forever.”
As dawn breaks, the morning call to prayer echoes around the city. The population of Northern Cyrus is 97% Muslim, so throughout the day the voice of the muezzin would project the call to prayer from tall minarets, beckoning worshippers to one of their five daily prayers.
Walking the city in the golden morning light revealed streets that were home to a strange mix of development and dereliction. A renovated café overflowing with magenta flowers would sit adjacent to a building with glassless windows, crumbling walls, and piles of litter. Each house accentuated the opposing characteristics of its neighbour. The uninhabited ones were likely once Greek Cypriot homes, now left in stasis.
After spending hours following the stray cats that meander down the alleys, I found myself back at the border again. Here, the buffer zone was wider with empty land on one side and buildings on the right that were riddled with bullet holes and barbed wire. Take a few steps off the road and you’d likely be shot, but right in the middle of no man’s land was something unexpected: a café.
The Home Café is run by the Home for Cooperation community centre: an organisation established in 2011 to promote communication and collaboration between those on either side of the border. It looks like any other café until the soldiers walk past.
Each day, the administration officer at the Home for Cooperation, İlsu Çağra, has to cross into the UN buffer zone to get to her office, a reminder of the division on the island:
“The thing that’s different here in the buffer zone is the physical checkpoints. Every day when I come to work, I need to show my ID and, even though this is a very normal thing in the buffer zone, it hits me that I’m not where I’m supposed to be.”
Suddenly, we are interrupted by a UN van flying by, full of peacekeepers in their camo uniforms and sky blue caps. As the urgent sound of the engine fades into the humid midday air, İlsu explains to me why the centre uses art as its method for promoting reconciliation: “There is no boundary for ethnicity, no boundary for gender, sexuality, which language you speak, which religion you believe in.”
One of the community centre’s key projects is United by Sound, which brings musicians together to create music. The project produced the island’s first bi-communal band, called the Island Seeds, who produced an album online during the pandemic without ever meeting one another.
İlsu adds, “Another project is the Buffer Fringe Festival that we do every October. We invite a lot of international artists and host workshops, seminars, and concerts here in the Buffer Zone.”
She tells me that people on the island are coming closer together, but says that tourists to the island should understand the historical context before travelling:
“I think one of the most important issues that we face is that tourists come to the island, they visit the South, and they see the North as Turkey, and this happens because they don’t know history.” Her eyes convey how serious she is. “I think it’s very, very privileged to be here and not to have any idea.”
An hour’s drive out of Nicosia is Varosha–a place unlike any other. The subject of political debate for half a century, this small district of Famagusta city lies just above the Green Line on the east coast of the island. It used to be the number one attraction on the island–a jewel of the Mediterranean with pristine beaches and high-rise hotels that hosted global stars of the sixties, such as Elizabeth Taylor and Brigitte Bardot. All this changed, however, in 1974 when the Turkish troops landed on the island.
The area’s nearly 40,000 residents fled to the south, many leaving with only the clothes they were wearing at the time. What was left behind was a ghost town.
Due to its strategic location near the buffer zone, it was fenced off, and public access was prohibited. It remained this way for nearly fifty years: a resort locked in stasis, as nature wrapped its fingers around its stairways and time wore away at its walls.
That was until 2020, when authorities decided to pull back the curtain and allow tourists to walk its streets once again.
For safety reasons, the roads have been retarmacked and a thin rope fence lies along their perimeter but, beyond that, is untouched abandonment. Kilometre after kilometre of derelict buildings, with trees growing through their smashed windows and hotel signs swaying on their final hinge. It was November, so the streets were nearly as empty as the ruins which lined them.
The insides of the buildings had all been stripped, looted by trespassers in earlier years, leaving hollow shells of what once was. I carried on walking, past rusted steps, crumbling verandas, and shuttered windows. Sometimes I could make out the text on signs above businesses: “Bank of Cyprus”, “Toyota”, “Kodak”. It was hard to take it all in but, according to Eren Ramadan, that was a normal reaction:
“My first impressions were like, this is a Call of Duty zombie map, I’m going to be honest,” he said when asked what Varosha was like. “You’re in the set of a Last of Us scene!”
Eren works in the UK but runs the Young Turkish Cypriot group, created for the Turkish Cypriot diaspora in the UK and Europe, and has visited Varosha four times since it opened during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Beyond the bullet holes and bomb craters, the town has been the subject of political and ethical dispute for decades. The original inhabitants of the houses in Varosha have had to watch their homes decay year on year, unable to return. This unsettlement only increased with the opening of the area to visitors, as many Greek Cypriots see this as the touristification of their own homes, encouraging people to come and look at the damage to their past residences.
Eren does not see the situation this way, instead suggesting the reason for Varosha remaining closed off for so long was due to an expectation that a solution to the political tensions would be found. He was not concerned by the ethicality of the area’s reopening: “I hear the criticism and understand it, I just think it comes from a place of misunderstanding and not knowing the facts.”
Eren goes on to say that the opening was just the initial step in a larger plan. “It’s a plan to eventually reopen the town, redevelop it, and reinstate it to its former glory.”
It has become clear that few people believe reunification, or any real solution to the Cyprus problem, is likely. More probably, the situation will remain unchanged, but hostility between communities will begin to fade. As Tufan told me: “The people who remember the pain are the older generation. They’re gonna die away soon. When they are gone, the younger generation, they have no attachment or feeling towards the Cyprus problem.”
The most breathtaking view is saved until last, as I round a corner and reach the beachfront. Crystal-clear water ripples with hues of aquamarine and cyan, lapping at a beach without a single footprint on its golden sands. Towering above it are more abandoned hotels and bars, which seem even more dilapidated when compared with the perfection beneath it.
It summarises the island well: serenity and peacefulness next to dereliction and violence–all the while wondering if it was wrong to enjoy these wonders, if you were helping local businesses or an illegal state. What politics cannot take away, though, is Northern Cyprus’s rustic beauty and welcoming people.
