The Green Line

Cyprus, a country divided by two nations, with two religions, two cultures and two thoughts each struggling for dominance. With the descendants of the Ottoman rules and the sons of Plato and Aristotle, each believing they are the superior race and rightful owners of this territory, the result is a country, Cyprus, and capital city, Nikosia, literally divided....divided in to two zones by "the green line'. The country of Cyprus to the North inhabited by the Turks and the rest of the country inhabited by the Greeks.....and how did this become such a contentious and volatile situation...that's easy, The British of course!!!!

Cyprus is just below Turkey in location and was inhabited by the Mycenaeans as early as 1100BC. It remained in relative peace as a farming civilization until Alexander the Great (another Brit) captured it and then passed it over for Egyption Rule. In time is then passed to the Roman Empire  and things remained somewhat uneventful, including ownership going to the Lusignan family in 1192 who actually established Cyprus as a Kingdom . So all was well until the 16th Century when the Ottoman Rulers conquered and took control of the island.

The British jumped in in 1878 and convinced the Ottomans to let them take administration of the island.....just going to manage it they told them...it will still be yours (yeah right!). That made the Greeks happy, they finally had someone to listen to their voice as they campaigned for independance from the Turks.

When the Turks sided with the Central powers during World War I, as punishment Britain seized Cyprus as a British colony and it remained so until 1960 until they decided to forfeit Cyprus in a larger deal.

The Brits, being controlling told them how it had to be run. They initally devised a cabinet that enabled the Greeks and Turks to rule side by side (well sorta). Rule was split by a percentage...Greek had 70% of the cabinet and Turks had 30%. Greeks were unhappy with this as only 18% of Cyprus inhabitants were Turkish....they were even more unhappy when the Turkish Amry invaded in 1974 and drove all 150,000 Greeks out of the Northern part of Cyprus and seized all their homes and belongings.  The Turkish Army remain there today.

The actual dividing line between the Northern Turkish occupied territory and Greek territory goes through the capital city of Nikosia which Andy and I visited last week. We could only visit the Greek side of the capital as we failed to bring our passports which were required for entrance on to the Turkish side.. That being said, you can still feel the tensions within this city and the resentments of centuries passed.

 

 

The Green Line Border