Cypriots queue to meet their neighbours

By DANIEL HOWDEN in ATHENS

Thousands of Cypriots crossed Europe's last great dividing line yesterday, after a surprise decision by the Turkish Cypriot side to throw open the heavily guarded border, despite the collapse of peace talks.

The so-called "green line" had severed north from south since Turkey invaded the island in 1974, in response to a Greek-engineered coup.

It is manned by troops on both sides, with the United Nations' longest-serving peacekeeping mission sitting in between.

Crowds were heaviest at Cyprus' answer to the Berlin Wall, a barbed wire frontier that cuts through the capital, Nicosia.

There people had to wait in line at police checkpoints on either side of the ruined Ledra Palace hotel, a once luxury hangout for the Cyprus elite and now a bombed-out shell ringed by watchtowers.

"I'm delighted," said Ahmet Osduran, the first Turkish Cypriot to cross the Greek Cypriot police checkpoint. He was going to visit his old home on the Greek Cypriot side of Nicosia for the first time in many years.

What began in the morning as a trickle became a flood by late afternoon as hundreds of Turkish Cypriots queued on the northern side to cross on foot, and as Greek Cypriots waited for the most part in cars.

By late afternoon an estimated 2000 Turkish Cypriots had crossed and nearly half that as many had crossed the other way, prompting police to call for reinforcements.

The first Greek Cypriot to cross into the north was Christos Michalis, who was applauded as he encountered Turkish-Cypriots heading in the other direction.

Iacovos Nikitaras, a Greek Cypriot refugee from the north, drove with his wife and children to the coastal resort of Kyrenia, 24km from Nicosia.

"This is unbelievable," he said. "We saw our home again and talked to the Turkish Cypriot family who are living there now.

"They were very nice to us and we all wished for a return to the happy days before the division."

A UN official called the day "very important" for Cyprus, although the deep divisions over territory and recognition that have blocked attempts at reunification remain.

"We hope that this change will be followed by more good things that will contribute to reconciliation on the island," said Zbignew Wlosowicz, the representative of the UN Secretary-General on the island.

Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou noted that the opening came just a week after the Greek Cypriot side signed up to join the European Union next year.

"There is a new dynamic on the island ... to find a solution," Papandreou said in Brussels, Belgium.

"This contact between citizens ... is breaking down the walls."

For the mass of unemployed Turkish Cypriots living in the impoverished and isolated north, the opening of checkpoints offers a lifeline to the south, with its promise of jobs and a European future.

For others it was an eagerly awaited chance to revisit old haunts. For Greek Cypriots living in the south it is their first chance to see the homes that many of them fled from three decades ago.

Serdar Denktash, Deputy Prime Minister and son of the President of Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which is recognised only by Turkey, said the unilateral move was a confidence-building measure.

Speaking yesterday from the buffer zone, he said the international community should not interfere and that reunification would be achieved in small steps.

"Let's see whether this plan that was going to be imposed on us [by the international community] could be workable. Let's see if we can live together."

Passage through three checkpoints spread across the island will be open daily from 9am to midnight with overnight stays not yet on the agenda.

Fener Elcil, a Turkish Cypriot who lives in the north of divided Nicosia, said the move was both overdue and a publicity stunt by the increasingly unpopular Denktash.

Elcil, whose teachers union has been a staunch critic of Denktash's regime, said the border concession would not bolster the Administration's flagging support.

"He has used us as a political hostage for the interests of Turkey. The people want to go to Southern Cyprus. They want jobs, they want to see their Greek Cypriot friends."

Unofficial estimates of the number of jobless in the north put the figure at more than 20,000 from a population of 200,000. A scheme launched two years allowing some Turkish Cypriots to cross into the south to work has been hugely over-subscribed.

- INDEPENDENT