Cyprus Wall Begins to Crumble

It wasn't quite like the opening of the Berlin Wall. There was no champagne, no chorus of "we are one people," no tears of joy.

Rather unspectacularly the so-called "Green Line" in Cyprus, which marks the border between the island's Turkish-run north and Greek Cypriot south, opened up on Wednesday. Nearly 3,000 Turkish Cypriots visited the south, while around 1,750 Greek Cypriots went north for the first time since Turkey occupied one-third of the island 29 years ago.

"After so many years, I am looking forward to visiting my house on the Greek-Cypriot side again," Ahmet Özturan, the first person to cross to the south, said. Like Özturan, most of the day-trippers were curious to take a look on the other side, to see how things had changed in the past three decades.

Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash decided on Monday night to open the border. While the Greek Cypriot government in Nikosia welcomed the step, government spokesman Kypros Chrysostomides said that Denktash was merely trying "to show that he exercises sovereignty over the occupied region and that it constitutes an individual state."

Visitors between north and south may stay until midnight on the other side of the island. The Greek Cypriot government has forbidden settlers from Turkey and Turkish soldiers to visit the south, while the north will only allow in people who can prove they are Cypriots.

Pressure for reunification

Since the European Union agreed to admit the southern Republic of Cyprus to its ranks, Denktash has been under increasing pressure to agree to a plan for reuniting the island. Hopes were dashed that a reunited Cyprus could join the EU in March, when Denktash rejected the most recent proposal from U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Last week Cyprus signed an accession treaty that will make it a full-fledged EU member state in May 2004. The poorer northern part of the island is not recognized internationally, and an embargo prevents air traffic and trade with it.

Three decades apart

Nearly 200,000 Greek Cypriots fled to the southern part of the island after Turkish soldiers occupied the north in 1974 in an attempt to counter a Greek Cypriot coup supported by Athens. Since then Greek Cypriots have hardly had the opportunity to visit the north, which is divided from the south by the U.N. patrolled "Green Line," the 180 km (120 miles) long line of ceasefire.

Unlike the Berlin Wall, the "Green Line" serves to keep the two peoples apart, not as a sort of prison. Cypriots in north and south are free to travel beyond the island.