“Turkey’s decision and the occupation regime to open part of the closed city … is illegal and a clear violation of international law and a UN Security Council resolution,” said Cypriot President Nikos Anastasiadis about the situation around the “ghost town” in the northern part of divided Cyprus.
In Varoša, an abandoned suburb of Famagusta, the police let civilians in check-through through checkpoints. Before the partition of Cyprus, the place was a popular destination for tourists and film celebrities. Today, more than a hundred hotels there are dilapidated and the entrances to them are overgrown with grass.
The Greek Cypriots had to leave Varoša after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, when the city had about 40,000 inhabitants. According to the UN, they still legally own land or flats there to this day.
The Turkish Ministry of Defense has published pictures of people walking in small groups along abandoned buildings on Warsaw’s sandy beach. One of the photos shows a woman with a large Turkish flag hanging on her back.
According to Reuters sources, it is planned to open 1.5 kilometers of coastline to the public. Houses and hotels further inland will remain in the guarded military zone.
The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus was established in the north of the island in 1983 after Turkey sent troops to Cyprus in 1974 in response to a coup attempt by nationalist Greek Cypriots. In the southern part of the island is the internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus, which has been a member of the EU since 2004.
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The move by the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, recognized only by Ankara, could jeopardize the resumption of now stalled talks between the two parts of the island and exacerbate disputes between Athens and Ankara, which have been arguing since August over exploration for mining in the eastern Mediterranean. The situation calmed down earlier this week after NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg met with Greek and Turkish officials.
On the sidelines of the Globsec security conference in Bratislava, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavusoglu and his Greek counterpart Nikos Dendias met for the first time since the outbreak of the dispute. According to the Turkish media, they talked about “bilateral and regional issues”.
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