NICOSIA, Cyprus — The sound of unseen assault rifles being cocked can be heard across the United Nations-controlled buffer zone in ethnically divided areas. Cyprusraising concerns that the island’s simmering conflicts could flare up again.
The gunfire is just the tip of the iceberg in a series of recent escalations by Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots, rivals separated by the 180-kilometre (110-mile) buffer zone that snakes through the capital’s medieval centre.
The UN peacekeeping force in Cyprus, known as UNFICYP, has seen the deployment of large-calibre weapons such as machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades at guard posts, the construction of hundreds of new fighting positions and the installation of dozens of high-tech cameras with infrared capabilities that could potentially help target artillery and missile systems, the force’s outgoing military chief of staff, Colonel Ben Ramsay, said.
Such actions are seen as a violation of the buffer zone and are happening more and more often.
“Nobody is listening,” Col. Ramsay told The Associated Press during a tour of the abandoned homes and businesses of the inaccessible buffer zone, left to the ravages of time. “A miscalculation is a matter of time.”
The buffer zone connecting the north and south – over 6 kilometres at its widest point, a few metres at its narrowest – serves as a reminder of the island nation’s troubled politics that culminated in a Turkish invasion in 1974, in response to a coup d’état by proponents of union with Greece. UN peacekeepers had been deployed to Cyprus a decade before the invasion to suppress fighting between the two communities, and their mandate was later expanded to patrol the buffer zone.
Both sides relaxed their military readiness after the breakaway Turkish Cypriots in the northern part of the island and the Greek Cypriots in the south signed an agreement in 1989 in which they agreed to withdraw their troops.
Now, on the eve of the 50th anniversary of a war that left Cyprus as the only remaining divided member state of the European Union, Heightened tensions are something the international community can hardly afford — especially on an island that has received thousands of tons of humanitarian aid shipped to war-torn Gaza.
So far in 2024, there has been a 70 percent increase in buffer zone violations compared to a year ago, Colonel Ramsay said, mainly due to construction by both sides within the neutral zone. In 2023, there was a 60 percent increase in such violations.
Most of the violations take place during the summer months, in what Colonel Ramsay calls a “silent battlefield” where “a game of chess is being played.”
Only 800 troops are assigned to patrol the entire length of the buffer zone, which Colonel Ramsay says poses a challenge. But the UN has its own high-tech surveillance cameras to monitor unauthorized incursions into the buffer zone and to quickly deploy peacekeepers to potential hot spots before things get out of hand, using an artificial intelligence program called Python Scripts that can predict when and where breaches of the buffer zone might occur. They have also reopened a command post in the Nicosia buffer zone, from where peacekeepers can monitor all activity 24 hours a day.
In 2023, Turkish Cypriots UN peacekeepers attacked after they got in the way of work crews building a road, which would have caused the buffer zone to be crossed.
Turkish Cypriots have challenged UNFICYP’s authority within the buffer zone to pressure the world body to recognize the state they unilaterally declared in 1983. Only Turkey recognizes the breakaway state and keeps more than 35,000 troops stationed there.
The island’s Greek Cypriot president, Nikos Christodoulides, has blamed Turkey and Turkish Cypriots for the buffer zone violations, although the UN says high-tech surveillance equipment recently installed by his government along the buffer zone also counts as a violation. Cypriot government officials say the cameras were installed to monitor and prevent potential crossings of asylum seekers to the south.
Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots have steadfastly pushed for a two-state deal that the Greek Cypriots have dismissed as a non-starter. The two sides have not held a genuine dialogue on a peace deal for seven years, since the last major attempt to reunite the island as a federal republic consisting of Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot zones failed.
The latest attempt by the UN chief’s personal envoy, María Angela Holguín Cuéllar, to get the two sides back to the negotiating table seems to be stuttering.
The head of the UN mission in Cyprus, Colin Stewart, warned earlier in July that if efforts at peace talks were to be halted, there would be “consequences in the buffer zone”.
It is a concern shared by Turkish Cypriot Ipek Borman and Greek Cypriot Anna Koukkides-Procopiou. They are members of the steering committee of the recently formed Cyprus Women Bi-Communal Coalition, a group that advocates for women’s equal voice and involvement in the peace process on the island.
In June, Hezbollah warned Cyprus to prevent the Israeli army from using its airports on the island to bomb Lebanon. Borman and Koukkides-Procopiou point to the threat as an example of why the division of Cyprus can no longer be seen as a sideline conflict, disconnected from the unfolding events in a tumultuous region.
It is vital that both sides resume talks to prevent tensions on the island from escalating to the point where open hostilities could break out again.
“Cyprus is part of a regional security puzzle, and does the world need another conflict? Does the world need another forest fire?” Koukkides-Procopiou told the Associated Press. Without a return to talks, “we could unfortunately be faced with an escalation of tensions that are too late to control.”