The New York Times reports that Varosha, Cyprus–the once-booming seaside city that became the largest ghost town in the world after the Turkish invasion of 1974–may soon be returned to its rightful owners.

Varosha, the Ghost City in 2003. Photograph by Lakis Polycarpou.

 

In July, places like this around the Mediterranean are normally crowded with thousands of tourists. Yet a nearby beach, once visited by the likes of Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia Loren and Paul Newman, is different …

Finding Varosha empty, Turkish troops sealed it off with a wall of barbed wire, turning it into a so-called military forbidden zone. It has remained that way since, a symbol of an intractable problem in a region that is riddled with them.

Now, though, hopes are at their highest in years that this ghost resort may soon come back to life.

The story sites the “prevailing positive climate” in current negotiations between Cyprus president Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader, Mustafa Akinci to reunite the partitioned island.

There is no doubt that the mood between the two communities in Cyprus has changed. When I visited in the 1993 and 1996 to collect oral histories and research my master’s thesis (research that would become the basis for August in the Vanishing City(http://august-in-the-vanishing-city.com/) and the coming Cyprus Chronicles books), bicommunual relations between Greek and Turkish Cypriots was at probably the lowest point since the invasion.

In 1996, the Greek Cypriot Motorcycle Federation staged a protest in which they rode from now-open Berlin all the way to the Green Line to show how Cyprus was the only place left in Europe without freedom of movement. They were met by neo-fascist Turkish counter-protesters (Grey Wolves) armed with clubs and iron rods; clashes led to the deaths of two Greek Cypriot protesters in the Dead Zone just south of Varosha.

Greek Cypriot Protestor Tassos Isaak killed by Grey Wolves in 1996. Source: Wikipedia.

 

Even as it was trying to calm the street protests, the Greek Cypriot government was in the process of purchasing a Russian surface-to-air missile defense system to counter Turkey’s overwhelming military superiority–a move that the Turkish government regarded as casus belli and threatened full-fledged military action to stop it.

By the time I returned in 2003, however, the tenor had changed. Part of the reason was no doubt Cyprus’ imminent accession to the European Union. Turkish Cypriot leaders knew that without a settlement, they would never reap the benefits of being part of Europe. New leadership on the Turkish side led to the unilateral opening of the border to Greek Cypriots for the first time in 29 years (albeit without actually addressing the sticky question of sovereignty).

Traveling to Northern Cyprus for the first time in memory with my father was at once fascinating, depressing and surreal. The landscape had been systematically stripped of its Greek character. Ancient, historic churches had been turned into museums; villages of friends and relatives turned over to mainland Turkish settlers.

Photograph by Lakis Polycarpou

But nothing was as strange as driving along the fenced edge of the ghost city of Varosha, a suburb of the ancient city of Famagusta. Unlike the rest of northern Cyprus, for which Turkish leaders had clearly had a resettlement plan, it seemed that they took Varosha by mistake after the Greek Cypriot population fled when the city was bombed.

As a result, the seaside town (and its incredible beaches) were wrapped up in barbed wire and set off-limits to anyone. It seemed the Turkish side at first intended only to keep Varosha as a bargaining chip to offer in return for international recognition of the rest of its occupation–recognition that never came.

Photograph by Lakis Polycarpou

As a result, Varosha decayed and fell apart, year after year. In his book, The World Without Us, Alan Weisman visited Varosha and cited it as an example of what would happen to human infrastructure if all the humans suddenly disappeared.

By 2004, as Cyprus accession the European Union neared, the United Nations and the international community put immense pressure on the two sides to come up with an agreement to reunify the island.

The eventual U.N. plan that was presented to the Cypriot people (“The Annan Plan”) would have returned Varosha to Greek Cyprus as part of a broader scheme that would have dissolved the Republic and created a new bi-communal federated state.

Unfortunately, the whatever the U.N.’s intentions, the plan was fundamentally flawed (among other things, it would have recreated the divisive structure of the failed 1960s constitution, and would have allowed Turkish troops to remain in Cyprus in perpetuity) and was therefore rejected by the Greek Cypriot side in referendum.

Can the forthcoming plan succeed where previous attempts have failed? On the down side is the fact that many of the same core issues that have divided the two sides remain. On the plus side for settlement is the discovery of enormous gas deposits of the coast of Cyprus that would be much more easily exploited within a unified state.

 

Gas discoveries around Cyprus. Source: Alternet.

As for Varosha, there is a possibility that it will be opened even without a comprehensive settlement: according to an article in Bloomberg last May(http://www.bloomberg.com/news/article...), Akinci has indicated that he is open to returning Varosha in exchange for opening Turkish Cypriot airports and ports to international traffic.

 

My novel, August in the Vanishing City, is a story about a young Greek Cypriot soldier who decides to return to Varosha, Famagusta to recover a keepsake that will help him win the heart of his childhood love.