Toward a discussion of the future of Kyrenia within the negotiation process

Ahead of the anniversary of the events of 1974, the Greek Cypriot publication Simerini published a piece by researcher Fanoula Argyrou, examining the position of the political leadership of the Republic of Cyprus regarding the Kyrenia region during the years of negotiations.

The author draws attention to the discrepancy between the public rhetoric of party leaders, who spoke of the need to return all territories, and their actual willingness to compromise. The article notes that the adoption by the main political forces of the concept of a bicommunal, bizonal federation originally implied concessions that made the full return of displaced persons to their homes more difficult.

To support this, declassified archival documents from the British Foreign Office are cited. According to diplomatic dispatches from April 1977, the transfer of the «bizonal map» to the Turkish side in Vienna was authorized by Archbishop Makarios. In British diplomatic circles, this step was seen as a pragmatic acknowledgment of political reality: the proposed borders clearly showed that a significant number of refugees, first and foremost from Kyrenia, would not be able to return, and the state would have to focus on settling them in the south of the island.

The publication also cites official data from the Cyprus Land Registry for August 1975, which at the time British diplomats considered accurate. According to this statistics, the share of Turkish-owned land on the island stood at 12.3% (12.7% in the Kyrenia region), while Greek Cypriots owned 61% of the land. The author points out that, despite these legal and economic ownership figures, Cypriot negotiators, in the search for compromise, agreed to discuss territorial division into zones on the basis of the factual situation that had emerged after 1974.