NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) – The ethnically divided government of Cyprus was attacked on Tuesday for a decision to install barbed wire along a section of a UN-controlled buffer zone.
He says the change is necessary to stem the flow of migrants from the separatist north of the island, but critics say the plan is “ineffective” and only fuels the fear that the division will be consolidated, amid a new impulse to resume dormant peace negotiations.
The crews began installing the barbed wire on the south side of the buffer zone about 30 kilometers (19 miles) west of the capital, Nicosia, earlier this week.
Critics, including the Communist-led opposition party AKEL, said the move only leaves “huge question marks, since it implies the delineation of borders and the entrenchment of the division of our homeland”.
Farmers authorized to farm land within the buffer zone initially expressed some concern about access to their plots, but the government said it would act to facilitate access.
Cyprus was divided into ethnic lines in 1974, when Turkey invaded the country after a coup d’état by supporters of the union with Greece. Turkish Cypriots in the northern third of the island declared independence almost a decade later, but only Turkey recognizes it. Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004, but only the southern part, where the internationally recognized government is based, enjoys all the benefits.
Cypriot government officials say the country has the highest number of asylum applications per capita in the European Union. Most of these asylum seekers cross a porous buffer zone after heading north, usually on commercial flights.
AKEL spokesman Stefanos Stefanou acknowledged that Cyprus is having to deal with large flows of immigrants, but insisted that “methods that imply boundaries between states” is not the way.
“Nowhere in the world has the problem of migration been solved by building walls, fences or barbed wire,” said Stefanou. “These are (former President Donald) Trump’s ideas that this government is obviously copying.”
Other opposition parties agreed, saying the move was poorly planned, as it feeds the current Turkish Cypriot leadership and its patron, Turkey, who want to renounce an agreed federal structure to reunify Cyprus and reach an agreement based on two equal states.
The pacifist group Unite Cyprus Now tweeted that it expects the authorities to “work as hard to reduce the barriers as to build them”.
The government defended the measure, saying that placing the barbed wire is fully in line with European Union regulations governing movement through the buffer zone and that both the EU, the UN and local authorities have been informed in advance.
Government spokesman Kyriakos Koushos said that no “political or other message” could be derived from the movement, except to protect public security and obstruct “uncontrolled flows of migrants that Turkey intentionally feeds through our occupied areas “.
Cypriot government officials have long accused Ankara of actively encouraging migrants to apply for asylum in the south in order to “change the demographic character of the island”.
Koushos said that contact between Greek and Turkish Cypriots is not impeded, as people on both sides of the division cross over nine designated crossing points.
Many of these crossing points are currently closed due to coronavirus restrictions.