Cyprus has not been formally partitioned. But after more than half a century of division, something more dangerous may now be happening: partition is slowly ceasing to look temporary. It is becoming the normal condition of the island.
By Dr. Nikolaos Stelgias, Chief Editor of The Levant Files
I have followed the Cyprus problem for many years, professionally and academically. I have watched negotiations begin with great expectations and collapse. I have seen leaders come and go, confidence-building measures announced and forgotten, crossings opened, crises contained and diplomatic initiatives presented as the beginning of something new.
For that reason, I do not use the word partition lightly.
But today I believe we have to ask an uncomfortable question: is Cyprus now one step before its division becomes, for all practical purposes, permanent?
I believe the warning is justified.
Not because somebody is about to announce the formal partition of Cyprus tomorrow morning. Not because international recognition of the north is suddenly imminent. And not because the United Nations has abandoned the settlement framework.
The danger is subtler than that.
Cyprus is drifting towards what I would call partition by accumulation: one failed initiative after another, one dispute over terminology after another, one confrontation inside the buffer zone after another, one regional disagreement after another.
Eventually, what was supposed to be temporary begins to acquire the weight of permanence.
Guterres Warned Us
When UN Secretary-General António Guterres came to Cyprus in July, his message deserved considerably more attention than it received.
The broader region is becoming dangerously unstable. Cyprus does not exist in a geopolitical vacuum. Wars, military confrontations, energy disputes and competing regional alliances are transforming the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East around it.
An unresolved Cyprus problem is therefore not simply an old diplomatic file gathering dust at the United Nations. It is an additional vulnerability in an increasingly volatile neighbourhood.
Guterres met President Nikos Christodoulides and Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhürman together and spoke about another enlarged meeting once sufficient progress had been made on confidence-building measures, the methodology of negotiations and the substance of a settlement.
And yet, in New York this week, we encountered an extraordinary situation.
There were separate contacts with the Secretary-General, but the two Cypriot leaders could not be brought together for the proposed joint meeting.
There are conflicting accounts about why that happened. Greek Cypriot sources have said Erhürman did not consent. Erhürman had already argued that meetings should be properly prepared and have a realistic prospect of producing results.
The precise diplomatic chronology matters.
But the larger picture matters even more.
The Cyprus problem has reached a stage where the difficulty is no longer simply agreeing on the final settlement. We are struggling even to agree on how to begin talking about reaching one.
That should alarm anyone who still believes reunification is possible.
When A Mayor's Title Becomes A Cyprus Problem
Then came the Cyprus Forum controversy.
At first glance, this might appear almost trivial compared with negotiations, security guarantees, property, territory or sovereignty.
It is not.
Mehmet Harmancı was initially presented by the organisers as mayor of the Nicosia Turkish Municipality. The far-right ELAM objected and demanded that his invitation be withdrawn. The forum refused to exclude him, but according to its executive president, Nicolas Kyriakides, officials of the Republic subsequently objected to the title used in the programme.
The title was changed.
Harmancı withdrew.
Then Nicosia mayor Charalambos Prountzos withdrew in solidarity.
Think about what this means.
Nicosia is Europe's last divided capital. Its two mayors are among the people who must deal with the practical consequences of that division every day. If even their participation in a civic forum can become trapped inside a battle over recognition and terminology, then the political space available for cooperation is shrinking.
There is another side to this story, and it should not be ignored. The Republic of Cyprus has legitimate legal and diplomatic reasons to resist language or practices that could be interpreted as recognition of a separate state in the north.
But there is also a political reality.
If every contact with Turkish Cypriot representatives becomes primarily a test of recognition, we risk making meaningful contact itself increasingly difficult.
That would be disastrous.
Harmancı and Prountzos actually demonstrated that another Cyprus still exists. Their cooperation across the dividing line is precisely the sort of relationship that should be protected.
Yet the episode demonstrated how fragile that space has become.
Ankara Is Not Hiding Its Destination
Then there is Turkey.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan used the UN General Assembly once again to call for recognition of the internationally unrecognised “TRNC” and for political, diplomatic and economic relations with it.
In his meeting with Guterres, Erdoğan again insisted on the sovereign equality and equal international status of the Turkish Cypriots.
There is nothing ambiguous here.
Ankara is openly advocating a two-state outcome.
This does not mean that Erhürman should simply be described as an extension of Ankara's position. That would be analytically lazy and politically inaccurate.
Erhürman came to the Turkish Cypriot leadership with a different political background. He has remained open to exploring a federal settlement, while demanding political equality and clear rules governing any renewed negotiation.
He has also made an important point: the absence of a solution cannot itself become the solution.
I agree.
But that is precisely why the present moment is so troubling.
There is no agreed road back to substantive negotiations, while Turkey—the only country recognising the northern entity—continues to promote international acceptance of two states.
Time therefore does not operate neutrally.
Every year without a settlement changes realities on the ground. Political institutions consolidate. Economic relationships develop separately. New generations grow up with little memory of life on a united island.
The map may remain unchanged.
The meaning of the map does not.
The Green Line Is Becoming More Dangerous
We should also pay close attention to what is happening along the Green Line.
The recent confrontation near Denia between Turkish forces and Greek Cypriot farmers was contained after UNFICYP intervened.
It would be irresponsible to turn one local incident into evidence that a new territorial order has already been created.
But it would be equally irresponsible to dismiss such incidents as insignificant.
The buffer zone is where several unresolved questions collide: sovereignty, military control, civilian access, property and the operational authority of the United Nations.
These concepts are frequently mixed together in political rhetoric, although legally they are not the same thing.
The Republic of Cyprus claims sovereignty over the island while not exercising effective control in the north. UNFICYP has a specific mandate inside the buffer zone. EU law explicitly states that the Green Line is not an external border of the European Union.
Yet something politically significant is happening.
After decades during which the Green Line was supposed to represent the military consequence of an unresolved conflict, arguments increasingly revolve around managing it as though division will continue indefinitely.
That psychological transition matters enormously.
A ceasefire line can eventually become a de facto border long before the international community formally calls it one.
The Sea Is Becoming Another Green Line
And the division is no longer confined to land.
The Great Sea Interconnector—the planned electricity connection between Cyprus, Greece and Israel—has become entangled in the wider Greek-Turkish maritime dispute.
Turkey maintains that work in waters it claims as part of its continental shelf must be coordinated with Ankara. Greece rejects the proposition that Turkish permission is required.
The legal arguments are complicated, but the strategic significance is straightforward.
A major infrastructure project linking Cyprus with Greece and, ultimately, Israel is now another arena in which competing Greek and Turkish interpretations of maritime jurisdiction collide.
If survey ships return to disputed waters, this disagreement will no longer exist only in diplomatic communiqués.
It will return to the sea.
And that leads to perhaps the most underestimated element in the Cyprus equation today.
Greek-Turkish Relations Are Deteriorating Again
Cyprus cannot be separated from the wider relationship between Greece and Turkey.
When Athens and Ankara are talking seriously, Cyprus gains diplomatic space.
When Greek-Turkish relations deteriorate, Cyprus becomes considerably more difficult to solve.
The absence of a meeting between the Greek and Turkish leaders around this year's UN General Assembly, continuing maritime disagreements, the interconnector dispute and renewed arguments over regional security should therefore concern Nicosia.
There are still important counter-signals. Erdoğan has stressed that Turkey and Greece are neighbours and NATO allies and has spoken against exploiting bilateral relations for domestic political purposes.
Diplomatic communication has not collapsed.
But the atmosphere is clearly more difficult.
And Cyprus historically pays a price whenever the Greek-Turkish relationship moves from dialogue towards strategic confrontation.
So Are We Really One Step Before Final Partition?
This is where precision becomes essential.
No, Cyprus has not been formally partitioned.
No wave of international recognition of the northern entity has occurred.
The UN settlement framework has not disappeared.
UN Security Council resolutions rejecting recognition of a separate Cypriot state remain in force.
Contacts between the communities continue. The two leaders still communicate. The two Nicosia mayors have demonstrated that people on opposite sides of the divide can defend cooperation even when political pressure makes that difficult.
All of this matters.
But none of it eliminates my concern.
Because I do not believe formal partition is the greatest immediate danger.
The real danger is partition becoming normal.
Imagine another five years without substantive negotiations.
Then another five.
Imagine fewer bicommunal contacts, more arguments about titles and recognition, repeated confrontations along the buffer zone, deeper economic separation and regional energy projects designed around the assumption that Cyprus will remain divided.
Imagine Greek-Turkish relations becoming increasingly securitised while Ankara continues advocating two states.
At what exact moment would we say partition had become permanent?
There might never be such a moment.
There might be no ceremony.
No new flag.
No dramatic UN vote.
No international conference announcing that reunification has failed.
We may simply wake up one day and realise that the political, economic and strategic structures surrounding Cyprus have made reunification almost impossible.
Partition By Accumulation
This is why I use the phrase partition by accumulation.
One incident does not partition Cyprus.
One cancelled meeting does not partition Cyprus.
One dispute between mayors does not partition Cyprus.
One confrontation in the buffer zone does not partition Cyprus.
One Turkish statement supporting two states does not partition Cyprus.
One dispute over an electricity cable does not partition Cyprus.
But politics is rarely transformed by one event.
Sometimes history changes because small developments begin pointing in the same direction.
That is what worries me today.
Guterres warned Cyprus that its unresolved conflict exists inside a region becoming more dangerous.
Instead of responding to that warning with urgency, we are still debating whether the leaders can meet, what a mayor may call himself, who may enter parts of the buffer zone and whether ships can survey the seabed without provoking another Greek-Turkish confrontation.
Meanwhile, the years continue to pass.
The Last Window May Not Close With A Bang
Those who still support reunification should understand something uncomfortable: the status quo is not static.
Every year without a settlement alters the conditions under which the next negotiation would have to take place.
That applies to Greek Cypriots.
It applies to Turkish Cypriots.
It applies to Athens and Ankara.
And it applies to an international community that cannot assume indefinitely that the same diplomatic formula will remain politically achievable simply because it remains written in UN resolutions.
The immediate priority should therefore be modest but serious: protect bicommunal contact, prevent the buffer zone from becoming an arena of recurring confrontation, open further crossings, protect the cooperation of local authorities and establish a credible path back towards substantive negotiations.
None of these measures would solve the Cyprus problem.
But they could stop the ground beneath a future settlement from disappearing.
For decades, we have spoken about the division of Cyprus as temporary.
That word has carried an extraordinary burden.
Temporary since 1974.
Temporary through generations of failed negotiations.
Temporary while two separate political, economic and social realities have steadily developed.
There comes a point when we must ask how long a temporary condition can survive before history quietly gives it another name.
That is why I believe Cyprus is approaching one of the most dangerous moments since 1974.
Not because final partition will necessarily be declared.
But because it may no longer need to be.
Dr. Nikolaos Stelgias is the Chief Editor of The Levant Files.
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