![Varoscha[1].jpg](https://cdn2.opendemocracy.net/media/original_images/Varoscha1_pXh2nYF.jpg)
The Cypriot port of Varosha, which has been off limits since 1974. Wikimedia. Public domain.Few international journalists anticipated the 60% vote for a new and very different Turkish Cypriot leader, Mustafa Akinci. For Turkey, the only UN member state to recognise the state which declared independence in 1983, he is now “President of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” but that did not prevent President Tayyip Erdogan from attacking him on his victory statement, which argued the relation of Turkish Cypriots to Turkey should in future be more equal. At present not only is there a large Turkish military force on Cyprus but a substantial part of the Turkish Cypriot budget is covered by Ankara.
The rest of the world expects of Mustafa Akinci and Nikos Anastasiades, President of the Republic of Cyprus and leader of the Greek Cypriots since 2013, to resolve a problem now fully 60 years old. The situation on the ground has been frozen since 1974, with one crucial change, that in 2003 it became possible for citizens of Cyprus to travel between the two regions, something which has very slowly but also noticeably improved contacts between Greek and Turkish Cypriots.
How realistic are Mustafa Akinci’s and Nikos Anastasiades’ chances of success? They begin with three disadvantages. 20-30% of both communities appear to be effectively opposed to the federal settlement they both support. Whereas the Greek Cypriots are now free of Greece however, the Turkish Cypriots have been left by Ankara in a limbo, a self-proclaimed independent state that is not even allowed to run its own police force and fire brigade. Finally, there is the accumulated lack of trust, flowing in part from past violence, in part from subsequent agreements that have not been honoured in practice.
