Cyprus unveiled

Speaker attempts to address Cyprus conflict, but not without defensive rebukes from a U of M crowd

Chelsea Moore staff

Ethnic tensions in Cyprus are still deeply felt, according to a lecturer hosted by the Mauro Centre for Peace and Justice at the U of M last week.

On March 20, Dr. Esra Çuhadar Gürkaynak, a conflict resolution assistant professor from Sabanç University in Istanbul, Turkey, gave a presentation entitled, “An Assessment of Mediation Attempts in Cyprus.” The lecture, however, quickly transformed into a heated debate between the speaker and the audience.

Gürkaynak began by giving a brief overview of the Cyprus conflict, explaining that since 1974, it has been a “divided” island between the “Turkish Republic of North Cyprus” and the Greek Cypriots in the south.

Most of her lecture focused on the third parties involved in the conflict between 1990 and 2004, including the United States, the UN and the EU.

She examined how these actors complemented each other and whether or not they further escalated the Cyprian conflict.

As a conclusion, she noted that the intervention of the U.S., the EU and the UN did “re-introduce incentives” for the Greek government; they “did not change anything.”

“Present-day conflicts often touch issues of the existence and security of people,” said Dr. Sean Byrne, director of the Arthur V. Mauro Center for Peace and Justice. “The underlying causes of violence and conflict must be addressed to prevent its resurgence.”

Gürkaynak’s analysis, however, led some within the audience to speculate as to whether or not her speech was too academic.

The most important challenge in the Cyprus conflict, according to Gürkaynak, is getting both parties to agree on a mutual Cyprian history rather than two opposing ones.

“On both sides, it does not matter if you’re a Greek Cypriot or Turkish Cypriot,” said Gürkaynak. “There are a lot of things to remind each side that you are the victim . . . as long as this memory keeps going on I don’t see an immediate end to the conflict.”

She also spoke of a committee dedicated to the re-writing of history texts by academics from both northern and southern Cyprus as an initiative to improve the language of the history of Cyprus.

This also led to unsatisfied sentiments from the audience: one man stated that re-creating history books was an initiative similar to “fabricating the past.”