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Following the de facto political and geographic division of the island of Cyprus as a result of the war in 1974, Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities started to live side by side marking a new era in the inter-ethnic conflict between the two main communities of the island; a period in which the two sides tried to reunify the island through inter-communal negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations. These talks led to the conclusion of two High Level Agreements in 1977 and 1979, where a federal solution of the conflict had been agreed. In time, bi-zonal, bi-communal federation became a UN parameter.
Yet this solution model has never been fully internalized by the two communities. In the northern part of the island, attitudes towards the solution model of the island have become the main dividing line in party politics.
Even though inter-ethnic divisions have received attention from scholars working on territorial conflicts and population settlements to the disputed territories, intra-ethnic divisions have been most of the time overlooked. However, political settlement of populations or demographic engineering in disputed territories can complicate not only the inter-ethnic but also the intra-ethnic relations as well.
In the case of Northern Cyprus, to consolidate geographical division, authorities embarked on a Turkification process after 1974. This involved, among other things, demographic engineering; Turkish immigrants were settled in the areas left behind by fleeing Greek Cypriots. The flow of Turkish immigrants, which had started in an organized fashion in the 1970s, has continued in a more spontaneous manner to this day. This strategy not only infuriated the Greek Cypriot side and complicated the solution of the Cyprus problem but also has led to a subtle tension between the two groups, natives and immigrants, leading to a deeply divided society in the northern part of the island.
Against this backdrop, based on original survey data from January 2018 (n = 1655), this paper presents a quantitative analysis of the association between identity and attitudes towards the solution of the Cyprus problem.
Our descriptive findings indicate that despite being ethnic kin, there has been a remarkable intra-ethnic division between the two groups in terms of self-identification, perceptions of patria and loyalty. People’s spatial origins affect their primary self-identification, and this causes a serious cleavage between the native and immigrant groups in terms of their perceptions of identity and sense of belonging. To be more precise, while native Turkish Cypriots tend to emphasize their ‘Cypriotness’, ‘Turkishness’ is the overriding element of identity among immigrants.
Besides, there is a serious division in the attitudes of the two groups regarding their preference on the solution of the Cyprus problem as well. Considering this, we will run two-way linear prediction to test the bivariate association between the aforementioned nominal identification (namely being native or immigrant based on birth place/birth place of parents) and self-identification. We hypothesize that nominal identity and self-identification are strongly associated with the attitudes towards the solution of the Cyprus problem. We expect to find that those who identify themselves as ‘Cypriot’ will be more inclined towards favoring a ‘federal’ solution, while those who identify themselves as ‘Turk’ or ‘Muslim’ will be more inclined towards favoring ‘a separate state’.
Furthermore, we also test whether there is a significant relationship between the respondent’s attitudes on the relationship between the TRNC and Turkey and the attitudes towards the solution of the Cyprus problem as well. We hypothesize that those who are more concerned with the nature of the relationship between the TRNC and Turkey, and who show a tendency of dissatisfaction with Ankara’s meddling in domestic politics of the TRNC are more inclined towards a federal solution. Likewise, those who are satisfied with the asymmetrical relationship between the TRNC and Turkey are expected to be more inclined towards opposing the federal solution and favoring the status-quo or annexation by Turkey.
Sertac Sonan, Cyprus International University
Ebru Küçükşener, Cyprus International University
Enis Porat, University of Liverpool