In diplomacy, certain disputes endure for decades because one of the parties derives multifaceted benefits from the absence of a settlement. The Cyprus question is among the most striking examples of this phenomenon.
Over the past several decades, successive United Nations Secretaries-General, special envoys, comprehensive peace plans, and conferences presented as the “last opportunity” have followed one another. Each initiative was accompanied by expressions of optimism, yet none altered the outcome. The reason is straightforward. The core dispute in Cyprus has never been confined to maps, property claims, rotating presidencies, or troop levels. At its heart lies a far more fundamental question: who is sovereign on the island, who constitutes a founding partner, and who is regarded merely as a minority.
The Greek Cypriot side considers itself the sole legitimate representative of the entire island. Accordingly, it does not view the Turkish Cypriots as equal founding partners of a new state but rather as a community that may rejoin the existing Republic of Cyprus under certain constitutional safeguards. The Turkish Cypriot side, by contrast, maintains that it was one of the two equal founding peoples of the Republic established in 1960, rejects subordination to Greek Cypriot majority rule, and insists that its sovereign equality must be recognized. This has remained the central deadlock throughout more than sixty years of negotiations.
The dominant narrative in much of the West begins on the morning of 20 July 1974. Turkey’s military intervention, the division of the island, and the displacement of Greek Cypriots are recounted in vivid detail, while the preceding eleven years of violence that culminated in the intervention are often compressed into a few footnotes. Yet 1974 was not the beginning of the Cyprus conflict; it was its final act.
The Republic of Cyprus, established in 1960, was not conceived as a unitary Greek Cypriot state in which the majority governed the minority. It was founded as a bi-communal partnership between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots, each possessing constitutionally entrenched powers. Türkiye, Greece, and the United Kingdom served as guarantor powers of this constitutional order. However, influential advocates of Greek Cypriot nationalism regarded the partnership not as a permanent constitutional arrangement but as a temporary stage on the path toward Enosis—union of the island with Greece.
President Makarios’ constitutional amendment proposals of 1963 sought to curtail the constitutional rights of the Turkish Cypriot founding partner. The logic underlying the Akritas Plan, formulated during the same period, was even more explicit. Turkish Cypriot constitutional resistance would be eliminated, any reaction swiftly suppressed, and a new political reality established before the international community could intervene. What followed were the events known as Bloody Christmas, attacks against Turkish Cypriot villages, forced displacement, and the systematic exclusion of Turkish Cypriots from state institutions. From 1963 onward, the partnership state effectively ceased to function. For more than a decade, the Turkish Cypriot community lived confined to isolated enclaves, excluded from the political institutions of the Republic.
In 1974, the military coup organized by Nikos Sampson with the backing of the Greek military junta overthrew President Makarios. The coup represented the final attempt to achieve Enosis. Turkey’s intervention came only after this coup had destroyed what remained of the constitutional order established in 1960.
To argue, as many Western accounts continue to do, that the history of the Cyprus dispute began the moment Turkish troops landed on the island is no less illogical than blaming firefighters while ignoring those who started the fire.
At the same time, the most successful diplomatic achievement of the Greek Cypriot–Greek position was securing international recognition of the Greek Cypriot administration as the sole continuation of the 1960 Republic of Cyprus. Although Turkish Cypriots had been expelled from the government and all state institutions, the Greek Cypriot administration continued to represent the entire island internationally under the name of the Republic of Cyprus. This created a profound historical anomaly: the very party that dismantled the partnership state came to be recognized internationally as the exclusive owner and legitimate successor of that state .
Part II – Recognition Without Partnership: How the Status Quo Was Rewarded
This international recognition fundamentally altered the balance at the negotiating table. The Greek Cypriot leadership no longer approached negotiations as an equal partner seeking to establish a new constitutional order. Instead, it negotiated from the position of an internationally recognized government deciding under what conditions the Turkish Cypriot community might be readmitted into the existing Republic of Cyprus.
One side possessed all the attributes of internationally recognized statehood: United Nations membership, diplomatic representation across the world, and full international legal personality. The other, despite maintaining its own parliament, government, democratic institutions, and functioning administration, remained politically and economically isolated.
Under such circumstances, the political calculus became increasingly asymmetrical. For the Greek Cypriot side, preserving the status quo carried relatively little cost, whereas making meaningful concessions in pursuit of a comprehensive settlement entailed significant political risks. This imbalance between rewards and incentives became the single most powerful engine sustaining the Cyprus deadlock.
The events surrounding the Annan Plan in 2004 illustrated this paradox with remarkable clarity.
Presented by the United Nations Secretary-General, the Annan Plan constituted a comprehensive settlement package covering virtually every major aspect of the dispute, including a bi-zonal, bi-communal federal structure, territorial adjustments, property restitution and compensation, security arrangements, and the relationship between a reunited Cyprus and the European Union. From the Turkish Cypriot perspective, the proposal also contained difficult compromises, including territorial withdrawals and provisions whose long-term implications remained uncertain.
Nevertheless, nearly two-thirds of Turkish Cypriot voters approved the plan in the referendum. Approximately three-quarters of Greek Cypriot voters rejected it.
The outcome produced one of the most striking ironies in the history of international diplomacy. The side that accepted the UN-sponsored settlement remained subject to political and economic isolation, while the side that rejected it entered the European Union only days later as the internationally recognized representative of the entire island.
This outcome was not inevitable. The European Union’s decision at the 1999 Helsinki Summit not to make Cyprus’s accession conditional upon a prior political settlement effectively removed the strongest incentive available to encourage compromise by the Greek Cypriot leadership. Once accession had been secured, the Greek Cypriot administration acquired not only the benefits of international recognition but also the institutional leverage of EU membership, including the ability to exercise veto power on matters affecting Türkiye.
From that moment onward, the incentive structure shifted even further. The internationally recognized government no longer faced compelling strategic reasons to negotiate as an equal constituent partner in a new political order or to make substantial concessions necessary for a durable settlement.
The European Union, in effect, did more than import an unresolved territorial dispute into its institutional framework. It also created conditions that enabled Greek and Greek Cypriot national positions to acquire greater influence within European decision-making structures.
Calls are now increasingly made for the European Union to assume a more active role in facilitating a Cyprus settlement. Yet a fundamental structural problem remains. Two of the principal parties to the dispute—Greece and the Republic of Cyprus—are full members of the European Union. Turkish Cypriots enjoy no institutional representation within the Union, while Türkiye itself remains outside it.
Under these circumstances, expecting the European Union to function as an entirely neutral mediator is difficult to reconcile with political reality.
Moreover, Greece and the Greek Cypriot administration have continued to employ the Cyprus issue as an effective political lever in a wide range of EU-Türkiye dossiers, from Türkiye’s accession negotiations and the modernization of the EU-Türkiye Customs Union to energy cooperation and participation in emerging European defence initiatives.
Consequently, what began as a bilateral political dispute gradually evolved into an instrument through which a twenty-seven-member European Union could collectively exert political pressure on Türkiye.
The cumulative effect has been to reinforce, rather than reduce, the incentives for maintaining the existing status quo.
Part III – A Changing International Order
The geopolitical environment surrounding the Cyprus question, however, is no longer the same. As global power balances evolve, so too does Europe’s security architecture. These broader strategic shifts may not resolve the Cyprus dispute by themselves, but they are gradually transforming the incentives of the major international actors involved.
NATO’s Ankara Summit marked an important milestone in this transformation. The Allies made it clear that the European members of the Alliance, together with Canada, would assume greater responsibility for the collective defence of Europe. The Summit endorsed the objective of building “a stronger Europe within a stronger NATO.” This adjustment reflects more than an institutional reform; it represents a fundamental rebalancing of transatlantic security responsibilities.
For the European Union, the implications are significant. Building a credible European defence architecture while excluding Türkiye has become increasingly difficult to envision. Türkiye possesses one of NATO’s largest armed forces, a rapidly expanding defence industry, extensive operational experience, and a strategic geography stretching from the Black Sea to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East.
In this emerging strategic environment, the continued use of veto politics by Greece and the Republic of Cyprus to obstruct broader EU-Türkiye security cooperation risks imposing costs not only on Ankara but increasingly on Europe itself. It is therefore no coincidence that European strategic circles have begun speaking more openly about the unsustainability of reciprocal political blockages that continue to hamper effective NATO-EU cooperation.
Europe’s evolving security priorities are gradually creating incentives for a more balanced approach toward the Eastern Mediterranean—one that recognizes Türkiye not as an external challenge but as an indispensable component of the continent’s long-term security architecture.
A similar evolution is taking place in Washington.
For many years, successive U.S. administrations sought to strengthen relations with Greece and the Republic of Cyprus while managing periodic disagreements with Türkiye, a policy influenced in part by the political weight of the Greek-American and Greek Cypriot lobbies. Today, however, American strategic priorities are undergoing a profound transformation.
The center of gravity of U.S. grand strategy is shifting decisively toward China and the Indo-Pacific.
The 2026 U.S. National Defense Strategy explicitly calls upon America’s allies to assume greater responsibility for European and regional security while allowing the United States to concentrate its military resources on homeland defence and strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific. Deterring China’s growing military and technological power has become Washington’s foremost long-term strategic objective.
Within this broader strategic framework, maintaining persistent tensions with Türkiye over Cyprus is increasingly difficult to reconcile with American interests.
Türkiye’s strategic relevance extends well beyond the Eastern Mediterranean. Its role in Black Sea security, the Caucasus, the Middle East, energy transit corridors, and NATO’s southern flank far exceeds the geopolitical weight that Greece and the Republic of Cyprus can collectively provide.
This does not imply that Washington is likely to abandon its long-standing support for the internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus or fully embrace Ankara’s position. Rather, the changing strategic environment may gradually reduce America’s willingness to continue rewarding uncompromising positions that perpetuate diplomatic stalemate.
Russia’s calculations have also evolved.
For decades, Moscow cultivated close strategic relations with the Republic of Cyprus, motivated both by broader geopolitical considerations vis-à-vis Türkiye and by historical, religious, and cultural ties rooted in Orthodox Christianity. Consistent with successive United Nations Security Council resolutions, Russia has traditionally supported a bi-zonal, bi-communal federal settlement.
The war in Ukraine, however, has substantially narrowed Moscow’s geopolitical room for maneuver.
As Russia’s relations with the West have deteriorated, Türkiye has emerged simultaneously as a difficult regional competitor and an indispensable diplomatic interlocutor. While supporting Ukraine’s sovereignty, Ankara has maintained channels of communication with Moscow, implemented the Montreux Convention governing access to the Black Sea, facilitated grain export arrangements, contributed to prisoner exchanges, and repeatedly hosted negotiations aimed at ending the conflict.
These developments do not suggest that Russia is likely to abandon its traditional position on Cyprus in the near future.
They do suggest, however, that a Russia preoccupied with the strategic and economic burdens of the Ukraine war may become less inclined to antagonize Türkiye unnecessarily or to extend unlimited diplomatic support to every Greek Cypriot and Greek position regardless of the broader geopolitical context.
Should such a recalibration occur, it would contribute to a more balanced international environment in which renewed diplomatic efforts on Cyprus could unfold.
In short, the strategic landscape surrounding the Cyprus issue is changing in ways that would have been difficult to imagine even a decade ago. Europe requires Türkiye for its security. The United States increasingly views its global priorities through the lens of great-power competition with China. Russia, constrained by the consequences of the Ukraine war, has stronger incentives to preserve its working relationship with Ankara.
None of these developments predetermines the outcome of the Cyprus dispute. They do, however, alter the geopolitical context in which future negotiations will take place.
Part III – A Changing International Order
The geopolitical environment surrounding the Cyprus question, however, is no longer the same. As global power balances evolve, so too does Europe’s security architecture. These broader strategic shifts may not resolve the Cyprus dispute by themselves, but they are gradually transforming the incentives of the major international actors involved.
NATO’s Ankara Summit marked an important milestone in this transformation. The Allies made it clear that the European members of the Alliance, together with Canada, would assume greater responsibility for the collective defence of Europe. The Summit endorsed the objective of building “a stronger Europe within a stronger NATO.” This adjustment reflects more than an institutional reform; it represents a fundamental rebalancing of transatlantic security responsibilities.
For the European Union, the implications are significant. Building a credible European defence architecture while excluding Türkiye has become increasingly difficult to envision. Türkiye possesses one of NATO’s largest armed forces, a rapidly expanding defence industry, extensive operational experience, and a strategic geography stretching from the Black Sea to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East.
In this emerging strategic environment, the continued use of veto politics by Greece and the Republic of Cyprus to obstruct broader EU-Türkiye security cooperation risks imposing costs not only on Ankara but increasingly on Europe itself. It is therefore no coincidence that European strategic circles have begun speaking more openly about the unsustainability of reciprocal political blockages that continue to hamper effective NATO-EU cooperation.
Europe’s evolving security priorities are gradually creating incentives for a more balanced approach toward the Eastern Mediterranean—one that recognizes Türkiye not as an external challenge but as an indispensable component of the continent’s long-term security architecture.
A similar evolution is taking place in Washington.
For many years, successive U.S. administrations sought to strengthen relations with Greece and the Republic of Cyprus while managing periodic disagreements with Türkiye, a policy influenced in part by the political weight of the Greek-American and Greek Cypriot lobbies. Today, however, American strategic priorities are undergoing a profound transformation.
The center of gravity of U.S. grand strategy is shifting decisively toward China and the Indo-Pacific.
The 2026 U.S. National Defense Strategy explicitly calls upon America’s allies to assume greater responsibility for European and regional security while allowing the United States to concentrate its military resources on homeland defence and strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific. Deterring China’s growing military and technological power has become Washington’s foremost long-term strategic objective.
Within this broader strategic framework, maintaining persistent tensions with Türkiye over Cyprus is increasingly difficult to reconcile with American interests.
Türkiye’s strategic relevance extends well beyond the Eastern Mediterranean. Its role in Black Sea security, the Caucasus, the Middle East, energy transit corridors, and NATO’s southern flank far exceeds the geopolitical weight that Greece and the Republic of Cyprus can collectively provide.
This does not imply that Washington is likely to abandon its long-standing support for the internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus or fully embrace Ankara’s position. Rather, the changing strategic environment may gradually reduce America’s willingness to continue rewarding uncompromising positions that perpetuate diplomatic stalemate.
Russia’s calculations have also evolved.
For decades, Moscow cultivated close strategic relations with the Republic of Cyprus, motivated both by broader geopolitical considerations vis-à-vis Türkiye and by historical, religious, and cultural ties rooted in Orthodox Christianity. Consistent with successive United Nations Security Council resolutions, Russia has traditionally supported a bi-zonal, bi-communal federal settlement.
The war in Ukraine, however, has substantially narrowed Moscow’s geopolitical room for maneuver.
As Russia’s relations with the West have deteriorated, Türkiye has emerged simultaneously as a difficult regional competitor and an indispensable diplomatic interlocutor. While supporting Ukraine’s sovereignty, Ankara has maintained channels of communication with Moscow, implemented the Montreux Convention governing access to the Black Sea, facilitated grain export arrangements, contributed to prisoner exchanges, and repeatedly hosted negotiations aimed at ending the conflict.
These developments do not suggest that Russia is likely to abandon its traditional position on Cyprus in the near future.
They do suggest, however, that a Russia preoccupied with the strategic and economic burdens of the Ukraine war may become less inclined to antagonize Türkiye unnecessarily or to extend unlimited diplomatic support to every Greek Cypriot and Greek position regardless of the broader geopolitical context.
Should such a recalibration occur, it would contribute to a more balanced international environment in which renewed diplomatic efforts on Cyprus could unfold.
In short, the strategic landscape surrounding the Cyprus issue is changing in ways that would have been difficult to imagine even a decade ago. Europe requires Türkiye for its security. The United States increasingly views its global priorities through the lens of great-power competition with China. Russia, constrained by the consequences of the Ukraine war, has stronger incentives to preserve its working relationship with Ankara.
None of these developments predetermines the outcome of the Cyprus dispute. They do, however, alter the geopolitical context in which future negotiations will take place.
Part IV – The Guterres Initiative, the Case for a Two-State Settlement, and the Search for a New Paradigm
Recent media reports and diplomatic speculation have suggested that UN Secretary-General António Guterres, with active support from the European Union, is exploring a new framework for the Cyprus negotiations. Officially, however, the United Nations has not announced a comprehensive settlement proposal comparable to the 2004 Annan Plan.
Based on information circulating in diplomatic circles, the emerging approach appears to rest on several broad principles.
Rather than attempting to negotiate a comprehensive settlement from the outset, the United Nations seems to be seeking agreement on a limited strategic framework identifying the core political principles upon which future negotiations could proceed. The European Union is expected to play a more direct role by preparing economic assistance packages, supporting post-settlement implementation, facilitating energy cooperation, and helping align any future agreement with the EU acquis. Confidence-building measures between the two communities are also expected to receive renewed emphasis.
The framework reportedly envisages revitalizing the informal 5+1 process involving the two Cypriot sides, the three guarantor powers, and the United Nations, with another expanded informal meeting expected to coincide with the opening of the UN General Assembly.
At the same time, both the United Nations and the Greek Cypriot leadership appear determined to preserve the long-standing objective of a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation while showing greater flexibility regarding its practical implementation.
This approach reflects an understandable effort to move away from the repeated failures of comprehensive negotiations toward a more gradual and incremental diplomatic process.
Nevertheless, it also highlights the principal challenge confronting any new UN initiative.
For Ankara and the Turkish Cypriot leadership, the official position remains clear: comprehensive negotiations cannot resume unless the sovereign equality and equal international status of the Turkish Cypriot side are first acknowledged. Any initiative that continues to operate exclusively within the traditional federal parameters is therefore unlikely to bridge the widening gap between the parties.
In this respect, the success of any future diplomatic effort will depend less on procedural innovation than on whether it adequately reflects the profound geopolitical changes that have transformed the international environment surrounding Cyprus.
Although no comprehensive “Guterres Plan” currently exists, diplomatic reporting suggests that the United Nations may once again attempt to revive the federal model through new confidence-building measures, enhanced European Union incentives, and a revised negotiating framework. Symbolic gestures toward Türkiye from the European Union may also become part of the broader diplomatic package.
Whether such measures will prove sufficient remains uncertain.
Part IV : Why a Two-State Settlement?
The argument for a two-state settlement should not be understood merely as a nationalist aspiration. Rather, it is presented by its proponents as recognition of a political reality that has evolved over more than six decades.
Since 1963, Cyprus has not functioned as a genuinely shared constitutional state. Separate governments, parliaments, elections, judicial systems, administrative structures, and political institutions have developed on the two sides of the island. Two distinct democratic authorities now govern two separate societies that have lived apart for more than sixty years.
Against this background, attempting to reunify the island within an elaborate federal framework before reaching agreement on the fundamental question of sovereignty risks creating a constitutional structure vulnerable to renewed paralysis. Future disputes over security, budgetary authority, external relations, or constitutional interpretation could once again immobilize the state.
Advocates of a two-state solution argue that permanent division need not imply permanent hostility.
Under conditions of mutual recognition, it would be possible to envisage an island characterized by open borders, comprehensive arrangements for property restitution, exchange and compensation, joint mechanisms for managing offshore energy resources, internationally guaranteed security arrangements, and parallel relationships between both states and the European Union.
The underlying principle would be straightforward: neither community would seek to govern the other; instead, each would recognize the legitimacy, security, and political equality of the other.
Part VI :Conclusion
Cyprus Cannot Remain Captive to Yesterday’s Assumptions
For decades, the absence of a settlement has largely benefited the Greek Cypriot–Greek position. International recognition, European Union membership, and institutional veto power have remained intact, while Turkish Cypriots have continued to experience political and economic isolation. As successive federal negotiations failed, the internationally recognized government paid little political price, whereas increasing pressure was placed upon the Turkish side to offer additional concessions.
The international environment, however, is no longer that of 2004. Following NATO’s strategic transformation, Europe faces mounting security responsibilities that cannot realistically be fulfilled without meaningful cooperation with Türkiye.
In this changing environment, Türkiye’s diplomatic challenge extends beyond repeating its preference for a two-state settlement. It must also demonstrate, through coherent diplomatic engagement, how such a model could contribute to regional stability, European security, energy cooperation, and a more sustainable political order in the Eastern Mediterranean.
The responsibility of the United Nations is equally significant.
Rather than repeatedly revisiting different variations of a negotiating model that has failed to produce agreement for more than half a century, the international community should ask whether changing geopolitical realities require a fresh conceptual framework.
The central question is no longer whether two separate political entities exist on Cyprus. In practice, they have existed for decades.
The real question is whether the international community will continue to preserve an incentive structure that rewards the maintenance of the status quo, or whether it is prepared to explore a new diplomatic paradigm grounded in political equality, mutual security, and the realities that have emerged on the island over the past sixty years.
As the international order undergoes profound transformation, insisting that Cyprus remain confined within diplomatic formulas inherited from another era may no longer represent prudent statecraft. It risks becoming, instead, an exercise in postponing political realities rather than resolving them.