Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) President Ersin Tatar came together with Greek Cypriot leader Nicos Anastasiadis at a United Nations reception in Lefkoşa (Nicosia) in a social setting, the Turkish Cypriot presidency announced on Wednesday.
The meeting between the two lasted a little over 10 minutes, according to U.N. sources.
The leaders later shook hands and posed for a picture with Colin Stewart, the special representative of the U.N. secretary-general and head of the U.N. Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP), who hosted the year-end reception at the Ledra Palace Hotel.
Tatar’s special representative Ergün Olgun and Greek Cypriot negotiator Menelaos Menelaou also attended the event as well as their negotiation committees, the co-chairs of technical committees, diplomats, U.N. officials, and representatives of nongovernmental organizations from both sides.
As he delivered the opening speech, Stewart expressed his gratitude to the two leaders and their delegations for their attendance.
The island of Cyprus has been divided in a decadeslong struggle between the Turkish and Greek Cypriots since 1964 when ethnic attacks forced the Turkish Cypriots to withdraw into enclaves for their safety and a 1974 coup aiming at Greece's annexation led to Türkiye's military intervention as a guarantor power.
The U.N. has been working for years to reach a comprehensive agreement on the Cyprus issue, proposing a reunification plan for a federation and sponsoring peace talks that eventually broke down.
While Greece and the Greek Cypriot administration support the U.N.’s suggestion of a federal Greek Cypriot administration, the TRNC and its guarantor Türkiye have been resolutely calling for a two-state solution, stressing that “the sovereign equality and the equal international status of the Turkish Cypriots are non-negotiable.”
Earlier in September, Tatar said there would be no tripartite meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Anastasiadis in New York in 2022 since the Greek Cypriot side will hold elections in February 2023 and Anastasiadis will not run for the top office.
Meanwhile, the Greek Cypriot party AKEL remembered the extreme nationalist EOKA-B terrorist group’s 1974 coup on the island as an act of treason, local media reported Wednesday.
The coup of July 15, 1974 was a treacherous act devised by Georgios Grivas, the founder of EOKA-B, said Stefanos Stefanou, general secretary of the major leftist party in the Greek Cypriot administration, as he laid a wreath at the Democracy and Resistance Monument in Larnaca.
"We are here to honor the dead resistance fighters murdered by Grivas's EOKA-B, all those who resisted the treacherous coup of the (Greek military) junta and EOKA-B," Stefanou said.
Also speaking at the event, Tasos Savva, president of the Association of Democratic Resistance, said: "We honor all those who watered with their blood the tree of democracy and resistance against the fascism of the junta and EOKA-B."
Recently, the Greek Cypriot administration converted Azina House, a hideout that Grivas used, to honor the founder of the ultra-nationalist group that systematically targeted Turkish Cypriots in a series of terrorist attacks.
A year after Grivas founded the group in 1954, EOKA staged its first terrorist attack, though its primary aim was to fight against the British occupiers of the island in the Eastern Mediterranean.
It then directed its attacks against Turkish Cypriots in 1958, in line with its goals of clearing the island of Turks and uniting it with Greece.
Personally commanded by Grivas, EOKA militias attacked the Erenköy area, today a western exclave of the TRNC, on Aug. 6, 1964, and were confronted by Turkish university students and resistance fighters.
A total of 18 Turkish Cypriots were killed by EOKA terrorists and went down in history as part of the Erenköy resistance.
Greek and Greek Cypriot troops along with EOKA militias commanded by Grivas also attacked the Geçitkale area, where they committed a mass slaughter. Twenty Turkish Cypriots were killed and buried in mass graves by the perpetrators.
EOKA terrorists and the Greek Cypriot National Guard also tortured 27 people to death in the villages of Kofinou and Agios Theodoros, burying their bodies in a mass grave.
All the victims of the EOKA terrorists in these villages were civilians.
While Grivas lived in Greece between 1959 and 1964, EOKA terrorists carried out more attacks, including the infamous "Bloody Christmas" massacre, also called Black Christmas, in which they killed over 370 Turkish Cypriots and displaced 25,000 to 30,000 others during the Christmas season of 1963.
During the deadly terror campaign, about 109 Turkish villages were forced to evacuate, while over 2,500 Turkish homes were severely damaged or demolished, according to a U.N. report released on Sept. 10, 1964.
Grivas then in 1971 founded EOKA-B, which followed an ultra-right-wing nationalistic ideology and had the ultimate goal of achieving the enosis (union) of the island of Cyprus with Greece.
Though Grivas died in January 1974, EOKA-B, encouraged by the Greek military junta and in cooperation with the national guard, staged a military coup on July 15, 1974, which subsequently led to Türkiye's military intervention and the ultimate foundation of the TRNC in 1983.
