Communicating across the divide in pre-checkpoint Cyprus

Op-eds Cyprus problem Communicating across the divide in pre-checkpoint Cyprus Cover Media1 Relevant News Communicating across the divide in pre-checkpoint Cyprus 1 July 2026 Things to do on Wednesday, July 1 1 July 2026 Cyprus weather: clear skies, temperatures up to 38°C inland tomorrow 1 July 2026 newsroom 1 July 2026 FacebookXWhatsAppEmailPrintViber By Antonis Pastellopoulos, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Cyprus The events of 1974 produced a situation of near-complete separation between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot community, severely restricting civilian contact across the island. While rare exceptions did in fact exist, the post-1974 separation remained almost absolute prior to the opening of the checkpoints in 2003. Communication between Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot civilians was therefore essentially cut off. Cypriots living on opposite sides of the buffer zone could meet either abroad, as occurred through London-based initiatives and the bi-communal meeting held in Berlin in 1989, or through rapprochement meetings organised at Ledra Palace and, on occasion, in the village of Pyla. The former option was costly and difficult to sustain, while the latter was mediated by the United Nations and remained vulnerable to shifts in the political climate. These meetings were thus frequently stigmatised, with participants at times prevented from accessing Ledra Palace altogether. In parallel, both sides engaged in sustained propaganda campaigns targeting audiences locally and internationally, aiming to legitimise their own political claims while discrediting those of the opposing side. Inter-communal communication was thus extremely limited, becoming an additional site of contestation linked to the Cyprus Problem. It was however never fully extinguished. In the case of the Greek Cypriot community, a series of magazines established and maintained links to the Turkish Cypriot community, publishing articles by Turkish Cypriot authors throughout the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s. Often connected to groups and initiatives within the extra-parliamentary Greek Cypriot left, these magazines played a key role in sustaining intercommunal communication amid the intense isolation that followed 1974. An early example is the monthly cultural and political magazine Within the Walls (Εντός των Τειχών), which circulated from 1985 to 1990 and featured at least one article or interview by a Turkish Cypriot in a quarter of its issues over its five-year run. Beyond providing the perspective of pro-reunification Turkish Cypriots over the Cyprus Problem, such articles further informed of the political, intellectual and economic developments within the Turkish Cypriot community without the filtering of information from mainstream state and media channels. The short-run magazine Internationalist Invitation (Διεθνιστική Πρόσ(κ)ληση) (1988–91) is a notable example of this, as it featured extensive coverage of Turkish Cypriot society in its third issue in 1990, based on interviews conducted during the magazine’s journalists’ visit to the occupied territories. It also reported, though firsthand accounts, on crimes committed against Turkish Cypriots by Greek Cypriot paramilitaries during the 1960s and 1974, a deeply supressed topic in the Republic of Cyprus at the time. The magazine Eks Iparhis (Εξ Υπαρχής), which circulated from 1999 to 2004, running for 52 issues, constitutes a further example of a printed medium facilitating intercommunal communication. While maintaining a broadly leftist ideological orientation, it nevertheless accommodated a wide range of political perspectives over its publication history. The magazine functioned as an additional communicative bridge, bringing left-wing Turkish Cypriot perspectives to a Greek Cypriot readership through the occasional publication of translated texts by Turkish Cypriot authors. Its relative lasting presence, like Within the Walls before it, allowed for the regular and consistent engagement with Turkish Cypriot texts. A pivotal publication in this pre-checkpoint period was also HADE (Χάτε), a magazine that circulated on both sides of the buffer zone. It can be considered the first explicitly bi-communal Cypriot magazine. While its pilot issue was in English, all subsequent issues were bilingual, with its articles rendered in both Greek and Turkish. Despite running for only five issues, its bilingual format enabled authors to reach readers across the divide for the first time, establishing a genuinely shared bi-communal media space. As the checkpoints opened in April 2003 and Cypriots began travelling across the divide, information increasingly moved across as well. The relaxation of restrictions on movement rapidly reduced the need for specialised magazines to serve as intermediaries between the two communities. With Cypriots engaging directly with one another, the publication and circulation of material authored by members of the other community became more common. One can note here, among others, the Turkish Cypriot columns in the Politis newspaper and the bilingual ΤΟΚΚΑ publication (2008-12). The most notable contemporary example is perhaps Penna, a Cyprus Dialogue Forum trilingual online platform which translates and shares opinion pieces from Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot media to support inter-communal understanding. While the opening of checkpoints enabled engagement across the divide on a direct and personal level, the internet transformed inter-communal communication by expanding its scope and speed. Already from the early 2000s Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots were communicating directly through online forums, chats and email lists, bypassing the limitations that the island’s de-facto partition had imposed on inter-communal contact. As the internet continued to evolve, so did inter-communal communication, expanding through discussion boards, personal blogs, YouTube channels, online news comment sections and social media platforms, permanently bypassing the dependency on institutional and traditional media intermediaries for the dissemination of information. The rather obscure publications that had served as bridges across the divide for three decades are today a mere curiosity of the pre-digital era. They do, however, stand as a testament to the determination and resilience behind sustaining contact between the two communities even under conditions of severe restriction and difficulty. This article is part of a series exploring themes of refugeehood and emplacement in relation to Cyprus. Subscribe to our Newsletter Latest News Things to do on Wednesday, July 1 Cyprus weather: clear skies, temperatures up to 38°C inland tomorrow Teacher: Stylianos described threats, violence at home before his death UK’s Starmer unveils £15 billion rise in military spending ExxonMobil eyes 2033 production start at Cyprus gas fields Are we building brands or just filling space? Outrage sparked by conduct of British Bases judge Follow en.philenews on Google News and be the first to know all the news about Cyprus and the world.