Voice Accross
Regardless of how often he smiles for international audiences or adopts the language of reconciliation in foreign interviews, the conduct and rhetoric of Greek Cypriot leader Nikos Christodoulides tell a far less constructive story when examined in full. Declarations portraying members of EOKA as heroes, and framing their actions as acts of patriotic sacrifice, are not symbolic footnotes of the past. They are political signals in the present.
Such statements do not merely reopen historical wounds. They reinforce the deepest fears of the Turkish Cypriot community that violence against them is still morally relativised, if not tacitly legitimised, in segments of Greek Cypriot political culture. No settlement process can advance on foundations where one community’s trauma is minimized and the perpetrators of that trauma are celebrated.
Equally damaging is the persistent pattern of political behavior that follows. While fully aware that Türkiye will never accept demands that deny political equality on the island, Christodoulides continues to advance proposals that implicitly assume Ankara can be pressured, isolated or bypassed. At the same time, he repeatedly ridicules or sidelines the elected Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhürman, making overtures that appear conciliatory in form but dismissive in substance.
Most tellingly, Christodoulides has increasingly floated the notion of negotiating a Cyprus settlement directly with Türkiye, effectively bypassing Erhürman and the Turkish Cypriot political will altogether. This approach is presented as pragmatism. In reality, it is a profound contradiction. A settlement that excludes one of the two communities from being an equal negotiating partner is not a settlement. It is an imposition attempt.
Taken together, these elements reveal a pattern that is fundamentally incompatible with reconciliation. Glorifying historical violence, advancing demands known to be unacceptable, marginalizing the elected representative of the Turkish Cypriots and seeking to externalize negotiations all point in the same direction.
They do not build trust. They do not encourage compromise. They do not prepare the ground for a shared future.
On the contrary, they entrench suspicion, harden positions and confirm the perception that delay and strategic deferral remain safer choices than genuine political equality. In this context, the smiles, summits and polished diplomatic language cannot obscure the underlying reality.
This is not conduct conducive to a settlement on Cyprus.
A familiar pattern, clearly exposed
This is not the first time I have drawn attention to this issue. I have repeatedly pointed to the underlying pattern in the Greek Cypriot leader’s approach to the Cyprus problem. What makes the recent Politico interview significant is that it exposes this pattern with unusual clarity.
Partnership for Peace, NATO frameworks, EU–Türkiye relations, regional de escalation mechanisms, phased solutions. The language is polished and carefully calibrated for Brussels, Washington and NATO capitals, projecting strategic fluency and alignment with dominant Western security narratives.
Yet beneath this rhetoric, the same structural deficiency remains. Cyprus itself, the island’s internal political balance, and the political will of its two communities continue to be treated as secondary to external frameworks.
At its core, the Cyprus problem has never been about alliance architecture. It is about coexistence, governance and political equality. By shifting the focus outward, responsibility is relocated into geopolitical arenas where accountability is diluted and delay becomes manageable.
This is not a step by step solution strategy. It is a step by step deferral strategy.
Transactional diplomacy
Christodoulides’ description of a “step by step” process makes the logic explicit. Cyprus’ participation in the Partnership for Peace is framed as conditional on Turkish “positive steps,” which would then unlock progress in EU–Türkiye relations while remaining loosely connected to Cyprus talks.
This is not the language of reconciliation. It is the language of transaction.
Cyprus is no longer presented primarily as a shared political home seeking internal compromise. It is recast as a bargaining instrument in a broader strategic exchange. Security alignment becomes leverage, dialogue becomes conditional and political equality is deferred into abstraction.
The result is a steady erosion of Cypriot agency, as the island’s future is increasingly discussed in Ankara, Brussels and Washington rather than negotiated between the two communities who live there.
Regionalisation of deferral: Energy, security and the Cyprus–Israel axis
This logic of externalization has deepened through Cyprus’ expanding regional diplomacy, particularly evident in its growing strategic alignment with Israel. The recent bilateral meeting between Christodoulides and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, held ahead of the Cyprus–Greece–Israel Trilateral Summit and just before Cyprus assumes the rotating Presidency of the Council of the EU, illustrates this evolution.
Energy connectivity, defence procurement, electric interconnectors, EU SAFE funding mechanisms and regional security coordination dominated the agenda. Negotiations on the Aphrodite–Ishai gas field and discussions on accelerating the Cyprus–Israel segment of the Great Sea Interconnector reflected a clear strategic choice. Regional connectivity is being designed to move forward regardless of the island’s unresolved political division.
This approach may be pragmatic from an infrastructure perspective. Politically, however, it reinforces a dangerous illusion. That Cyprus can indefinitely function as a stable regional hub while remaining internally divided.
Defence cooperation discussions, joint exercises and industrial partnerships further embed Cyprus into external security ecosystems. Stability is increasingly engineered around the Cyprus problem rather than through its resolution.
The Jerusalem trilateral and the logic of exclusion
The trilateral summit meeting in Israel between Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Christodoulides and Netanyahu fits squarely into this broader pattern. The trilateral reaffirmed strategic convergence on energy, security and infrastructure. Cyprus was once again presented as a reliable EU anchor, Greece as a European stabilizer and Israel as a regional security and technology partner.
What was absent from the framing was as telling as what was emphasized.
Türkiye appeared not as a stakeholder to be engaged, but as an implicit reference point around which alignment was being structured. The trilateral format continues to function less as a bridge building mechanism and more as a reassurance platform, particularly for Nicosia.
This assumption is increasingly detached from reality.
No trilateral framework, however well coordinated, can transform the Eastern Mediterranean into a closed strategic ecosystem. Symbolism may project cohesion, but it cannot alter underlying power realities or substitute for political settlement on the island.
The Türkiye reality that refuses to disappear
Any serious discussion of the Eastern Mediterranean inevitably confronts a reality that diplomatic choreography cannot erase. Türkiye is not a peripheral actor that can be bypassed, sidelined or reduced to a spoiler role.
This is not merely a matter of geography, though geography alone would suffice. Türkiye has the longest Mediterranean coastline in the region, a vast land mass connecting Europe, the Caucasus and the Middle East, and a population approaching ninety million.
More importantly, it is a state with deep historical, cultural and institutional continuity. For over a thousand years, the political center of gravity of this region has repeatedly intersected with Anatolia. This legacy is not ideological. It is structural.
Beyond history lies capability. Türkiye fields the second largest standing army in NATO, with diversified operational experience and a rapidly expanding defence industry that has moved from dependence to near self sufficiency in key domains. Any regional architecture built in explicit opposition to this reality will require constant external reinforcement simply to remain functional.
Exclusionary designs may endure briefly. They do not endure structurally.
Cyprus as the test case of strategic denial
It is precisely here that the Cyprus problem intersects with the broader regional picture. By embedding Cyprus into energy, security and connectivity frameworks that implicitly frame Türkiye as an adversarial presence, Greek Cypriot diplomacy seeks to internationalize the dispute while postponing internal compromise.
This strategy may enhance Cyprus’ external standing. It may even reduce immediate pressure for settlement. But it also locks the island into a brittle posture that assumes Türkiye can be permanently managed rather than accommodated.
That assumption has never held in this region.
A Cyprus settlement that presupposes Türkiye can be neutralized or sidelined is not a settlement. It is a postponement mechanism.
Political equality deferred, accountability resisted
This external activism contrasts sharply with continued reluctance on political equality at home. Christodoulides affirms acceptance of political equality “as described in UN resolutions,” yet resists its operational core, most notably the rotating presidency on a 2:1 basis.
For Turkish Cypriots, this is not a technical dispute. It is the defining test of sincerity.
The same applies to resistance against the so called penalty clause, the principle that failed negotiations should not result in a return to the pre negotiation status quo. This safeguard, now firmly articulated by Tufan Erhürman, reflects decades of experience. Open ended talks without consequence reward obstruction and penalize compromise.
Opposition to accountability reveals a deeper fear. Political choice narrows room for maneuver. And choice carries risk.
Equality or permanence
Ultimately, the Cyprus problem collapses into a single unavoidable question.
Do Greek Cypriots genuinely seek a shared political future with Turkish Cypriots based on equality and effective participation? Or do they prefer a strategically functional status quo reinforced by regional alignments, EU membership and external partnerships?
There is no third path hidden in trilateral summits, NATO formulas or geopolitical abstractions.
Grand geopolitics can delay reckoning. They cannot abolish geography, history or power. The Eastern Mediterranean will not stabilize through exclusionary alignments, but through architectures that reflect the region as it is, not as some would prefer it to be.
That reality includes Türkiye, whether one likes it or not.
If political equality continues to be deferred and strategic denial persists, the outcome will not be uncertainty. It will be permanence.
And responsibility for that permanence will rest with those who chose to look everywhere except where the solution actually lies.