It is hard to share even UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s guarded optimism over the latest talks on the reunion of Cyprus. This is a tragedy that has seen so many real opportunities for settlement slip away because one side or the other, but mostly it must be said, the Turkish Cypriot side, failed to react wisely when the solution was within their grasp.

The finest opportunity occurred in the run up to the accession of the Greek part of Cyprus to the EU in 2004. Encouraged by Ankara, anxious to boost mainland Turkey’s own chances of joining the EU, the Turkish Cypriot negotiators were finally prepared to make the extensive concessions, not least on the return of property seized from Greeks after the 1974 invasion.
It was these demands against which long-time Turkish-Cypriot Premier Rauf Denktash had always set his head. But with Denktash gone and his community anxious for a settlement, there was an overwhelming vote in favor of a deal. However, the Greek part of the island, in part because of assurances from Brussels that their EU membership would go ahead anyway, decided to vote no.
And there it has stood ever since. Two years ago the UN initiated fresh negotiations, including confidence-building measures between the two communities. It is these talks, which Ban now hopes are bearing some fruit. However even he admits that reaching a final deal will require “courage, flexibility and vision as well as a spirit of compromise.”
So far the issue of governance is the only one on which a deal has been agreed. The question of property return — on both sides of the divide — appears to be as far off as ever. This bitter confrontation has endured for 36 years. Many Turkish-Cypriots long ago quit the island and now live and work in Europe or the United States.
Indeed, so alarming did depopulation become in the late 1980s that Ankara started giving generous grants to encourage farmers from the mainland to take up abandoned fields. The outlook for these families would seem particularly grim, since their claims on their properties are extremely weak.
Indeed some in the Greek community would rather wait for as long as it takes so that their claims for restitution of and compensation for property lost can be handled in the EU courts. A UN-brokered settlement of the property issue would very probably be open to legal challenge unless the Greek population of the island could be persuaded to vote for a binding agreement. It must be said that such ratification now seems unlikely.
The local Greeks are enjoying the benefits of EU membership. Their standard of living, always higher than on the Turkish side of the divide, is improving.
Their financial system is benefiting from foreign inflows, not least from Russia. A new generation is taking charge, which never knew the island when it was united. Sadly there is no longer any urgent need for the major compromises from the Greek Cypriots that would bring about a settlement.