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Mission impossible in Cyprus? Legitimate return to the partnership state revisited

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Eiki Berg  and
Raul Toomla
Eiki Berg*
Affiliation:
Institute of International Relations, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia
Raul Toomla
Affiliation:
Institute of Government and Politics, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia
*
∗Corresponding author. Email: eiki.berg@ut.ee
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Abstract

Cyprus has been divided for far longer than it has been united. There have been many attempts to reconcile conflicting parties but without remarkable success. The two communities — Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots — see the solution to the “Cyprus problem” in opposite terms. Although recent public opinion surveys have concluded that the most preferred option for the Turkish Cypriots would be “independence of the TRNC” and “reunification of the country”, for the Greek Cypriots, there is much less information about the legitimacy of these competing regimes and their respective claims. This paper seeks to fill this gap by identifying different legitimacy sources and their effect on the course of conflict settlement. Somewhat paradoxically it appears that those most strongly identifying themselves with the Republic of Cyprus, and approving the regime legitimacy of the Greek Cypriot government, are actually for status quo and not for the reunification of the country which makes the return to the partnership state mission impossible.

Keywords

Cypruspartnership stateconflict settlementlegitimacypublic opinion
Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 41 , Issue 2 , March 2013 , pp. 276 - 292
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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