Turkish Cypriots, free for the first time in decades to cross a ceasefire line dividing their island's Greek and Turkish sides, have begun to cross the disputed border following an easing of restrictions.
"I feel like I am living a dream," said 50-year old Turkish Cypriot Emete Altuner, walking with her husband and two daughters on an asphalt road overgrown with weeds. She was taking her family for a day-trip to the Greek Cypriot south.
Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash yesterday authorised opening checkpoints on the so-called truce "green line" for day trips, hoping to bolster confidence between the two sides after the collapse of UN-brokered peace talks last month.
But Greek Cypriots on the Mediterranean island have rejected his move as a symbolic ploy rather than a real move for peace, and an anticipated flood of people was initially just a trickle crossing a checkpoint in the divided capital Nicosia.
A Turkish Cypriot police spokesman said in the first four hours 191 Turkish Cypriots went south and 57 Greek Cypriots went north through the checkpoint. "I have been waiting for 29 years, I can wait a bit more," said Greek Cypriot driving instructor Iakovos Nikitaras, 48, sitting patiently in his white van at the northern Turkish Cypriot checkpoint with his wife Maria.
The green line, manned by troops on either side, has separated the Turkish Cypriot north and Greek Cypriot south since a Turkish invasion in 1974 countered a brief Greek Cypriot coup backed by Athens. A U.N. peacekeeping force guards the middle.
Turkey seized more than a third of the island and repeated diplomatic efforts to reunite it have failed. About two-thirds of the island's total 750,000 population are Greek Cypriots.