Hutchison: They share an island, but live in isolation from one another. Glafcos Clerides, the Greek Cypriot President of Cyprus, and Rauf Denktash, representing Turkish Cypriots from the north.
These two old men, rivals for half a century are talking again, but only because the European Union is dangling EU membership in front of them.
Music
Hutchison: And this is what the EU wants them to resolve --the Cyprus Problem --the long and bitter feud which divided their communities in the 1960s and 70s, destroying thousands of lives and leaving behind only simmering distrust.
Music
Hutchison: This is the house of the gladiators in the ancient city of Kurion in Cyprus, and for centuries the forces of the eastern Mediterranean have fought for control of this strategically important island. Now, despite appearances, it remains one of the most militarised zones on earth.
Hutchison: Its Friday afternoon in North Nicosia and this battalion of Turkish Cypriot soldiers is preparing to pay its twice weekly tribute to the father of modern Turkey, Kemal Attaturk.
In a population of just 200,000 people, there is an army here of between 35 and 40 thousand troops, most from mainland Turkey. One in five people north of the border is a soldier.
Hutchison: Do you genuinely fear that if the Turkish army wasn't here and the buffer zone was gone, that Greek Cypriots would come over and start slaughtering Turkish Cypriots?
Ertugruloglu: We genuinely fear that without the protection of the Turkish Army, all sorts of atrocities are absolute real possibilities.
Hutchison: Today, watching on the other side of the buffer zone that cuts Nicosia, a nervous Greek conscript. This has not been a shooting war for a long time, but we met a captain in the National Guard who thinks it should be, again.
Captain: If they dont find a solution, I believe that the only solution we can make after that is to make a war to throw them out.
Hutchison: And how do you feel about that? will you give up your life for that?
Captain: Why not, its my country.
Music
Hutchison: His country is the third biggest island in the Mediterranean, where the goddess of love, Aphrodite, first emerged from the warm water.
A peace has held here, only because the United Nations has gone to such extraordinary lengths to keep both sides apart. Today the green line, drawn in crayon by a British officer in 1963 through the heart of the capital Nicosia, has been extended into a 180 kilometre buffer zone from west to east, dividing north and south.
Kelly: Our role continues to be one of peacekeeping, primarily, in Cyprus. That specifically entails maintenance of the status quo. But in maintaining -- and in keeping tensions low, you might say that were engaged in what I call the relentless pursuit of trivia.
Music
Hutchison: There was a time when Greek and Turkish Cypriots lived together. After emerging from the colonial skirts of Britain in 1960, under the imposing rule of Archbishop Makarios, there was once a Republic of Cyprus. But the peace didnt last long. Both communities were pulled and driven by the aspirations of their Motherlands. In 1974, Greek Cypriot forces seeking union with Greece, staged a coup. The Turkish Army invaded, ostensibly to protect the minority Turkish Cypriots, but they never left -- partitioning the island and sending thousands of Greek Cypriots fleeing to the south. On both sides, many thousands died and disappeared.
Hutchison: Today Nicosia airport looks much as it did on July 20th 1974 when the Turkish troops arrived. The fighting was fierce here and there were hundreds of deaths.
And on the runway sits the one Cyprus Airways jet that never departed that morning.
After the initial hostilities, both sides agreed to allow the airport to be placed under UN control and it remains so now, an eerie museum exhibit of a bloody time.
Music
Hutchison: The ensuing years have been far kinder to the south than the north. Living standards are high; it draws millions of tourists, and everyone knows membership of the European Union will guarantee new markets, new friends and more importantly, security. Talk about the future here and people seem more willing for the Cyprus Problem to be a historical footnote.
Kasoulides: I dont think the scars should be allowed to govern our lives for the future. Scars should be to remember, in order to avoid them.
Music
Hutchison: In the North, there is no such optimism. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus has been economically strangled. Consequently, just about everything bought and sold here must come and go through Turkey -- from the mail to agriculture, even tourists.
President Rauf Denktash rules a pariah state. The international community tells him to move on, but his politics is driven by the past.
Denktash: What a miserable scenario it is that in Cyprus for 39 years, a party, Greek Cypriot party, which has not been elected by Turkish Cypriots at all, has thrown the constitution out, has tried to make us a minority in Cyprus, has defied our human rights and constitutional rights, and the world has accepted it. This is the miserable thing against which we are trying to defend ourselves.
Music
Hutchison: You can visit the north from the south, but only as a day tripper, and the Greek Cypriots will try to persuade you not to go, pointing out the posters, banners, yellow ribbons and fading photographs of those they say are still missing.
This is Panayiota Pavlou Solomi. In 1974 her husband and son were captured by Turkish forces, blindfolded and taken away. She never saw them again and has spent the last 28 years writing letters to four American Presidents, the Queen, the United Nations and the International Red Cross, seeking answers that time now looks set to deny her.
Solomi: My missing loved ones were never, never off my mind. I have dreams that I don't die before I see them again. My dream is to see them. After that, I can turn over and die happy.
Hutchison: But neither side has a monopoly on righteousness.
This is Ermine Songuz, a Turkish Cypriot woman, with a nearly identical story to tell. One day earlier her husband and brother were taken by Greek Cypriot forces. She never saw them again and has been told they were both shot and buried in a mass grave with other men from the village.
Interpreter: Do you hate the people that did this?
Songuz: Of course I do of course I do. In all the world, I don't want to go to the other side without my husband and my brother. Why must I see my place, my home, my land without my husband and my brother. Without them, what could I do with the land and the house?
Hutchison: Two women from opposite sides, telling the same tragic story. If these communities are ever to be reconciled, their governments will at some point, have to come clean.
Ertugruloglu: Everyone knows, everyone in his right mind knows that there isn't a single Greek Cypriot missing alive in the north.
Anyone genuinely looking into the issue of missing can easily see that the Greek Cypriots have been playing a very dirty game all these years and I grant you that they seem to have won.
Hutchison: Wherever the truth lies in Cyprus, its been buried under such a weight of propaganda it may never be recovered, although there are some who still live in hope.
Singing
Hutchison: They are Greek Cypriots, they are Turkish Cypriots, and every week they come here to sing together -- folk songs, love songs, Cypriot songs.
Alexandra: If we were taught at school that Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots were brothers, I strongly believe we wouldnt have this trouble now, but if we teach our children that, oh yes, you know, the Turks so many years ago slaughtered our people, and the Turks on the other side, yes the Greeks did that and did that, then you cultivate hatred.
Hutchison: On the surface, life here appears remarkably ordinary, indeed, to an outsider, the Cyprus problem appears rather absurd. A great opportunity awaits in Europe, if only the two sides come to recognise their common ground. But if the two old men cant reach some kind of agreement, there is potential for real trouble.
Music/Singing
Hutchison: So the sabre rattling continues. And even though it is the north that risks falling further behind, Rauf Denktash seems prepared to draw the cloak of isolation, even tighter around his peoples shoulders.Denktash: We dont have to move more Turkish troops, but we will certainly close the entries and exits to the south. We shall ask all diplomats who are now free to come from the south to the north, not to come. We shall ask the United Nations to go to the buffer zone. We shall certainly have more closer relations with Turkey in order to survive.
Singing
Hutchison: The Cyprus Problem has beaten the best diplomats, confounded the smartest minds, and frustrated just about everyone else. And while the old men are meeting again, there are those who think it will take a generational change to reconcile the scars of the past with the realities of the future.
Papadoulis: I teach my children, first of all, to love the whole island with Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriots. When I go to London and I see Turkish Cypriots and the Greek Cypriots and all other nations living together, I say why not us, why not us.
Singing
DIVIDED CYPRUS
Reporter: Geoff Hutchison
Camera: Ron Ekkel
Sound: Mark Douglas
Editor: Simon Brynjolffssen
These two old men, rivals for half a century are talking again, but only because the European Union is dangling EU membership in front of them.
Music
Hutchison: And this is what the EU wants them to resolve --the Cyprus Problem --the long and bitter feud which divided their communities in the 1960s and 70s, destroying thousands of lives and leaving behind only simmering distrust.
Music
Hutchison: This is the house of the gladiators in the ancient city of Kurion in Cyprus, and for centuries the forces of the eastern Mediterranean have fought for control of this strategically important island. Now, despite appearances, it remains one of the most militarised zones on earth.
Hutchison: Its Friday afternoon in North Nicosia and this battalion of Turkish Cypriot soldiers is preparing to pay its twice weekly tribute to the father of modern Turkey, Kemal Attaturk.
In a population of just 200,000 people, there is an army here of between 35 and 40 thousand troops, most from mainland Turkey. One in five people north of the border is a soldier.
Hutchison: Do you genuinely fear that if the Turkish army wasn't here and the buffer zone was gone, that Greek Cypriots would come over and start slaughtering Turkish Cypriots?
Ertugruloglu: We genuinely fear that without the protection of the Turkish Army, all sorts of atrocities are absolute real possibilities.
Hutchison: Today, watching on the other side of the buffer zone that cuts Nicosia, a nervous Greek conscript. This has not been a shooting war for a long time, but we met a captain in the National Guard who thinks it should be, again.
Captain: If they dont find a solution, I believe that the only solution we can make after that is to make a war to throw them out.
Hutchison: And how do you feel about that? will you give up your life for that?
Captain: Why not, its my country.
Music
Hutchison: His country is the third biggest island in the Mediterranean, where the goddess of love, Aphrodite, first emerged from the warm water.
A peace has held here, only because the United Nations has gone to such extraordinary lengths to keep both sides apart. Today the green line, drawn in crayon by a British officer in 1963 through the heart of the capital Nicosia, has been extended into a 180 kilometre buffer zone from west to east, dividing north and south.
Kelly: Our role continues to be one of peacekeeping, primarily, in Cyprus. That specifically entails maintenance of the status quo. But in maintaining -- and in keeping tensions low, you might say that were engaged in what I call the relentless pursuit of trivia.
Music
Hutchison: There was a time when Greek and Turkish Cypriots lived together. After emerging from the colonial skirts of Britain in 1960, under the imposing rule of Archbishop Makarios, there was once a Republic of Cyprus. But the peace didnt last long. Both communities were pulled and driven by the aspirations of their Motherlands. In 1974, Greek Cypriot forces seeking union with Greece, staged a coup. The Turkish Army invaded, ostensibly to protect the minority Turkish Cypriots, but they never left -- partitioning the island and sending thousands of Greek Cypriots fleeing to the south. On both sides, many thousands died and disappeared.
Hutchison: Today Nicosia airport looks much as it did on July 20th 1974 when the Turkish troops arrived. The fighting was fierce here and there were hundreds of deaths.
And on the runway sits the one Cyprus Airways jet that never departed that morning.
After the initial hostilities, both sides agreed to allow the airport to be placed under UN control and it remains so now, an eerie museum exhibit of a bloody time.
Music
Hutchison: The ensuing years have been far kinder to the south than the north. Living standards are high; it draws millions of tourists, and everyone knows membership of the European Union will guarantee new markets, new friends and more importantly, security. Talk about the future here and people seem more willing for the Cyprus Problem to be a historical footnote.
Kasoulides: I dont think the scars should be allowed to govern our lives for the future. Scars should be to remember, in order to avoid them.
Music
Hutchison: In the North, there is no such optimism. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus has been economically strangled. Consequently, just about everything bought and sold here must come and go through Turkey -- from the mail to agriculture, even tourists.
President Rauf Denktash rules a pariah state. The international community tells him to move on, but his politics is driven by the past.
Denktash: What a miserable scenario it is that in Cyprus for 39 years, a party, Greek Cypriot party, which has not been elected by Turkish Cypriots at all, has thrown the constitution out, has tried to make us a minority in Cyprus, has defied our human rights and constitutional rights, and the world has accepted it. This is the miserable thing against which we are trying to defend ourselves.
Music
Hutchison: You can visit the north from the south, but only as a day tripper, and the Greek Cypriots will try to persuade you not to go, pointing out the posters, banners, yellow ribbons and fading photographs of those they say are still missing.
This is Panayiota Pavlou Solomi. In 1974 her husband and son were captured by Turkish forces, blindfolded and taken away. She never saw them again and has spent the last 28 years writing letters to four American Presidents, the Queen, the United Nations and the International Red Cross, seeking answers that time now looks set to deny her.
Solomi: My missing loved ones were never, never off my mind. I have dreams that I don't die before I see them again. My dream is to see them. After that, I can turn over and die happy.
Hutchison: But neither side has a monopoly on righteousness.
This is Ermine Songuz, a Turkish Cypriot woman, with a nearly identical story to tell. One day earlier her husband and brother were taken by Greek Cypriot forces. She never saw them again and has been told they were both shot and buried in a mass grave with other men from the village.
Interpreter: Do you hate the people that did this?
Songuz: Of course I do of course I do. In all the world, I don't want to go to the other side without my husband and my brother. Why must I see my place, my home, my land without my husband and my brother. Without them, what could I do with the land and the house?
Hutchison: Two women from opposite sides, telling the same tragic story. If these communities are ever to be reconciled, their governments will at some point, have to come clean.
Ertugruloglu: Everyone knows, everyone in his right mind knows that there isn't a single Greek Cypriot missing alive in the north.
Anyone genuinely looking into the issue of missing can easily see that the Greek Cypriots have been playing a very dirty game all these years and I grant you that they seem to have won.
Hutchison: Wherever the truth lies in Cyprus, its been buried under such a weight of propaganda it may never be recovered, although there are some who still live in hope.
Singing
Hutchison: They are Greek Cypriots, they are Turkish Cypriots, and every week they come here to sing together -- folk songs, love songs, Cypriot songs.
Alexandra: If we were taught at school that Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots were brothers, I strongly believe we wouldnt have this trouble now, but if we teach our children that, oh yes, you know, the Turks so many years ago slaughtered our people, and the Turks on the other side, yes the Greeks did that and did that, then you cultivate hatred.
Hutchison: On the surface, life here appears remarkably ordinary, indeed, to an outsider, the Cyprus problem appears rather absurd. A great opportunity awaits in Europe, if only the two sides come to recognise their common ground. But if the two old men cant reach some kind of agreement, there is potential for real trouble.
Music/Singing
Hutchison: So the sabre rattling continues. And even though it is the north that risks falling further behind, Rauf Denktash seems prepared to draw the cloak of isolation, even tighter around his peoples shoulders.Denktash: We dont have to move more Turkish troops, but we will certainly close the entries and exits to the south. We shall ask all diplomats who are now free to come from the south to the north, not to come. We shall ask the United Nations to go to the buffer zone. We shall certainly have more closer relations with Turkey in order to survive.
Singing
Hutchison: The Cyprus Problem has beaten the best diplomats, confounded the smartest minds, and frustrated just about everyone else. And while the old men are meeting again, there are those who think it will take a generational change to reconcile the scars of the past with the realities of the future.
Papadoulis: I teach my children, first of all, to love the whole island with Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriots. When I go to London and I see Turkish Cypriots and the Greek Cypriots and all other nations living together, I say why not us, why not us.
Singing
DIVIDED CYPRUS
Reporter: Geoff Hutchison
Camera: Ron Ekkel
Sound: Mark Douglas
Editor: Simon Brynjolffssen