Forgotten Occupation, Selective Sanctions

s the European Union debates new measures and sanctions in response to conflicts abroad—particularly in the Middle East—a quieter, unresolved question lingers much closer to home. For more than half a century, the Republic of Cyprus, a full member of the European Union, has lived divided. The northern part of the island has remained under Turkish military control since 1974, when Turkey invaded following a coup supported by the Greek junta. That invasion resulted in the continuing occupation of the northern part of the Republic of Cyprus, a situation that has endured for fifty years on European soil.

In recent months, several voices within Europe have called for sanctions against Israel over its military operations in Gaza, citing international law and humanitarian concerns. Whether one supports those calls or not, the debate itself demonstrates the Union’s readiness to contemplate punitive action against a third country for what it deems violations of international law. Yet when the same logic would apply to Turkey’s occupation of Cyprus, a fellow EU member state, the political will to act evaporates.

Since 1974, the island of Cyprus has remained partitioned. Tens of thousands of Turkish troops are still stationed in the north, and a self-declared ‘Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus’ persists without international recognition. Successive rounds of United Nations–sponsored negotiations have failed to deliver reunification. The result is a de facto occupation that has lasted longer than the Cold War itself on European territory, under UN supervision, and within a Union that prides itself on upholding law and justice.

Yet this reality rarely features in European debates about international law or foreign policy. When Europe speaks of Russia’s war in Ukraine, or of Belarus’s repression, or of Israel’s military actions, it does so in moral and legal terms: respect for sovereignty, rejection of occupation, defence of human rights. But when it comes to Cyprus, a member state living under the shadow of occupation, that moral clarity fades into the language of ‘dialogue’ and ‘confidence-building measures.’