Bankrolled by resurgent Turkey, northern Cypriots have little sympathy for economic troubles in south of the island
From the street in front of his shop not far from the UN-patrolled "dead zone" that runs through Cyprus like a scar, Ozkan Zeki offers his opinion about the great economic crisis that has struck the island's Greek-controlled south.
At 76, the Turkish Cypriot is among the few who still have memories of mingling with Greeks before war entrenched the two ethnic communities behind a weed-infested no man's land in 1974. As such, he says, he feels like a Cypriot and doesn't want to gloat at his compatriots' financial woes.
"We don't want to laugh at them because this can happen to anyone," he insists, looking up from a wooden chair placed between rows of gaudy T-shirts at the entrance of his clothes store. "This is an ambush, in my view, an ambush aimed at giving them a lesson."
But in the next breath, he adds that he thinks his Cypriot brothers are not without fault. "I think they deserve it because their nose was too big. They were arrogant, always looking down at us, smiling like they love you but never from their heart."
Zeki is not alone in expressing a sense of schadenfreude at the fate that has befallen Greek Cypriots. Decades of international isolation for a rump state recognised only by Turkey has brought a hardening of views. Expat Britons who have settled in the northern republic – under economic embargo since it unilaterally declared independence in 1983 – are often unabashedly critical of Greek Cypriots.
Above the picturesque port of Kyrenia, in the jasmine-scented village of Bellapais – immortalised by Lawrence Durrell in Bitter Lemons, his autobiographical account of living in Cyprus in the 1950s – they openly evoke the divisions that have long wracked the island.
"They've made our life hell for the past 38 years," said Deirdre Guthrie, who was raised on the island and knew Durrell as a child. "They've had their come-uppance," continued Guthrie who runs a small garden cafe in the village. "I don't have much sympathy for them."
Bankrolled exclusively by a resurgent Turkey, riding a wave of new-found confidence on the back of one of the world's fastest growing economies, the breakaway state has suddenly experienced a reversal of fortunes. In sharp contrast to the south, where trade has fallen sharply in recent years, the financial crisis is barely noticeable in the north, even if living standards still lag far behind and the presence of 45,000 mainland Turkish troops gives it the air of a garrison town.
But the breakaway state also stands to lose business in the maelstrom of the south's economic meltdown. Prolonged recession as a result of the collapse of the Greeks' oversized banking sector – the price of aid from international creditors – will inevitably effect the few areas of co-operation that have emerged since barriers on free movement were lifted between the two communities less than a decade ago. In the casinos that dot the north, owners rue the sudden dearth of Greek Cypriot customers.
And in the slick modern building that houses the territory's chamber of commerce in northern Nicosia, officials openly fret about the fallout from the crisis.
"I am not at all happy about it," said its president, Gunay Cerkez.
"Around 2,500 Turkish Cypriots work, on a daily basis, in all walks of life in the south and it is very likely that most will lose their jobs because of the economy's shrinkage. Trade in goods, currently worth around €5m, will also contract.
Cerkez now finds himself in the paradoxical position of calling Europe's treatment of the Greek Cypriot government – whose campaign has thwarted international recognition of the north – "totally unfair."
"We have estimated that between 9,000 and 10,000 Greek Cypriot companies will either go bankrupt or their business will be significantly reduced … so, no, we are not overjoyed by what is happening there," he adds. "The troika's model is totally unfair. In Greece they [EU and IMF] didn't make depositors cough up," he said, referring to the enforced losses on holders of deposits in excess of €100,000 (£84,450).
The divided island's membership of the EU – followed by its entry to the eurozone five years ago – was seen as a big victory for Greek Cypriots.
On Friday, six days after his insolvent country was forced to go cap in hand to the EU and IMF to avoid crashing out of the single currency, President Nicos Anastasiades said the €10bn bailout deal Cyprus had signed with its creditors had effectively contained the crisis.
"We have averted the risk of bankruptcy," he told a gathering of civil servants in the divided capital. "The situation, despite the tragedy of it all, is contained. We have no intention of leaving the euro."
But officials in the north are not so sure. Many fear that Anastasiades, a moderate in reconciliation efforts, will be sidetracked by the quagmire Cyprus now finds itself in and will be forced to delay reaching a solution.
"The fact that our southern neighbours have gone into this kind of crisis does not please us," said Dervis Eroglu, the north's president. "This may be one of the factors that is likely to delay a settlement. It may also force our good friend Mr Anastasiades to spend all his energy on economic problems and have less time to devote to the negotiation process."
On both sides of the "green line" that bisects Cyprus, memories of co-existence are fading fast. In the highly charged atmosphere of ethnic rivalry the rhetoric of hate is never far beneath the surface.
But among Greeks and Turks there are those who say the economic crisis should now be used to finally resolve the dispute.
"If the Greek Cypriots had agreed to reunite with us back in 2004," said bookstore owner Ali Rustem, invoking the last UN peace plan for the island, which the Turkish Cypriots supported but the Greeks did not, "commercially they would be much better off than they are today. They have to learn to forgive and forget the past."
Outside his shop, just meters away from the bullet-ridden sandbags and rusty gun ports of the barricades that are still a potent symbol of division, Ozkan Zeki agrees. "I often go to the other side to see my friends," he smiles. "I speak Greek. As a Cypriot, I want reunification."
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