A People’s Peace in Cyprus: Testing Public Opinion on the Options for a Comprehensive Settlement

Abstract

The year 2009 may well be a make-or-break year for the protracted Cyprus conflict. While strategic assessments and elite incentives bode cautiously well for a settlement, ultimately an agreement will have to be approved by the two Cypriot communities and above all it will have to be implemented by them on the ground. In view of the centrality of the people in this peace process, CEPS, in collaboration with Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot partners, launched a project in late 2007 investigating, through successive opinion polls, what Cypriots think of each other, of the peace process and of possible solutions to the conflict. In this book the authors present the results of their second survey, conducted simultaneously in the southern and northern parts of the island in January and February 2009. It delves into the Cypriots’ views on the thorniest questions of the conflict and assesses whether and how, once we leave the abstract level of labels and slogans and enter into the specifics of a package deal, convergence between Greek and Turkish Cypriots is possible.

Keywords: Turkey, Cyprus