THE PLAYERS

Archbishop Makarios III, a towering figure in Cyprus’ modern history, was president of Cyprus from August 16, 1960 until he died unexpectedly of a heart attack on 3 August, 1977, aged 63.  By Michael Theodoulou ...

General George Grivas, who in the 1950s worked with Archbishop Makarios to establish Eoka and launch its armed struggle against the British colonial rulers, never gave up on the national ...

By Michael Theodoulou Born in Nicosia in 1906, Dr Fazıl Küçük qualified as a general medical practitioner in Switzerland, and returned to work in Cyprus in 1938. He started dabbling ...

Spyros Kyprianou became acting president of Cyprus in 1977 after the death of Archbishop Makarios, was unopposed in elections the following year, and won a second, five-year term as president in 1983. ...

Rauf Denktash, the Turkish Cypriot leader from 1973 to 2005, steadfastly opposed the island’s reunification after the 1974 Turkish invasion. He insisted that Turkish Cypriots needed a separate state to preserve peace ...

Travelling widely during his five years as president, George Vassiliou galvanised international interest in helping to resolve the Cyprus problem. His commitment to a settlement highlighted the obduracy of the ...

Tassos Papadopoluos rallied the Greek Cypriot community in 2004 to reject the Annan Plan (a UN blueprint) to reunify the island as a bizonal, bicommunal federation. He argued that the UN ...

Kofi Annan served two terms as UN Secretary-General in New York from 1997-2006 and retired in Geneva and later lived in a Swiss village in the nearby countryside. “In many ...

Sound familiar? Remember the good old days when there were Cyprus negotiations, or the bad old days when there were Cyprus negotiations, depending on your perspective, naturally? Alvaro de Soto, ...

A thin-skinned politician who seemingly longed to be popular and respected, Demetris Christofias was ill-equipped to cope with the criticism heaped upon him during the second half of his ill-fated ...

By Michael Theodoulou Although he always had a rock-solid commitment to a settlement, Mehmet Ali Talat had the bad fortune when he was Turkish Cypriot leader to have to deal ...

Glafcos Clerides, a London-trained barrister and RAF war hero, was president of Cyprus for two consecutive terms from 1993 to 2003. He helped craft the treaties that gave Cyprus independence in 1960 and ...

Nicos Anastasiades, a pro-settlement politician from Limassol, was elected president of Cyprus on 24 February 2013, with 57.4 per cent of the vote; one of the biggest margins for many years. Hitherto stalled ...

By Michael Theodoulou Mustafa Akinci, a long-time supporter of the island’s reunification under a federal system, became ‘president’ of the self-declared ‘Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus’ in April 2015 after ...

Espen Barth Eide, a the now foreign minister of Norway, was appointed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in August 2014 as his Special Advisor on Cyprus. He chaired the reunification negotiations ...

Love him or loathe him as a pen-pusher, hipster president or Trojan horse, which still remains to be seen, Nikos Christodoulides is no stranger to the politics of the Cyprus ...

Ersin Tatar was elected ‘Prime Minister’ in October 2020 ousting incumbent pro-solution Mustafa Akinci. A staunch, two-state solution supporter, Ersin Tatar hasn’t been on the Cypriot political scene for too ...