The clashes happened less than a mile from the perimeter of Dhekelia military area, one of two British sovereign bases on the island.
The road would give Turkish Cypriots direct access to Pyla by circumventing a checkpoint on the northern fringe of the British military base, one of two zones that the UK retained after Cyprus gained independence in 1960.
“This was a very serious incident,” Aleem Siddique, spokesman for the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP), told the Telegraph. “It happened inside the UN buffer zone, less than a kilometre from the perimeter of the British sovereign base. We’re very concerned and we have called on the Turkish Cypriot side to refrain from any actions that could escalate tensions further.”
In a statement, the UN peacekeeping force said that attacks on UN soldiers constitute “a serious crime under international law which will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law”.
Best efforts to maintain the status quo
UN soldiers will continue to block Turkish Cypriot efforts to build the road. “We are mandated to use our best efforts to maintain the status quo,” said Mr Siddique.
The violence used by the Turkish Cypriot forces provoked fury among Greek Cypriots and was widely condemned by the international community.
The British High Commission in Cyprus issued a joint statement with the French and American embassies, expressing “serious concern” over the attempt to build the road and condemning the attacks on UN peacekeepers as “completely unacceptable”.
The Cypriot government described the incident as “an attempt at a very serious violation of the status quo”.
Turkish Cypriot authorities blamed the UN peacekeepers for the confrontation, calling their actions “unacceptable” and dismissing the UNFICYP statement as “unfounded allegations”.
They said the UN force should “immediately cease” its efforts to physically obstruct construction of a “humanitarian” project.
roullis on August 19th, 2023 at 22:29 UTC »
This event is related to the current issues with Nagorno-Karabakh. The Turkish-speaking Azerbaijan has blockaded the Lachin corridor, that connects Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh, effectively isolating the Armenian population there. Here, Turkey is constructing a road directly to a mixed Greek Cypriot/Turkish Cypriot village, although a road that passes through the British Sovereign Bases exists. On the successful completion of the road, Turkey will have engineered a parallel to the humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh, although of course the Greek Cypriots are a far cry from wanting to genocide the Turkish Cypriots.