Evangelos Savva turned 4 years old on July 14, 1974. Just six days later, Turkey invaded his native Cyprus—a traumatic event that would eventually come to haunt generations of Cypriots.

“Believe it or not, I still have memories of Turkish Air Force jets in the sky,” said Savva, 54, who for just over a year has represented his country as ambassador to the United States.

The Turkish occupation of 1974 has endured to this day. For the past 50 years, Turkey has effectively controlled the northern 37% of Cyprus. The 180-km-long “Green Line” extends from the northwest all the way to Famagusta and cuts right through the Cypriot capital of Nicosia, which has the sad distinction of outlasting Jerusalem, Belfast, Beirut and Berlin as the world’s last divided city.

“This division permeates everything in Cyprus,” said Savva, who was born and raised in Larnaca, home of the island’s main international airport. “I am not a refugee, and I don’t have roots in the occupied area. But the fact is, up until 2003, people were separated by a few yards, but they were not able to see or talk to each other. It was not possible to go back and forth.”

That changed right before Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004, when Rauf Denktash—then-premier of the self-styled Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC)—decided to allow crossings from the government-controlled area into the Turkish-occupied zone, and vice-versa.

That same year, Greek Cypriots voting in a referendum overwhelmingly rejected a UN-backed reunification plan. Since then, very little progress has been made, Savva told The Washington Diplomat earlier this month.

“The trauma is that you have so many refugees who can now go back to their villages and visit the homes they left behind. But it’s not theirs anymore; other people are living in their houses and using their fields and orchards,” he explained. “At the most basic human level, our people have been experiencing this weird disconnect for 50 years.”

Island’s eventual reunification is a top priority

Savva, a career diplomat, joined the Cypriot Foreign Service in 1997 after earning a bachelor’s degree in communications and a master’s in political science and international relations, both from the State University of New York in Albany.

His first overseas posting was to nearby Tel Aviv in 1998 as second secretary and consul, starting in 1998 during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s first term and leaving in mid-2000, just as the Second Intifada was starting.

Savva’s other postings include first secretary at the embassy in Berlin (2000-04); first secretary of the ministry’s Middle East and North Africa division in Nicosia (2004-05); and first secretary of the ministry’s “Cyprus Question Division” (2005-06). He went on to become consul-general to the Cypriot High Commission in London (2006-10) and ambassador to Finland (2014-18), as well as various senior ministry positions in Nicosia before his current appointment in July 2023.

Incidentally, Savva’s wife, Maria Papakyriakou, has been the Cypriot ambassador to Germany since September 2021. Together, the couple has two daughters.

Savva’s priority as Nicosia’s man in Washington, like that of his predecessors, is to strengthen US-Cypriot relations while ensuring support on Capitol Hill and the White House for eventual reunification of his Mediterranean island under government control.

Half the size of Connecticut, Cyprus sits at the confluence of Western Asia, Southern Europe and North Africa. Its distinctly Greek heritage has dominated Cypriot history for nearly 2,000 years, yet the military occupation by some 40,000 Turkish forces keeps Cyprus constantly in the news.

The TRNC is today home to around 385,000 of the island’s 1.3 million inhabitants, 99% of them Muslims of Turkish origin. Yet the de facto TRNC is recognized by only one country: Turkey.

Before the ethnic dispute began in 1964—four years after Great Britain granted Cyprus its independence—the island was inhabited mainly by Greek Cypriots (77.1%) and Turkish Cypriots (18.2%), with the remaining 4.7% consisting of Armenians, Maronites and Lebanese dispersed throughout the entire island. To this day, around 200,000 Greek Cypriots are still deprived of the right to return to their homes and properties.

Savva: ‘There is no such thing as the TRNC’

“In 1983, they created this thing called the TRNC, which—as we never tire of saying—is illegal under international law,” Savvas said. “The UN Security Council has pronounced it illegal and called its unilateral declaration null and void. There is no such thing as the TRNC.”

The fact that after 41 years only Turkey officially recognizes the TRNC as an actual country “tells you something,” he said.

“Turkey is expending a huge amount of energy and diplomatic capital in trying to get it recognized, and they have failed time and time again,” he said. “Anyone can say whatever they want about themselves and register a name, but the fact of the matter is that in absolutely no country do they get any recognition.”

Savva said that in 1977 and again in 1979, the two sides agreed that Cyprus would become a bizonal federation, which he called a “massive compromise on the part of the Greek Cypriot community, which is 80% of the population.”

But since then, there’s been an exodus of local Turkish Cypriots—due to the stagnating economy in the north—and an influx of conservative, poorer Muslims from mainland Turkey.

“These Turks are fairly religious, whereas the Turkish Cypriots are fairly secular,” said the ambassador. “Even if you take away the religious factor, there’s a significant amount of difference cultural and socially between the Turks in Turkey and the Turks in Cyprus. Bringing in all these people from Antalya creates social tensions between those groups, never mind between Turks and Greek Cypriots.”

In late July, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited Nicosia to mark 50 years since the invasion, declaring that he sees no point in continuing UN-led talks on the island’s future.

“We believe that a federal solution is not possible in Cyprus. It is of no benefit to anyone to say let’s continue negotiations where we left off in Switzerland years ago,” said the Turkish leader.

The Cypriot government under President Nikos Christodoulides, meanwhile, insists that reunifying the north and south is the only way forward.

“Turkey will always be our biggest concern,” said Savva. “Very recently, at a graduation ceremony for military cadets, Mr. Erdoğan said that when it came to Cyprus, ‘it was a mistake to stop where we did’ in 1974—meaning it would have been better to capture the entire island.”

The Turkish side, of course, does not call the events of 1974 an “invasion. Rather, its official name is the “Cyprus peace operation.”

“The period between 1963 and 1974 was a period of blood, tears and oppression for the Turkish Cypriots when they were confined to 3% of the island,” he said. “Our efforts aimed at breaking the isolation and lifting the embargo the Turkish Cypriots are unjustly and unlawfully subjected to will further increase. We will always support the TRNC, which was founded on the blood of our martyrs, in order for it to become a powerful, prosperous and prestigious country.”

Israel-Lebanon crisis a huge concern for Cyprus

In fact, Savva said that Turkey is “making small, incremental advances in the buffer zone” every day. Last August, Turkish forces were seen trying to build a military road, sparking a huge outcry after UN peacekeeping forces tried to block them.

“People tell us the conflict is frozen, that there is no bloodshed. We hear this a lot. But Ukraine proves every day that there is no such thing as a frozen conflict,” the ambassador said. “We’re a very small country, and we don’t have a military strong enough to withstand another wave of action by a big country like Turkey, which has the second-biggest army in NATO.”

Yet that’s not Savva’s only concern. The explosive situation developing between Israel and Hezbollah threatens to destabilize nearby Lebanon—particularly in light of threats in late June by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah to attack Cyprus in retaliation for allowing the Jewish state to use its airports and bases for military exercises.

On Sept. 27, the Israel Defense Forces assassinated Nasrallah during a massive bombing attack on the terrorist group’s Beirut headquarters.

“There has been a determined effort by Israel to face up to Hezbollah,” he said. “Cyprus will not position itself either way in this conflict, but we would definitely like to see this beautiful country—which has suffered so much—to be stable, and for the Lebanese people to live in peace. Hopefully, something better will come out of this.”

The ambassador, noting the increasingly warm ties between Cyprus and Israel, said the two countries are “like-minded democracies” and he places particular importance on their bilateral agreements for oil and gas drilling in the Eastern Mediterranean. Yet his country—which is also home to thousands of Israeli and Lebanese nationals—is determined not to take sides.

“We are ready to play a strong role in evacuating people to safety, but the current situation, with the two countries now teetering on the brink of war, is particularly worrisome,” Savva said. “We feel very strongly that in the end, there must be a diplomatic solution. It’s the only viable way.”