KYRENIA (Cyprus): Greek Cypriots flood into Turkish northern Cyprus for the first time since war rent the island asunder three decades ago. Turks greet them with smiles and tea in homes they once fled in panic.

A sense of dreamlike incredulity lingers here even a week after northern Cyprus opened up to visits by Greek Cypriots and allowed its own people to cross the “Green Line” to the south. Cafes on Kyrenia’s picturesque harbour are abuzz with long absent Greek voices, roads teem with Greek cars and high-powered motor bikes.

The human drama unfolding here may by the new year settle the fate of hardline Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash and of Turkey’s dreams of European Union membership which are linked to a settlement on Cyprus.

The open border may unleash forces that undermine Denktash at elections in December, forcing a resumption of talks on a peace plan, which the United Nations says collapsed in March because of him.

Denktash says he opened the border to build trust between the two communities. But his critics see it as a move to defuse anger and protests over his rejection of the UN plan and postpone any serious settlement.

“Things are moving quickly and no-one knows what will happen tomorrow,” says Turkish Cypriot opposition leader Mehmet Ali Talat who sees Cyprus as a key battlefield in a broader power struggle between Turkey’s hardliners and pro-EU reformers.

Cyprus’s ethnic Greeks and Turks have been divided since 1974 when Turkey invaded after a Greek Cypriot coup aimed at union with Greece. Denktash runs a breakaway northern statelet recognized only by Ankara.

Denktash’s critics say his position is shored up by the powerful Turkish army, with 30,000 troops posted here, and a new Justice and Development Party (AKP) government in Ankara ready for a deal but too timid to bite the bullet.

“Cyprus is one of those ‘national issues’ that, when you touch on it, the accusation of treason is never far away,” Talat said. The AKP, already under attack from the secularist army for its religious roots, can ill afford the label of traitor.

Whatever his motives, Denktash has unleashed political and economic forces that may be hard now to rein in.

“It would be difficult to fill the hole gouged in the wall of Nicosia,” says Mustafa Akinci of the Communal Liberation Party.

If Cyprus is not reunited before the Greek Cypriots join the EU next May, Turkey’s own bid for membership could be in peril.

But Denktash is in no hurry. The EU, he says, seeks only to force a pro-Greek solution on him and has no intention of admitting Turkey.

“Settlement by May? I don’t see it,” says Denktash. “I hope the EU will reconsider the injustices it has perpetrated against us and come to us to find out how to remedy them.”

Ali Erel, head of the Chamber of Commerce, says the open borders cannot be a substitute for a full settlement on the basis of the UN plan — a blueprint providing for two largely autonomous Greek and Turkish zones, but allowing thousands of Greeks to return gradually to the north under strict controls.

Talat, head of the left-wing Republican People’s Party, views the border move as Denktash’s last stand. “We want to overthrow Denktash; by democratic means, of course. And we can.”

Talat, Akinci and Erel say they hope for a huge “pro-settlement” vote in December parliamentary polls.—Reuters