Who Does Cyprus Belong To?

26/07/2026

By Tuma Çelik | Former Syriac Member of the Turkish Parliament for Merde (Mardin) 

On the 52nd anniversary of the Turkish military operation on the island of Cyprus, Turkish Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz stated: “Cyprus will never be an island of the Rûm.” I do not know exactly what Mr. Yılmaz means by the identity “Rûm,” but I do know very well that the vast majority of the people of Cyprus today identify themselves as Rûm. This identity, however, does not mean that they are (ethnically) Greek. Moreover, this has never been the case.

It is true that people of Turkish and Greek origins later settled on the island, but they do not constitute the majority of its population. Even after all the demographic engineering that the island has undergone, the combined proportion of these two groups does not exceed 30 percent of the population. Previous DNA analyses have also shown that around 80 percent of the genetic makeup of today’s Cypriots has its origins along the eastern Mediterranean coast, i.e. in Lebanon and Syria.

During my time as a member of Turkish parliament, one of my advisers was a Turkish Cypriot. According to what he told me, his family had settled in Cyprus around 350 years ago. He contacted me because he was preparing his master’s thesis on the Syriacs of Cyprus, which sparked my interest. He also contributed for a period to Gazete Sabro, and I learned a great deal about the history of Cyprus from him.

In Turkey we are told that the 1974 “Cyprus Peace Operation” was carried out to end the persecution suffered by Turkish Cypriots. However, the family of my former advisor does not view the matter in this way. Rather, they consider the Turkish presence in Cyprus an occupation. They even go further, saying that Turkey transferred large numbers of Turkish settlers to the island and is seeking to Turkify Cyprus.

During my visit to Cyprus, I encountered narratives completely different from those commonly presented in Turkey. Everyone born in Cyprus before 1974 or everyone who comes from a Cypriot family, whether Rûm, Turkish, or of any other identity, holds citizenship of the Republic of Cyprus, and therefore EU citizenship and a European passport. The identity card of the “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus,” which is recognized only by Turkey, has only value for Turkish settlers and it is not recognized outside Turkey. Native Turkish Cypriots hold Republic of Cyprus identity cards and passports and travel around the world using these documents.

Let’s now take a look at another aspect of this issue. Historically, Cyprus was, since ancient times, a trading colony of the Assyrians and therefore connected to Beth Nahrin (Mesopotamia). For this reason, much of its population was of Semitic stock, i.e. the peoples known as Arameans, Phoenicians, or Canaanites, who lived along the eastern Mediterranean coast.

This situation continued during the early Christian period. Cyprus became part of the ecclesiastical divisions that emerged within the Church of Antioch, and followers of various theological movements that emerged at the time were present on the island. The vast majority of the population, however, supported the Council of Chalcedon (451 AD) and were known in Syriac as Melkoye, meaning “royals.” There were also purely Syriac villages belonging to the Syriac Maronite Church, and in the fifteenth century the island hosted members of the community that separated from the Apostolic Church of the East, which later became known as the Chaldeans.

With the fall of the Byzantine Empire, the balance of power shifted, and the Syriac identity in Cyprus gradually faded. Under the Ottoman millet system, followers of the Council of Chalcedon were considered part of the “Rûm millet” and were linked to the Patriarchate in Istanbul, while non-Chalcedonian Christians were included within the “Armenian millet.” Meanwhile, followers of the Syriac Maronite Catholic Church in Lebanon maintained their own status. This led to the decline of Syriac identity on the island, while the Rûm identity gradually acquired a Greek character due to the influence of the churches of Istanbul and Greece over the Cypriot church. Over time, this influence turned into political and cultural dominance.

When Cyprus was established as an independent political entity, its system was built on the basis of the peoples living there. The Rûm, who were not ethnically Greek [1], represented the main population group, while Syriac Maronites, Armenians, and Turks who settled on the island over time were officially recognized as the other constituent communities of Cyprus. The constitution explicitly recognized this, and this arrangement continued until the Turkish intervention in 1974. According to international law, there is still one Republic of Cyprus that includes the Rûm, Turks, Syriac Maronites [2], and Armenians, although this reality no longer functions in practice.

Interpretations may differ, but Cyprus has never been an island where Greeks or Turks were the majority and dominant. On the contrary, the ethnicity of the island’s inhabitants is predominantly composed of Syriacs (Arameans-Assyrians-Chaldeans) and of Semitic stock. However, over time, these people came to be called Rûm, meaning citizens of the Roman Empire. Politically close to the Ottoman Empire and religiously close to Greece, Cyprus has become a battleground for Turkish and Greek nationalists. And it seems that, unfortunately, this island will continue to be a battleground for these nationalist conflicts for quite some time.

This article was originally published in Turkish by Gazete Sabro on 26 July 2026. The original can be found here.

The views expressed in this op-ed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of SyriacPress.

1. The term Rûm was used in the Byzantine Empire, i.e. the Eastern Roman Empire, to refer to all its subjects. After the conquest of Constantinople, the Ottomans used the term within the millet system to refer to all Christians who followed the Council of Chalcedon. Therefore, the term “Rûm” is not an ethnic designation but rather expresses religious and political affiliation.

2. In today’s divided Cyprus, with a Turkish and Rûm sectors, the identities of Syriac Maronites and Armenians have been blurred despite their recognition in the constitution. Their residential areas were confiscated. There are four Maronite villages in Cyprus. Two of them are in Northern Cyprus and have been declared restricted military zones by the Turkish army. No one is allowed to enter.