Unease as ‘ghost town' rises in Erdoğan power play

‘Do you want to ride or walk?” asks Seyki Mindik. The municipal employee points under the fierce July sun towards the bicycles stacked within view of the police barrier at the entrance to Varosha. “There is so much to see. Tourists love it here.”

- Helena Smith VAROSHA

Not so long ago the notion of the eastern Mediterranean ghost town being resurrected as a theme park would have been unthinkable. For more than four decades there has been almost no movement among ruins of war left to rot with the passage of time. But in Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus, transformation is in the air.

On Demokratias street, beside buildings allowed to decay for 47 years after their Greek Cypriot inhabitants were forced to flee when Ankara sent in troops and tanks, a mobile canteen offers cakes and juices to those who want to ogle the relics of conflict; on a section of the beach next to hotels reclaimed by nature, Turkish Cypriot authorities have erected tables, umbrellas and chairs. All are small signs of a brewing battle over a resort that became a bargaining chip in a game of geopolitical chess.

It was here that Europe’s cosmopolitan elite gravitated until right-wing extremists championing