Cocked rifles and infrared cameras along Cyprus buffer zone stoke tensions that could spread farther

Fifty years after war cleaved Cyprus along ethnic lines, tensions are flaring again along the 180-kilometer-long United Nations controlled buffer zone in an already tumultuous region. The divide harkens back to the island nation’s tortured politics, culminating in a Turkish invasion in 1974 triggered by a coup. At the heart of the disagreement was whether to join with Greece. U.N. peacekeepers had been deployed to Cyprus to quell fighting between the two communities a full decade prior to the invasion. Their mandate was expanded in the invasion’s aftermath to patrol the buffer zone. Turkish Cypriots from Greek Cypriots have been ramping up their military preparedness on either side. Violations of the neutral zone, including installing weapons and cameras there, have been growing.