erbated where ethnicity and nationalism interact. The longer that such problems are allowed to simmer, the more intractable they appear to become. One such case involves the island of Cyprus, where Greek and Turkish communities have resided in a state of shared tension for around four centuries. The situation involving the two communities and the search for a solution to the issues that divide them is referred to generally as the "Cyprus Problem."
The Cyprus Problem is aggravated by the facts that Greek Cypriots constitute approximately eighty-percent of the islands population while the geographic location of Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean Sea places the island just south of the Turkish coast and almost as near to Syria on the east [refer to Figure 1 which may be found on the following page]. Thus, while the Turkish Cypriots are a minority population on Cyprus, the Greek Cypriots perceived themselves to be a minority people in the Middle East.
The Cyprus Problem has been the focus of both peace-keeping operations and intensive negotiations for more than three decades. The negotiations have attempted to find a solution acceptable to by Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, as well as being acceptable to both Greece and Turkey. In spite of many promising efforts, such a solution has thus far eluded all of the negotiators.
Various analysts have identified entrenched positions, fears, and other reasons for the failures of past efforts to find an acceptable and workable solution to the Cyprus Problem. None of these explanations, however, has enabled the Cypriots, Greece and Turkey, the major powers, or the United Nations to develop a breakthrough strategy that will lead to the development of a successful solution. This study, thus, was designed to develop a theoretical explanation of the reason for the continued failure to successfully negotiate peace between the Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. The underlying as...