Work begins on Pyla-Arsos road

Work began on the road between Pyla and Arsos on Monday, with crews entering the buffer zone and marking the road’s path on the ground.

Two teams of construction workers, one from each side of the island, are being accompanied by United Nations peacekeepers in the area as works go ahead.

According to a mutual understanding found between the two sides of Cyprus and the UN earlier this month, the road will be built with a Turkish Cypriot checkpoint stationed north of the buffer zone and another checkpoint located within the buffer zone.

UN spokesman Aleem Siddique told the Cyprus Mail that peacekeepers are “on the ground, patrolling the area, monitoring the situation”.

“Works are continuing as planned.”

Asked how long the road would take to construct, he said he expects construction to be “finished fairly soon”.

“The initial schedule is in place until the end of this month, and then beyond that a new schedule will be devised.”

The precise location of the checkpoints is yet to be determined, though the decision regarding the general location of the checkpoints reportedly came at the behest of the European Union.

In addition, 400 plots of land north of Pyla are set to be turned into residential properties, while a large solar farm is set to be built in a vacant area northwest of the village.

Greek Cypriot Pyla mukhtar Simos Mytides said he expects the “first phase” of works to take around six months.

“There had been uproar, but now people seem to be more satisfied. Everyone hopes, just as we do, that what was agreed upon will be implemented,” he said.

The situation in Pyla was brought to the fore in August when the Turkish Cypriot authorities unilaterally announced their intention to build the road through the buffer zone between the village and Arsos.

The Turkish Cypriot side had insisted the road would be built for “humanitarian purposes”, to ensure safe and quick passage for those living in the village to and from the north.

However, the Greek Cypriot side expressed fears that construction of the road may allow Turkish forces to strengthen their position in the Mesaoria plain, and pointed to the existence of a building on the road which they believe to resemble a military outpost.

The UN had declared unilateral construction of the road to be “unauthorised” and stated their intention to block its construction, manning the buffer zone the following day.

However, Turkish Cypriot personnel entered the buffer zone the following day, forcing their way past UN peacekeepers. One peacekeeper was punched in the face and multiple vehicles were rendered “undriveable” after being “violently pushed back” during the incident.

The Turkish Cypriot side was widely condemned by the international community, including by all five members of the UN Security Council, and discussions to find a “mutually agreeable way forward” began soon after.

The eventual agreement found earlier this month won universal praise, with government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis saying they had “succeeded in turning a crisis into an opportunity”, and the north’s ‘foreign ministry’ saying “a fair, realistic, and sustainable reconciliation on the island is possible through good neighbourly relations.”