The bicommunal Buyuk Han Saturday morning coffee club, colloquially known as the “traitors’ club”, celebrated 20 years of existence on Saturday.

The group, which consists of Turkish Cypriots, Greek Cypriots, and others who hail from both the island and elsewhere, has met for coffee almost every Saturday morning since 2004, just a year after the crossing points connecting Cyprus’ two sides were first opened.

The setting of their meetings is the Buyuk Han, a nearly 500-year-old inn located in the heart of Nicosia’s old town, and, thankfully for all those who attended on Saturday, the sun shone and the weather was warm.

Against the backdrop of a Cyprus problem which has been constantly evolving yet has remained largely unchanged in the past two decades, the traitors’ club has become a constant fixture and something of a minor cultural phenomenon.

It was the subject of a book written by regular attendee Marina Christofides and of a podcast produced by Reuters during the summer, while the club has been known to be a hangout spot at times for politicians and diplomats from Cyprus and further afield.

This was the case for its 20th anniversary meeting, which was headlined by Nicosia’s two mayors, Greek Cypriot Charalambos Prountzos and Turkish Cypriot Mehmet Harmanci, though other high-profile attendees were not hard to come by on Saturday morning.

United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (Unficyp) head Colin Stewart, lawyer and former presidential candidate Achilleas Demetriades, ambassadors from Ireland, Italy, and Portugal, among other countries, Turkish Cypriot opposition party CTP secretary-general Asim Akansoy, and numerous other recognisable figures were all sat on rickety tables, drinking coffee and making conversation.

As people gathered, Andreas Paralikis commenced a speech welcoming everyone to the event. While the traitors’ club has no ranks or titles, one attendee shouted out during his speech that he is the “heart and soul” of the club.

Paralikis told attendees the traitors’ club is “the only bicommunal and multicultural coffee shop in Cyprus” and welcomed the numerous distinguished guests to the event.

“We are not a political movement. We are just a bunch of concerned citizens who became friends through this coffee club in this wonderful historical monument in Nicosia. When we started having coffee here in 2004, and we have done it for 1,000 Saturdays, we did not expect that our country would still be divided 20 years later,” he said.

He added, “we never thought that we would still be stopping at checkpoints with long lines to show an identification document in our own country.

“Most of our members lived through or remember as youngsters the tragic events which marred the history of our country in the 1960s and 70s and wish that future generations do not go through similar experiences. Our vision is to promote the ecumenical values of peace, brotherhood and love, and assist in the creation of a new Cypriot society based on forgiveness, honesty and respect for one another,” he said.

He went on to say the various failures in political efforts to resolve the Cyprus problem over the last 20 years “have not broken us down”, and that “the bonds developed among the regular members and their family members over the past 20 years continue to grow.

“We are one big family, irrespective of ethnic origins, language, or religion. This is how we dream of our Cyprus in the future.”

At the end of his speech, Harmanci and Prountzos presented him with a wooden plaque marking 20 years since the club’s creation, as a sign of their appreciation for his efforts and the efforts of the club at large.

Harmanci then quipped that Paralikis would now have to get permission from the north’s antiquities department to be able to put the plaque up.

Once the speech had concluded, the music began, with traditional Cypriot songs being played by a bicommunal band, as coffee and even the odd alcoholic beverage began to flow, and the Buyuk Han descended into chatter.

There were even bites to eat, too, with Cypriot pastries being complemented by copious amounts of baklava and even pasteis de nata courtesy of the Portuguese embassy’s consular section head and weekly traitors’ club attendee Henrique Capelas.

The loudest laughs came from the mayors’ table, as Harmanci and Prountzos shared jokes and stories back and forth and, surrounded by likeminded people, offered a vision of what Cyprus might look like if we all got along just a little bit better.

If one looked at the scene at the Buyuk Han in isolation, one would never know Cyprus had ever been divided, let alone that it still is, and that less than 100 metres from the coffee and the beer and the pasteis de nata lays a ceasefire line, conscript soldiers facing off, and a UN peacekeeping force in the middle.

By coincidence, Saturday marked the 35th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and this coincidence offered the chatterers evidence, if nothing else, that things can change and the arc of history can swing around very quickly and unexpectedly at times, and that efforts to reunify Cyprus may eventually bear fruit.

Even should they not, the traitors’ club will continue to exist for years to come because of and in spite of the Cyprus problem, and offer an oasis of unity and bicommunality which has endured through good times and bad for 20 years.