Denia village community leader Charalambos Alexandrou on Thursday said that he had asked that the United Nations peacekeeping force in Cyprus (Unficyp) be “more noticeable” in the area around his village during a meeting with the force’s chief Khassim Diagne.

He told the Cyprus News Agency that Diagne had met members of the village council “at our initiative … to discuss with us, to listen to the farmers’ concerns and ours”.

However, he said, Diagne and his delegation had said that “they cannot do more” and that “they cannot use force” to deter violations of the buffer zone.

As such, he said that he and local farmers had asked Diagne to “make the presence of Unficyp more noticeable, so as to reduce violations by the Turkish side as much as possible”.

“This can be done if Unficyp increases its patrols, intervenes in incidents which occur in the buffer zone, and does not remain an observer, so that this can also be imposed on the Turkish side,” he said.

Asked whether Diagne had “understood” the issues raised, he said that “a solution must be found”, as “at some point, we will have more serious problems”.

Then asked whether the frequency of Turkish violations of the buffer zone has increased, he said that the frequency is “at the same level”, but that violations are “continuous at certain points”.

He added that Diagne had said that “he needs time” and that “he will try to make the United Nations’ presence in the region more noticeable”, while acknowledging that Unficyp is “currently facing a problem of understaffing”.

Heightened tensions in and around buffer zone

While much of the tension in the buffer zone has centred around the village of Pyla in recent years, near Larnaca, the section of buffer zone between Nicosia and Morphou, in which Denia is located, has also been the scene of heightened tensions from time to time.

Disagreements arose earlier this year between Greek Cypriot farmers and Turkish forces over rights to use farmland south of the nearby village of Avlona, which is located in the north, have increased in frequency in recent months.

On this matter, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in July that Unficyp has “developed an internal action plan to address these challenges sustainably and comprehensively”.

In Avlona in April, Turkish Cypriot police officers erroneously believed that a Greek Cypriot farmer had crossed into the north and thus moved to intercept him, before Unficyp peacekeepers stepped in to diffuse the situation.

Once all parties had established where the buffer zone begins and ends, the police officers returned to the north.

Of this situation, Unficyp spokesman Aleem Siddique told the Cyprus Mail at the time that “we are monitoring the situation very closely” with the aim of “preventing tension” and “maintaining the status quo”.

However, given the fact that the buffer zone in that area is not demarcated, incidences of farmers, both Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot, erroneously farming beyond their bounds are not infrequent.

In Denia itself, new signs were erected in March to demarcate the buffer zone as part of what Siddique described as endeavours to “reinforce the measures to ensure stability” in and around the buffer zone.

Those measures, he said, include “improving signage to ensure public knowledge” of where the buffer zone starts and ends, and thus avoid “accidental civilian access” to the buffer zone.