'Homecoming' to a ghost town sparks Greek Cypriot anguish

VAROSHA, Cyprus (AP) — The freshly paved street with its new bicycle lane markings meanders through the heart of abandoned Varosha, in ethnically split Cyprus' breakaway north, to a crumbling cinema in front of Savvas Constantinides’ family home.

Yet a rope line prevents the Greek Cypriot cardiologist from walking down a shrub-festooned side street to see the home he fled as a 6-year-old refugee in 1974, while Turkish troops approached the Famagusta suburb.

Like any tourist or sightseer, Varosha’s Greek Cypriot former residents must look from behind ropes at empty houses and schools, gutted hotels and looted stores.

They can’t enter their lost homes.

That’s the rule Turkish Cypriot authorities imposed last October, when they partly opened Varosha — Maras in Turkish — to visitors amid much fanfare, after keeping it uninhabited and sealed off by Turkish troops for nearly half a century.

They cite public safety, as many buildings are crumbling. But it's the absurdity of playing sightseer in his former home that grates on Costantinides, 53.

Now, Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots are dangling the opportunity of letting at least some Greek Cypriots reclaim their Varosha property if they accept the rule of the breakaway Turkish Cypriot state as legitimate — a move that's sowing consternation and discord.

“There’s tremendous anger about what has happened here. Turkey has committed a huge crime,” Costantinides said.

“Today, we’re living the same crime again. ... It’s as if they’re performing an autopsy and tourists are coming to witness it. It’s a shame, a shame for humanity.”

With its white sand beaches and luxury hotels, Varosha was once the pride of the eastern Mediterranean island's booming tourism industry.

Then in 1974,...