Quotes of the Day

Growing up the son of a famous man can be traumatic, particularly on an island of less than a million people. Take Serdar Denktash, the Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the Democrat Party in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Despite the fancy job titles, to most residents of the divided island he is far better known as the son of Rauf Denktash, the rotund septuagenarian President who has dominated Turkish Cypriot politics for nearly half a century.

Rauf is still the most important Denktash on Cyprus, but the son may be rising. Serdar, 44, worked behind the scenes this spring to secure the opening of the heavily fortified "green line" that has split the island since 1974 — the most significant breakthrough in Cyprus in years. The April decision came with the backing of the government and Turkey, but Serdar was its architect — persuading his father and the Turkish government in Ankara. "We wanted to show that we mean business, that we are in search of a solution," he says, sitting beneath a portrait of his beaming father in his office a stone's throw from the green line. "And that despite what certain Greek Cypriot leaders say, we are not living in tents and caves."

He's done more than that. The rush of Greek and Turkish Cypriots to cross the line has stunned politicians on both sides, as has the calm with which longtime enemies have greeted each other. Relaxed trade embargoes and the lifting of visa restrictions for Greek Cypriots in Turkey soon followed, raising hopes that a political settlement was at least thinkable before the Greek part of the island is formally admitted to the European Union next May. And for Serdar, there may be a payoff. His political party, which shares power with his father's National Unity Party, is facing a hard fight in parliamentary elections this December. Analysts were predicting an easy win for the opposition, thus ending the Denktash dominance of Cypriot affairs, but Serdar's role in opening the line has stolen some of that fire.

Serdar Denktash was drafted late into the family business. A slimmer version of his father, he studied electrical engineering at the University of Wales, Cardiff. Returning to Cyprus he dabbled in banking (working for his father-in-law) and switched to politics in 1985 after his older brother, Raif, the heir apparent, was killed in a road accident. His generation has a different view of the Cyprus problem: "I did not fight with a gun," he says. "I did not watch friends die beside me. My father is from that generation. I am not." Which is one reason why he, not Rauf, championed opening the green line.

To push through his plan, Serdar needed the assent not just of his father, whose personal prestige and contacts in Ankara make him a dominant voice, but the Turkish government itself and the Turkish military, which keeps more than 40,000 troops on the island. Serdar says he brought up the idea of "opening the gates" four years ago, but only began pressing the idea in Nicosia and Ankara this January, after U.N. talks aimed at reuniting the island failed. "I was going to the President, to the Turkish government, day by day to convince them," he said. Opening the line, he argued, would show ordinary Greeks that Turkish Cyprus was not an economically backward province laboring under military rule. Ankara was receptive, says Serdar, and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan "was particularly encouraging." Rauf Denktash — who, to the displeasure of many of his own people, has fiercely resisted the U.N. effort to find a solution — agreed to go along as an "experiment."

Analysts say Turkey's support for the measure may be a step in the new, pro-Islamic government's long-term campaign to win E.U. membership. Alternatively, it could simply be an effort to buy time and ease political pressure that had been building on the island since massive anti- government protests broke out last year. Mehmet Ali Talat, head of the opposition Republican Turkish Party, which helped organize the protests, takes the latter view. "The government had run out of ideas," he says. "They had to do something." Serdar's tone may be more moderate than his father's, says Talat, but his policies amount to the same thing — keeping Cyprus divided. On the other side of the green line, Greek Cypriot leaders are equally dismissive. "The new Denktash and the old one are the same package," says government spokesman Kypros Chrysostomides. Serdar concedes that, like his father, he opposes much of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's plan for reunifying the island. But he genuinely wants a deal, he claims. "Failure would not be the end of the world," he says, "but we want to build a new future."

Serdar rejects the notion that he is being groomed to take his father's spot. "He has a lot of respect for his dad, and the history of Cyprus that he represents," says Kudret Akay, a childhood friend and sociologist. "But he doesn't compare himself to him." Serdar is more relaxed (he's a diver and race-car fan) and less rigid, but ambitious nevertheless. "It is no coincidence that he has been way out front on the issue of opening the border," says one senior Western diplomat.

The two men have a close, if formal, relationship. At the Denktash dinner table, talk of politics is banned. To discuss business matters, Serdar makes an appointment with his dad. "He knows what he is talking about and he is the only one with the power to deal with the Turkish government," says the son. "It's just luck that we have him." The opposition, if it prevails, has sworn to throw Rauf out.

A full-fledged political settlement may still be far off. But ordinary Cypriots, Greeks and Turks alike, seem ready for change, and the opening of the green line may be the first irrevocable step toward it. "I was expecting maybe 2,000 to cross the line a day for a short time," recalls Serdar. But as of last week, up to a third of the island's population had taken advantage of the quiet revolution, including 25,000 Turkish Cypriots who have applied for Cypriot (soon to be E.U.) passports and thousands of elderly Greek Cypriots who visited old homes for the first time since 1974. Greeks and Turks treat each other with studied civility, welcoming strangers into their homes and sending them away with gifts of lemons and flowers. "It really is unprecedented," says Thomas Weston, U.S. special envoy to the island. "There is a tremendous amount of goodwill." Serdar agrees that the opening is a "success for the people of Cyprus." And, he hopes, for him too.

• ANDREW PURVIS | Nicosia
• The infamous "green line" dividing Cyprus is finally breaking down