Borders, fear and belonging
This section explores competing narratives surrounding borders and belonging in Cyprus, a country which is not only affected by historical division and geopolitical insecurity, but also by the overlapping and often inconsistent border regimes into which it is drawn. During the conference, the discussion between Dr Giorgos Charalambous, Associate Professor of Political Science, and Dr Nicos Trimikliniotis, Professor of Sociology, Social Sciences, and Law, offered an important point of departure for thinking about the role of borders in the Cypriot context. It drew attention to the extent to which borders may be understood either as mechanisms of protection and collective security or as sites of exclusion through which precarious hierarchies of belonging are produced and maintained.
Our analysis takes that discussion as a starting point, but turns to a different and more recent development, namely the ongoing US and Israel war in Iran in 2026. The reason of doing so lies not simply in the fact that this war unfolds at the time of writing. It lies, rather, in the way it brings into sharper view the unsettled and often contradictory character of Cyprus’s border condition. This is a war that prompts us to ask not only “who belongs in Cyprus?”, but also “where does Cyprus belong?”. Seen through the lens of the present conflict, the question of “Borders, Fear and Belonging” moves beyond migration management alone. What recent developments show is that Cyprus is itself constituted by multiple “belongings”, and that these continue to shape the unstable terms on which the island’s European identity is lived and claimed.
We can begin by noting the existence of a certain symbolic irony in the timing of the present situation. The war in Iran is taking place amidst what may be regarded as one of the island’s most prominent “European” moments of the decade, as Cyprus holds and hosts the presidency of the Council of Europe from January to June 2026. On the one hand, the Presidency affirms Cyprus’s institutional position within the European project, with the Republic of Cyprus (RoC) projecting an image of diplomatic leadership, political maturity among European peers, and deepening integration into the structures of EU governance. On the other hand, precisely at this moment of heightened European visibility, the island’s exposure to regional instability is laid bare.18 The contrast is revealing. For even as the institutional centre of the EU appears, temporarily, to have shifted towards Cyprus, the war has shown that the latter also has remained geographically and strategically positioned in the neighbouring Middle East region, which is marked by recurrent conflict and turmoil. Cyprus’s European belonging, however, politically significant, does not and cannot suspend the geopolitical conditions that continue to shape its security environment.
Therefore, geography clearly shapes the securitised condition Cyprus lives today. Yet Cyprus’s vulnerability is not a matter of geographical proximity alone. It is also affected by colonial arrangements that outlived formal imperial rule and continue to define the island’s security status in the present.19 The continued presence of the British Sovereign Base Areas at Akrotiri and Dhekelia means that Cyprus is not exposed to regional conflict only as a nearby state, but also as a territory that is actively embedded in military actions not controlled by the Republic itself.20 The current war makes it easy to see how the insecurity of Cyprus is not just the insecurity of a small state on the edge of a war zone. Within the island, territorially distinct spaces carry military significance either as sites from which action may be launched or as possible targets of attack. In this sense, the insecurity of Cyprus is the insecurity of a state whose territory carries different strategic meanings for different actors. With its sovereignty remaining constrained,21 the border condition of Cyprus is affected by forms of power that complicate and confuse the distinction between national territory, European frontier,22 and (post) colonial military logics.
Finally, the question of sovereignty opens onto a further question: alignment. Where does Cyprus belong to strategically in a region marked by war, military build-up and alliance formation? On the surface, the Republic of Cyprus has sought to present itself as non-aligned. Official discourse has stressed restraint and has framed the island as a responsible regional actor, able to support humanitarian efforts and contribute to stability in a moment of crisis. The Amalthea initiative, the use of Cyprus as a hub for humanitarian shipments to Gaza, and the island’s repeated role as a corridor for the evacuation of foreign nationals from nearby war zones have all reinforced this image.23 This posture is politically intelligible. It allows Cyprus to project itself as not a participant to regional conflict, but as an agent of assistance, coordination, and care. It also sits comfortably with the image Cyprus seeks to cultivate within the EU of a mature member state, committed to order, responsibility, and humanitarian action. However, non-alignment is increasingly difficult for the Republic to sustain as a credible self-description, since its recent trajectory has involved not only a marked distancing from earlier Russian-linked financial and political relations, but also the institutionalisation of much closer alignment with the West through the 2024 US-Cyprus Strategic Dialogue, a five-year bilateral defence roadmap, expanded sanctions-enforcement cooperation with Washington and London, and even discussions on upgrading Cypriot military infrastructure for interoperability with US and partner forces.24,25 None of this is necessarily at odds with Cyprus’s European identity. On the contrary, such alignment may be understood as an extension of it, and as a possible source of strategic protection.
Yet this does not remove the tension or the fear. For the same alignment that appears to secure Cyprus also deepens its securitisation. With the escalation of the war, Cyprus has found itself surrounded by the presence, interests, and movements of multiple military powers. More concretely, this has taken the form of British operations continuing from Akrotiri, the reinforcement of the base’s defences after the March 2026 strike, and the wider movement of allied naval and air-defence assets around the island, including British, French, Greek, Italian, Spanish, and Dutch deployments.26 Neutrality, then, becomes difficult to sustain in anything more than a formal or declaratory sense, not because it has been explicitly abandoned, but because the island is now being positioned and read through the strategic uses of its territory, infrastructure, and surrounding waters.
What, then, might this mean for Cyprus in the short term? One immediate effect is likely extended insecurity. This is not only because the island may remain a target, but also because proximity to war increases exposure in less direct, but no less real, ways. Conflict spills over. It disrupts, unsettles, and creates the possibility of accident and miscalculation. Earlier incidents, such as the July 2019 accidental landing of a missile in Northern Cyprus during an Israel-Syria clash, are reminders that the effects of regional violence do not stop neatly at political borders.27
At the same time, the war raises difficult questions about protection and solidarity. The present moment shows that borders are not only lines of defence. They are equally spaces of interruption, and allies cannot simply be taken for granted. In the first days of the conflict, Cyprus expressed discontent with the British government over the handling of the Sovereign Base Areas.28 There was also growing concern over the European Union’s chronic responsiveness to unfolding developments, with President Nikos Christodoulides criticising what Reuters described as the EU’s “slow reaction” to the situation.29 Read alongside other recent crises, including the summer 2025 fires, these reactions point to the limits of preparedness on the island, and the limits of crisis support experienced at Europe’s periphery. Cyprus is part of Europe, yet it also remains one of its outskirt borders, and this position shapes the practicalities of Europe’s presence on the island. Cyprus’s EU Presidency, which was meant to project stability, diplomatic leadership, and European centrality, has itself been affected by the war, including through flight cancellations and wider disruptions.30 This shows how quickly the language of order, preparedness, and connectivity can be unsettled when a border space is drawn more directly into a regional crisis. In Cyprus, borders do not simply secure belonging; they also expose how fragile, conditional, and inconsistently protected that belonging can be.
