Confronting the legal and political ambiguities of forced migration in a fragmented Cyprus

The document argues that the contested legal status of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) and the ambiguous nature of the UN buffer zone create significant precarities for asylum-seekers. It criticizes the UNHCR's use of 'Person of Concern' certificates as an insufficient workaround for formal refugee status and accuses the Republic of Cyprus (RoC) of shirking responsibility for refugees in the buffer zone. The authors call for structural, principled solutions over case-by-case pragmatic workarounds to protect universal human rights in these contested territories.

• The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) lacks a domestic legal framework for asylum or refuge and cannot formally join international law frameworks due to its unrecognized status.
• To avoid implied recognition of the TRNC, the UNHCR operates through a proxy (the Refugee Rights Association) and issues 'Person of Concern' certificates instead of formal Refugee Status Determinations. These certificates lack legal status, do not grant the right to work, and function only as requests for non-deportation.
• The Republic of Cyprus (RoC) claims the UN-controlled buffer zone as its territory but often avoids the associated legal responsibility toward asylum-seekers who enter through it, sometimes attempting to evict them.
• The TRNC has become a significant destination for diverse migrants, including labor migrants from Asia, international students, and refugees arriving by boat, driven by a permissive visa regime and a service-oriented economy.
• Boat arrivals in the TRNC are typically detained and deported to Turkey, which is treated as a safe third country and the TRNC's patron state.
• The current approach of treating asylum cases in the TRNC and buffer zone as individual incidents requiring 'pragmatic workarounds' is deemed untenable after 50 years of division.

APA

Achiri, E., & Klem, B. (2024). Confronting the legal and political ambiguities of forced migration in a fragmented Cyprus. Peace Research Institute Oslo. https://cdn.cloud.prio.org/files/4e69877a-7352-4306-b8f3-9c3c59d8126c/PCC PB 01 2024.pdf?inline=true

Chicago

Achiri, Emmanuel, and Bart Klem. Confronting the legal and political ambiguities of forced migration in a fragmented Cyprus. Peace Research Institute Oslo, 2024. https://cdn.cloud.prio.org/files/4e69877a-7352-4306-b8f3-9c3c59d8126c/PCC PB 01 2024.pdf?inline=true.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Achiri |first1=Emmanuel |last2=Klem |first2=Bart |title=Confronting the legal and political ambiguities of forced migration in a fragmented Cyprus |publisher=Peace Research Institute Oslo |date=2024 |url=https://cdn.cloud.prio.org/files/4e69877a-7352-4306-b8f3-9c3c59d8126c/PCC PB 01 2024.pdf?inline=true |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{achiri2024confronting, author = {Achiri, Emmanuel and Klem, Bart}, title = {{Confronting the legal and political ambiguities of forced migration in a fragmented Cyprus}}, institution = {Peace Research Institute Oslo}, year = {2024}, url = {https://cdn.cloud.prio.org/files/4e69877a-7352-4306-b8f3-9c3c59d8126c/PCC PB 01 2024.pdf?inline=true}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }