For 43 years we have been hearing that a settlement on the Cyprus issue is just around the corner. Yet we have never managed to turn that corner and it seems now that turning it remains a tough prospect.

This columnist has been in journalism for the past 44 years and his career has progressed with the Cyprus problem and it seems for many more years to come we will be talking about it.

In recent months there has been some euphoria that at last the Cyprus problem will be solved simply because Cyprus observers felt the hawkish Turkish Cypriot leaders had been replaced by the left-wing President Mustafa Akıncı, who they felt would deliver a settlement.

It is true that President Akıncı was eager to become the Turkish Cypriot leader to mend fences with the Greek Cypriots and help to forge a settlement and thus go down in history as a peacemaker. It is true that he gave the Greek Cypriots more concessions than they could have dreamed of, yet this was not sufficient to appease the Greeks. In fact there were rumors that in some cases he did not even consult Ankara about these concessions and proposals.

Yet at the end of the day he too experienced the incredible Greek Cypriot intransigence that has paralyzed the Cyprus peace process for four decades.

Since 1960, the Greek Cypriots have had the dream of merging the island with Greece, which is called ENOSIS. Turkish Cypriots and the Greeks came to the brink of war several times until the 1974 Cyprus peace operation when Turkey intervened militarily in Cyprus as the ENOSIS-seeking hordes launched a coup, toppling President Archbishop Makarios and then started butchering Turkish Cypriots.

It seems the Greeks never abandoned the dream of ENOSIS. The Greek House of Representatives has adopted a resolution calling on all schools to mark the anniversary of the 1950 referendum of joining the island with Greece. This has been strongly protested against by the Turkish Cypriots.

The Greek Cypriot intransigence is notorious. The Greek Cypriots rejected the Kofi Annan peace plan for Cyprus in a referendum in 2004 while the Turkish Cypriots approved it. The Western powers promised to reward the Turkish Cypriots for approving the plan, yet this never happened. On the contrary, the Greek Cypriot intransigence was rewarded as they were allowed to enter the European Union as a member state under the title of "Cyprus."

The Western powers led by the U.S. do not realize that the Greeks are motivated by a highly antagonistic Greek Orthodox Church in Nicosia. You have to overcome the church or else there is no peace or settlement on the island and won't be for many more years to come.

The Greeks simply do not want a Turkish presence on the island and seem to be reviving their dreams of linking the island with Greece.

The fact that they have armed themselves with EU membership makes them even more intransigent.

President Akıncı is having to face the ugly realities of Cyprus that late President Rauf Denktaş underlined for years when he was looked down upon as an uncompromising old statesman. He now is experiencing the hard facts that even being a social democrat will not help in forging a settlement on Cyprus.