Greek Cyprus has done it again. They are determined to stop the negotiations over the future status of the island. The main objectives of the Greek Cypriot authorities, since 1960, have been to ethnically cleanse the island and become incorporated with mainland Greece. They have being sabotaging the 1960 constitutional system since as early as 1963, exposing the Turkish minority to all sorts of harassment, non-representation and, even, murder. In 1974, a coup d'état was staged by the military regime in power in Athens to oust Archbishop Makarios, the Greek president of the island and to establish a puppet regime that would swear allegiance to mainland Greece. Turkey, against all odds, intervened and the island has been divided ever since between the Greek and Turkish sides. This division brought about the departure of about one fifth of the population, which at that point was not clearly divided geographically.Since then, there have been an incredible number of negotiations. All under the auspices of the U.N. and all have failed. Neither the Greek nor the Turkish parts of the island really wanted "reconciliation" up until the end of the 20th century. This isolation has created two very different communities, with different languages and different ways of living. The consistent policy of the Greek Cypriot authorities has been to "internationalize" the problem of division, whereas Turkey's attitude has been to leave the solution to both communities on the island. Over time, the Greek Cypriot vision and objective has been attained. Cyprus became an "international question." Greek Cyprus officially entered Turkey-EU relations in 1992 and has been poisoning Turkey's external relations ever since. The wait-and-see attitude of Turkish politics and Rauf Denktaş, the irremovable Turkish Cypriot leader who has ruled for decades, has also helped the internationally-recognized government of Greek Cypriots score points.In 2004, the ultimate move was made by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, who established a plan for the reunification of the island. The Turkish community overwhelmingly accepted it and the Greek community even more overwhelmingly rejected it. As a reward for its intransigency, Greek Cyprus has been made a member of the EU, thanks to the Greeks threatening to veto any enlargement plans until Cyprus was made a member.A divided, problematic island, which functions basically as a financial and maritime base for the Russian Federation in the Mediterranean has become an EU member. Ever since, Greek Cyprus has lost what little motivation it had to reunify the island. It was only five years ago, in 2009, when Greece went bankrupt, followed a year and a half later by Greek Cyprus. Russian oligarchs did not want to pay for the bailout and the EU did so reluctantly. Greek Cyprus was in a total cul-de-sac economically and politically speaking, when new reserves of natural gas were discovered under the sea. Nobody knows exactly how much gas is there, or how to extract it, but the news made such an impression on Greek Cypriots that you would have thought they'd discovered Atlantis.This new hope has made them act totally irrationally. They have broken the gentlemen's agreement to refrain from exploring the sea before the end of the reunification negotiations, which were established and mediated by the U.S. Turkey retaliated by sending its own exploration ship, prompting the Greek Cypriots to slam the door on the negotiations and threaten to form a coalition with Israel and Egypt. More dangerously, military manoeuvres are being organised together with the Russian, Israeli and Greek Cypriot fleets to send a message to Turkey, which does not seem overly anxious. Most recently, the Greek Cypriot authorities have asked for the termination of the accession negotiations between Turkey and the EU. Perhaps it is high time that the Greek Cypriot authorities and politicians woke up to reality, if such a thing is still possible.