The following article appeared in Odyssey magazine of Athens in July 2002, written by Helena Smith.

"Bitter lemons: The property boom in northern Cyprus

British tourists and MPs are rushing to take advantage of the property bargains-in the form of abandoned Greek homes-north of the Green Line in Cyprus

The homes of Greeks in northern Cyprus who fled when Turkey invaded are being snapped up by bargain-hungry Brits, including MPs. Helena Smith goes house hunting in the village of Bellapaix, once home to Lawrence Durrell.

Before I was rudely removed from the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus," I climbed the spine of Bellapaix to behold Bitter Lemons. The "large box-like house," immortalized by Lawrence Durrell in his eponymous account of the three years he lived on the island during the 1950's-when it was transformed from sleepy British colony to a cockpit of ethnic hate-was much as he had left it.

The dwelling's great wooden doors "made for some forgotten race of giants and their oxen" were just as impressive. The two-storey building had obviously been bathed in a fresh coat of paint and there was a discreet banana-yellow ceramic plaque above the entrance notifying passersby of the novelist's one-time ownership. It was here that Durrell began his most famous work, The Alexandria Quartet.

Sur-Real Estate
I had gone to see the house at the encouragement of an Englishman who lived in the shadow of the village's great Gothic Abbey. Perhaps I would also like to move to Bellapaix? Bitter Lemons was not for sale, but it could be rented throughout the year. There were plenty of properties around. And they were all going for a song.

"Now is the time to buy," said the Englishman who had become so enchanted with the pariah state that he had given up his home in Yorkshire to move there "for ever." "In fact prices are about to soar.""

What had he bought, I asked? "A fabulous place for 42,000 pounds and it has absolutely everything.""

The Englishman was not a man to effuse unnecessarily. If anything, "everything" was an understatement. The property had, indeed, come very well equipped: there was fine Parisian crockery in the Art Deco-style side-board; an Art Deco-style bed; an Art-Deco-style table; and Art Deco-style chairs, all coated in a thick blanket of dust but useable none the less.

Downstairs, within view of the court-yard in the "donkey room," there were even knives and forks and buckets and brooms, and a blue and white wooden flag-pole. "When I discovered that," he said pointing at the pole, "I realized this place must have belonged to a barber.""

The fact that it was a Greek flag pole-for on closer inspection he agreed that indeed that was what it was-seemed to leave him cold.

"Well, at one time, yes, my house did belong to a Greek. Actually, it was pretty poignant finding his x-rays and seeing the family pictures on the walls. He obviously left in a hurry. But it will be over my dead body that he gets this house back. It's mine now." So much his, in fact, that he already had plans to install arches and knock down walls.

The Englishman is not alone.

Northern Cyprus may exist, officially, for no other country but Turkey; much of it may resemble a huge military camp and even more may be crumbling under the weight of crushing economic embargoes; but it is there that Britons are going a house-hunting as never before.

Despite clear signs of failure in the ongoing UN-brokered peace talks, the prospect of the island joining the EU this December has spurred a mini property boom. Many of Durrell's compatriots-sensing spectacular financial reward, a safe-haven and sometimes both-are now flocking to the outlawed republic to buy villas, ruins, retirement homes and plots of land.

"You will never lose your money here," explains Hassan Yalkin. "What you would buy for £300,000 in England, you can buy for £30,000 here. Yesterday I sold a villa to an Englishman for £85,000. They're buying up all the time."

As one of 15 realtors in the tiny breakaway territory, up from three less than a year ago, Yalkin offers "expert advice." What about the Greeks, I asked? Weren't there nearly 200,000 of them who had lost their homes fleeing the invading Turkish army in 1974? The Turkish Cypriots, as the minority population, did not have nearly as many refugees.

Any fears over legal ownership, he assured me, should be assuaged. "Turkish Cypriots also lost their homes. These were given them as a form of compensation. The Greeks and Turks cannot live together; neither one of them want it.""

At Unwin, a British-run estate agents set up 25 years ago, Stacey Taneri was even blunter. "The Greeks will never come back. The Turkish army is very strong.""

The fact that the European Court of Human Rights had already issued a landmark ruling establishing the right of Greek-Cypriot refugees to return to their properties in the north also left her cold.

"We have a good lawyer who can arrange everything with title deeds because now the properties belong to Turkish Cypriots," she said flatly. "The [Turkish Cypriot] government realizes that having foreigners come here and buy property is a very good thing for our prosperity.""

Never mind that the neighbors will include Asil Nadir, the fugitive tycoon who fled fraud charges in 1993. Or a motley crew of criminals on the run from British justice-the breakaway state lacks an extradition treaty with Britain-or a crowd of Tory MPs who once supported apartheid in South Africa and have also acquired hide-away holiday homes in the territory.

As the firm's senior negotiator, Ms Taneri said she had been deluged by offers in the past few months.

"If you're interested, we've got a very nice three-bedroom character cottage that is going for £37,500 in Bellapaix, quite near Bitter Lemons.""

Durrell purchased the house for £300 after striking a hard bargain with the fiery wife of a Greek-Cypriot cobbler. And only once Sabri, his Turkish-Cypriot estate agent, promised the Englishman would pay in cash-"thick notes, as thick as honeycomb, as thick as salami." The house sold for £160,000 in 1995, five years after the author's death.

Not far from Bellapaix's famous Tree of Idleness, in front of the Gothic abbey where rosy-faced ex pats meet for mid-morning brandies, tourists can be seen perusing the pictures of the piles Unwin has generously placed on rotating stands.

"Today," the Englishman enthused, "you don't have to bargain at all because property is so cheap.""

There are over 1,000 Britons who live permanently in the TRNC, though only 400 are registered with the local British residents' society. Of that number no more than 25 had homes there before the island was split between Greek and Turkish sectors in the north and south.

Not wanting to encourage tourism in the north, the officially recognized Greek-run republic in the south thus prevents the Britons from crossing the UN-patrolled "green line.""

"So many tin-pot regimes are recognized around the world, but not northern Cyprus which is ... a democracy with a freely elected government," bristles Julia Price chairperson of the British Residents' Society.

"These people can't exports their goods, they're under economic embargo; and yet this is a country at peace. You may need to light the odd candle and have the old generator, but generally this is a very civilized place."

Weren't all those soldiers a little sinister? "Absolutely not," she shot back. "They are very well disciplined, never drunk and very polite. In fact I know quite a few expats who say that if the army left they would leave too."

"It wouldn't be incorrect to say there was genocide here, they'll never be a solution," she said echoing the sort of rejectionism that may well be borne of the fear that one day they may all have to relinquish their properties.

"The Turkish Cypriots suffered enormously. We're very, very close to Rauf Denktash. He's a wonderful leader for the Turkish Cypriots, a wonderful man.""

The coziness with the regime does not stop at civilians.

At least five British parliamentarians, and several retired politicians, have acquired holiday-homes in the self-declared state. Recently, it emerged that the conservative MEP John Corrie had been given a holiday home by the Turkish-Cypriot authorities for the peppercorn rent of 70 pence a year, for the next 49 years.

"It's a beautiful part of the world. I would recommend as many MPs as possible to go and buy homes there," Lord Kilclooney of Armagh, who has two cottages in the north, told me. "Not a penny in international aid has been put into the Turkish side which is outrageous," said the peer, a former Ulster Unionist MP who heads the all-party parliamentary group, the Friends of Northern Cyprus.

Other politicians frequently holiday there, availing themselves of the largesse proffered by the Denktash government through the 40-strong lobby group.

"The level of hospitality offered by the group is enough to make one feel quite uneasy," one Labor MP admitted. "A trip to northern Cyprus is basically one long jolly with a meeting thrown in.""

The group, once generously funded by Asil Nadir before the collapse of his Polly Peck company, was formerly chaired by Sir Keith Speed, the retired Tory MP who applied for Turkish-Cypriot citizenship in 1995.

Like Sir Keith, its members, some of whom were publicly accused of behaving like "lager louts" during one trip to the island, are all are unabashed apologists for the regime.

"I always chose Turkish Cyprus because it was the side that doesn't shoot British soldiers," said the retired Tory MP Stephen Day referring to the murders of HM troops by Greek-Cypriot independence fighters in the 50s.

Since the resumption, this year, of UN-sponsored peace talks, the Friends of Northern Cyprus has been especially active.

"You hear all the time about gifts being given in exchange for political influence abroad," said Sefika Durduran, a resident lawyer who has represented many of the British property buyers. "I agree it's pretty startling but Turkish Cypriots are used to such things.""

If I wanted, said Stacey Taneri at the Unwin estate agency, I should keep an eye on the company's web page. "There are plenty of properties all the time.""

The powers that be, however, may have other things in mind. My inspection of Bitter Lemons did not last long. "Your time is up," said the man who until that moment I thought had been my driver. "You must leave the TRNC, we do not want you here.""

There were sides of the pariah state that were best left unspoken. And the property boom was one of them."