Carolyn Stephenson
Professor of Population Studies, College of Social Sciences, University of Hawai'i
Interviewed by Julian Portilla, 2003
This rough transcript provides a text alternative to audio. We apologize for occasional errors and unintelligible sections (which are marked with ???).
One of the big catalysts in the move toward Greek and Turkish Cypriot negotiations during the spring of 2002 was that they were set to join the European Union (EU). The goal was before joining the EU to see if you could get a reunification of the Greek and Turkish parts of Cyprus. It was a big incentive to move those negotiations along after roughly 25 years of not working. As part of that the EU had brought in grant programs to try to bring Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots together on projects, primarily development projects, but any kind of projects.