(16 Jun 2019) LEADIN:
Once the playground of Cyprus elite, the Ledra Palace hotel remains a poignant symbol of ethnic division in Cyprus.
Located in the buffer zone that cuts across the capital Nicosia, the grand hotel still maintains a flicker of its old majesty despite the mortal shell craters and bullet holes scarring its sandstone facade.
STORYLINE:
It's been 45 years since the pitter-patter of the local glitterati's high-heels was replaced by the thud of soldiers' combat boots pacing the floors of the Ledra Palace Hotel.
War in the summer of 1974 cleaved Cyprus along ethnic lines creating a buffer zone that cuts across the capital Nicosia. It divides the breakaway Turkish Cypriot north from Greek Cypriots in the internationally recognised south.
During the war, United Nations peacekeepers took over the hotel, instantly turning it into and emblem of the division in the east Mediterranean island nation.
After countless rotations of soldiers using the hotel as a barracks, the United Nations says the aging building's rooms are no longer suitable to house military personnel.
Renovations to bring the Ledra Palace up to modern safety standards are too costly, so the upper two floors of the venerable building have been vacated and now sit empty.
Although the 160 personnel posted to the sector have been relocated to prefabricated units behind the Ledra Palace, United Nations spokesman Aleem Siddique says the Ledra Palace will continue to play a key role in the U.N.'s work in patrolling the section of buffer zone.
Siddique says the hotel will remain as a base for the soldiers whose task it is to patrol the buffer zone and keep tensions from rising between opposing soldiers - who in some areas are only metres apart.
"The Ledra Palace Hotel has been home to U.N. peacekeepers since 1974. Our British contingent of peacekeepers moved into the site in 1993 and it has been an important base for our operations here in Cyprus. UNFICYP, the U.N. peacekeeping force here is tasked with monitoring the cease fire lines and liaising with the opposing forces and this base is one of the most active areas of the buffer zone, it's the old town of Nicosia where we have used the hotel to help bring the two communities together."
The hotel's bottom two floors will remain in use for events aimed at fostering trust and building communication bridges between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots.
When it was finished in 1949, the 240-room Ledra Palace hotel was the best Cyprus had to offer, even hosting some of Hollywood's then elite.
Located near the centre of Nicosia's medieval core and its surrounding Venetian-built, 16th century walls, the hotel's luxurious ballroom, restaurants and bars were the places for the capital's elite to see and be seen.
The hotel was also the venue for many important meetings that helped shape the course of the island's history. One such meeting involved experts from Greece, Turkey and both Cypriot communities, who helped draft the constitution of Cyprus after it gained independence from British colonial rule in 1960.
Apart from hosting numerous rounds of peace talks between Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders, the Ledra Palace also became a nexus for visiting journalists chronicling the tribulations of the Middle East, such as the 1956 Suez crisis.
Conflict changed the hotel's destiny. Briefly at the outbreak of strife between the two communities in December 1963, about 15 British troops moved in to keep the peace between the warring sides.
British soldiers moved into the hotel in 1993 when Canada pulled out of the U.N. peacekeeping force.
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