NICOSIA, Cyprus — Walking around the Old City on the Turkish side, one is struck by the age of the buildings. A Turkish bath and a cathedral-turned-mosque are centuries old. A caravanserai of ochre-brown stone blocks has been lovingly restored to a quadrangle of restaurants and craft shops.
Then one looks down a side street and finds it blocked by a barrier of sheet metal, topped by barbed wire. It bears a red sign with a black silhouette of an armed soldier and says, "military zone, entry prohibited." Peeking over the barrier, one sees dilapidated buildings that nobody has entered for 40 years and a road overgrown with weeds.