The Korean Odyssey

*The “Green Line” demilitarized zone of Cyprus, as installed in Nicosia(the capital of Cyprus) ⓒ iStock   Il Young Jeong Research Professor_Institute of Social Sciences_Sogang University Cyprus, well known as the birthplace of the goddess Aphrodite (Venus) in Greek and Roman mythology, is an island country in the east of the Mediterranean Sea. Cyprus has a population of 1.22 million in an area 1/10th the size of Korea (9,251 ㎢ ). When the country gained independence from Britain in 1960, Greek residents made up 78% of the country’s population while Turkish residents counted for another 18%. In this article, I will present three valuable lessons we can learn from divided Cyprus and the implications from the Cyprus case for peace and unification on the Korean Peninsula.   Cyprus and the Korean Peninsula: The Same, but Different Much like the Korean Peninsula, Cyprus is divided into north and south. In 1974, Greek Cypriots (who constitute a majority of the population) attempted to