George Christou is an Associate Lecturer in European Politics, Department of Politics and international 
Studies, University of Warwick, UK, and has previously held positions as: a Research Associate at the Centre for Public Policy, Northumbria University, UK (2004-5); a Research Associate at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK (2003-4); and as a Lecturer in European Politics at the Department of Government, University of Manchester (2001-3). His main research interests include: the EU’s role in conflict resolution/transformation, with specific interest in Cyprus and more recently, the frozen conflicts in the eastern neighbourhood ; the EU’s policies towards the Eastern Neighbourhood (European Neighbourhood Policy, Eastern Partnership etc); the EU as an actor in Internet Governance and the political economy of European and Global Internet Governance. His main research monographs (books) include: ’The New Electronic Market Place: European Governance Strategies in a Globalising Economy’ (Edward Elgar, 2007); ‘The European Union and Enlargement: The Case of Cyprus’, (Basingstoke: MacMillan-Palgrave, 2004). He has also published in journals such as Governance, Journal of Public Policy, International Spectator and has articles forthcoming in Political Geography (2010), Geopolitics (2009) and Cooperation and Conflict (2010). He is currently working as part of a Warwick team (led by Prof. Stuart Croft) on a three year EU-funded FP7 project on the European Union as a Global-Regional Actor in Peace and Security (EU-GRASP). He is also editing a Special Issue of the journal ‘European Security’ on EU Security Governance.
CT: Could you tell us a bit about your recent/forthcoming publications?
GC: My research interests have several dimensions, one of which is the EU’s impact on the Cyprus conflict. Most recent and forthcoming publications on this include:
Christou G (2004), ‘The European Union and Enlargement: The Case of Cyprus’, Basingstoke: Palgrave-MacMillan
Christou G (2006), ‘The European Union: What Role in The Cyprus Conflict’, International Spectator, No.2, June 2006
Christou G, (2010, forthcoming), ‘The European Union, Borders and Conflict Transformation: The Case of Cyprus’, Cooperation and Conflict, Vol.45, No.1
Work in progress on the EU and Cyprus includes:
‘The European Commission as an Actor in the Cyprus Conflict’, Paper presented at the BISA Annual Conference, Leicester, 14-16 December 2009
CT: What are the potential limitations of the existing analyses on the EU’s role in Cyprus conflict, in your opinion? Could you suggest any gaps in the literature or any potential pitfalls?
GC: There has been a proliferation of work on the EU’s role in the Cyprus conflict in recent years. A potential gap that exists in the current literature is the lack of attention in conceptualising or theorising the strategies employed by the local conflict actors in Cyprus and the impact this has on the ability of the EU to actually transform the conflict border. Although much of the literature has investigated conflict actor perceptions and the domestic politics of the Cyprus dispute as well as how Cypriots actors have interpreted and utilised EU norms, there is room for a more nuanced analysis of the co-constitution of conflict borders, the nature of these borders and the strategies employed by conflict actors.
CT: Could you suggest any Turkey-focused research you’ve found valuable?
GC: Most recent Turkey-focused research that I have found useful and interesting from my own personal research 
perspective includes:
Articles:
Owen Parker, (2009) ‘Cosmopolitan Europe’ and the EU-Turkey question: the politics of a ‘common destiny’, Journal of European Public Policy, 16 (7), Oct 2009: 1085-1101
Baban, F and Keyman F, (2008) ‘Turkey and the Postnational Europe: challenges for the cosmopolitan political community’, European Journal of Social Theory, 11 (1): 107-24
Diez, T. (2007), ‘Expanding Europe: The ethics of EU-Turkey relations’, Ethics and International Affairs, 21 (4): 415-22
Books:
Ioannis N. Grigoriadis, Trials of Europeanization: Turkish Political Culture and the European Union, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009
Dietrich Jung and Catharina Raudvere (eds.), Religion, politics, and Turkey’s EU Accession, Palgrave MacMillan, 2008
Natalie Tocci (ed.) ‘Talking Turkey in Europe: Towards a Differentiated Communication Strategy’, (available on the Istituto Affari Internazionali website: http://www.iai.it/)
Joseph S. Joseph (ed.), Turkey and the European Union: Internal Dynamics and External Challenges, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006
The opinions expressed here are solely those of the author/s who retain the copyright.
Well, I’m coming to this matter rather late, as a New Zealander from a part of the world relatively untouched by the dispute. Nevertheless, the story is available to all – how those terrible Turks invaded a neighbouring sovereign state, forcibly divided it, and continue to maintain a military presence in order to shore up an illegal regime.
I recently came across Rauf Denktash’s book ‘The Cyprus Triangle’ in a 2nd hand bookshop. No doubt I need to bring myself more up-to-date on the issue, but Denktash certainly provides a challenging alternative viewpoint.