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LISA MULLINS: A group of protesters set sail for Gaza today to break the Israeli naval blockade and to deliver humanitarian aid. There's a slight incongruity here though. The boat set sail from Cypress. Now Cypress is an island that's been the site of an ethnic conflict of its own for more than thirty years now. The conflict is less bloody than the one in the Middle East but it can sometimes seem just as intractable. It pits Christian Greeks in the south against Muslim Turks in the north. The World's Aaron Schachter reports from the island's divided capital, Nicosia.

AARON SCHACHTER: The Port of Turin in the Turkish republic of Northern Cypress is about as picturesque as it gets. The crescent shaped marina is full of small yachts and fishing boats. Feklah Tharisti and her boyfriend are here for the first time. They came from Southern Cypress, the Greek half of the island.

FEKLAH FARITSKI: It's weird. It's really weird because like we are in a foreign country.

AARON: Northern Cypress is a foreign country for Greek Cypriots. The island split in 1974. That's when Turkish troops invaded the north in response to a coup backed by Greece. Greek Cypriots in the north fled south, Turkish Cypriots living in the south raced to the north. A U.N. patrolled buffer zone of walls and barbed wire has divided them ever since. A few border crossings opened in 2003. Unification talks began soon after. But Tharisti and her boyfriend Christos F. Statio have doubts unification would work.

CHRISTOS STATIO: We are not the same. We have different culture, event, everything. I don't know how is possible to live together.

FELKAH: What I see from our side is that they are so closed minded and they don't let theirselves to see that what happened years ago is not the fault of these people right now.

AARON: Campos Pipettos sees things differently. He works in a restaurant in the Greek side of Nicosia. His family fled northern Cypress in 1974 and their house was appropriated after the war. He doesn't think there's really a cultural divide between Greek and Turkish Cypriots.

CAMPOS PIPETTOS: They are coming here, we are going there. You start getting used to it. Like when we are one. And here I met many Turkish Cypriots. And I know that is not their fault. And like my parents' house, someone else is living, many of them, they have houses here, and some are of us living there.

AARON: Even so Pippettos won't visit the north. He says he's not ready to see a Turkish Cypriot in his parents' house. The land issue isn't the only snag. There's deep mistrust between Cypriot Turks who are Muslim and Cypriot Greeks who are Christian. Add to that a few thousand on both sides went missing before and after the 1974 war. But Hussein El Chakijab, spokesman for the Turkish Cypriot President says bad feelings or lack of trust need not derail unification.

HUSSEIN ER CHAKIJAB: The negotiations require our respect and understanding between ethnic groups. We're talking now about power sharing, which means even though the new Cypress will have one international identity, both ethnic groups will have a say in making decisions internally. This reassures us that our interests will be represented.

AARON: But Turkish Cypriots want another safeguard as well: a Turkish army presence. Most Greek Cypriots like Dimitri Salurious reject that idea. He heads the European Party of Cypress.

DIMITRI SALURIOUS: If we are going to live with suspicion, with animosity, then we shouldn't talk about solution. I believe today that things have changed, and we can live together peacefully, without any problem. If you want to feel safe, then you have good police, you have good laws, and that's what is happening in 21st Century.

AARON: One way to overcome mistrust might be through economics, by bringing the living standards of Turkish Cypriots up to that of the wealthier Greek Cypriots. Meta Hatai is a Turkish Cypriot working with the Oslo based International Peace Research Institute.

META HATAI: Economics always work. But you have to be very careful that while you are doing trade measures for both sides, it's good to create interdependence rather than dependence. If you become over dependant on the Greek Cypriots that will create another conflict in the future.

AARON: Greek Cypriot politicians say they would accept a few years of special preferences to boost the Turkish Cypriot economy. For instance waving income and sales tax in the north. But many business people in the Greek south are not happy about the prospects of competition. And they've lobbied heavily against unification. Still many on both sides believe one day the two halves of this divided island must become one, whether everyone likes it or not. For The World I'm Aaron Schachter in Nicosia, Cypress.

LISA MULLINS: On PRI.

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