Keeper of the island fortress

Rauf Denktas (right), tells Christopher de Bellaigue he will thwart any Greek moves to integrate Cyprus into the EU

Nicosia - Diplomats struggling to get Cyprus's Greeks and Turks to settle their differences all knock on the door of the Turkish Cypriot leader, Rauf Denktas. But most come away with a flea in their ear.

It was Mr Denktas who persuaded Turkey to invade Cyprus in 1974, when Greek nationalists threatened to unite the island with Greece. Since 1983, when he was elected president of what Turkish Cypriots and mainland Turks call the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Mr Denktas has embodied intransigence on the subject.

From his handsome house in a suburb built by Cyprus's former British rulers, Mr Denktas fulminates against foreign diplomats' ignorance. "I am spending my time explaining this problem to people who know nothing about it," he says.

The unenlightened rile him on two counts. They refuse to recognise the legitimacy of his statelet, and support Glafcos Clerides - Mr Denktas's Greek Cypriot counterpart - in his drive to shoehorn Cyprus, including the bit run by Mr Denktas, into the European Union. Once in the EU, he fears Turkish Cypriots would be buried under the Greeks' numerical and economic superiority.

Supported by Turkey, Mr Denktas appears content to be president of his little territory. His pan-Turkic nationalism goes down well with immigrant Turks who have settled on the island in large numbers since 1974.

He denies Turkish Cypriots are different from mainland Turks. "If that idea should spread," he warns, "we will become estranged from Turkey and become cattle-feed for the Greeks."

This distrust - prevalent on the Greek side of the island, too - is unwelcome to the mediators. "This guy doesn't want a settlement," one said.

Mr Denktas insists he does. "If the EU comes to its senses and does not bait us, we can go on talking," he says. He wants the EU to delay talks on Cyprus's accession until Turkey - Turkish Cypriots' guarantor under the deal granting Cyprus independence in 1959 - joins the EU.

The EU insists it will negotiate Cyprus's accession next year. "In that case, the talks will end and the island will remain two states," Mr Denktas says. He is determined to meet every Greek move to integrate Cyprus with the EU with initiatives to bind his bit of the island to Turkey. But he adds: "If this was a question of resolving personal differences with Clerides, this would have been sorted out years ago."

He may be right. The two leaders have more in common than a roundish profile; both attended the British School at Nicosia in the days when children from both communities played together and knew the other's language.

Just as well, for Mr Denktas defends his corner stoutly, as Sir David Hannay, Britain's mediator on Cyprus, is aware. Mention Britain's former ambassador to the United Nations, and Mr Denktas wrinkles his nose. "I hope Hannay doesn't come back. If he does, I shan't talk to him."

A second Briton, Sir John Weston, would not be welcome either. Sir John, British president of the UN Security Council, got on the wrong side of Mr Denktas after last month's talks.

Right now, the Britons that Mr Denktas dislikes most are those manning the two sovereign bases retained after independence. Two days before our audience, British soldiers intercepted three Turkish Cypriot farmers smuggling 400 goats and sheep from the south into the north. On the recommendation of a Greek vet the animals were put down. "Greeks and British hand in hand," declared a local Turkish paper. Mr Denktas, his broody look suggests, agrees wholeheartedly.