APRIL 24 WAS WITHOUT DOUBT the closest the island of Cyprus has come to being one nation in the last thirty years. Turkish and Greek Cypriots voted on a proposal by U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan designed to reunify the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus (recognized only by Turkey) with the rest of the Republic of Cyprus (recognized by everyone else). And the proposal failed miserably.

That this “Annan Plan”–the fifth such animal–didn’t pass is in some ways not surprising. After all, the previous drafts had been shot down by TRNC president Rauf Denktash. But what was different about this go-around was that the plan was rejected not by Turkish Cypriots–who, against the will of their leader, voted in favor of it by 65 percent–but rather, by the Greek Cypriots, who rejected it by a stunning 76 percent.