Sirens pierce the pre-dawn quiet in Cyprus at 05:30 AM local time (02:30 GMT) to mark 50 years since Turkish troops landed on the beaches of the Mediterranean island in an invasion that has left the country divided to this day. On July 15, 1974, the military junta then in power in Athens engineered a coup in Cyprus seeking to end its independence and unite the island with Greece. Five days later, Turkish troops landed on the north coast, beginning an invasion that saw them occupy a third of the island, including Turkish Cypriot neighbourhoods of the divided capital Nicosia. IMAGES