Margaret Walrod of the Republic of Cyprus had heard enough. After a grueling day of negotiations with the European Union, Turkey, and others, the parties had made no progress in resolving the Cyprus conflict. Now Walrod was meeting with Turkish Cypriots — a meeting brokered by a United Nations official — and it was going no better. So without warning, she walked out.
“My actions didn’t sink in until I had already left the room,” Walrod recalls. “I kept thinking, ‘What did I just do? What did I just do?’