Kiriakou's Cypriot ancestry
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Kiriakou's Cypriot ancestry came to light through a DNA test taken around the time he was invited to speak at the Cypriots of the Diaspora conference in Limassol. The result: 24 per cent Cypriot, the largest single component of his ancestry, the remainder divided between the Greek islands and the Black Sea.

The finding corrected a family belief. John Kiriakou had grown up being told by his grandfather that the family was originally from Crete. He raised it with his cousin Mark Kiriakou, who told him: "Not Crete, Cyprus." Kiriakou pushed back, "No, he didn't say Cyprus. He said Crete", and was wrong. His Nicosia host offered the corroborating point that the surname is uncommon in Greece and very common in Cyprus.

Kiriakou accepted the conclusion directly: "I'm a Cypriot." He had visited the island only once before, thirty-four years earlier, and said he was embarrassed that so many years had passed.

An interview given on the island in 2026 catches him well into a stay: ten days in, he said, he had eaten nothing but Cypriot food, had had sheftalia earlier that week, and had worked through twenty different Cypriot cheeses, the basis for the comparison he then drew with Greek cooking.

His Greek citizenship came separately and earlier, granted before he went to prison after the Greek ambassador telephoned to ask how he could be helpful; Kiriakou asked for citizenship, and it was extended to all five of his children.

See also

- Origin of the Kiriakou name
- John Kiriakou
- The Green Line in Nicosia
