24 - 30 January 2002
Issue No.570
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 24 - 30 January 2002 Issue No.570 |
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United we stand
The carrot of European Union membership in 2004 lurks behind Turkey's sudden turnaround on Cypriot reunification, reports Michael Jansen from Nicosia
This week Cypriot President Glafkos Clerides and Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash began thrice weekly negotiations with the aim of reunifying the divided island by means of a new political association between its two communities. The meetings on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays take place in the United Nations (UN) buffer zone at the old Nicosia airport terminal -- a handsome one-storey building with a red tile roof where the UN peace-keeping force now has offices. The international organisation has budgeted $1.4 million for the negotiations, including $574,000 for the UN envoy Alvaro de Soto and his staff of legal and other experts charged with facilitating a settlement.
These talks follow the 4 December face- to-face meeting between Clerides and Denktash, the first since 1997, at which they pledged to keep talking until they reach a political settlement. This was hailed as a major breakthrough in the communal dispute which has divided the island for 28 years.
The task is difficult and daunting. Both sides have to make painful compromises to reach accord on a new state made up of two autonomous regions linked by common institutions and projecting a single international personality.
To reach a compromise, the Greek Cypriots, who constitute 82 per cent of the island's population, have to dissolve the 1960 republic and cede political primacy and territory. The power-sharing deal will give the Turkish Cypriots weighted representation in the shared institutions of the state and nearly full autonomy within the northern Turkish Cypriot zone. Greek Cypriot refugees from this zone will have to abandon their dream of reclaiming their homes, villages and towns, from which they were driven by the Turkish army in 1974. While there will be freedom of movement between the two regions, the rights to reside anywhere and own property will be limited.
This means that many of the 200,000 Greek Cypriot refugees will not be able to recover their property and will have to accept compensation. The Turkish Cypriots -- comprising 18 per cent of the island's population -- will have to shut down their breakaway "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus," recognised only by Ankara. Turkish Cypriots will also see their control over the island's land reduced from 37 per cent to between 25 and 27 per cent to permit a substantial proportion of the Greek Cypriot refugees to reclaim their homes. Ankara is faced with accepting to withdraw 35,000 mainland Turkish troops and consequently end the Turkish military occupation of northern Cyprus which had given Ankara effective political control over the community. Furthermore, Turkey may be asked to repatriate some of the thousands of mainland Turkish settlers residing in north Cyprus since 1974.
The key factor that produced the breakthrough was sustained political pressure from Europe. Over the past year, European Union (EU) officials visiting Cyprus, Greece and Turkey pointed out that the republic will gain EU admission in the first round of the union's enlargement that is expected to take place by 2004. The message to Ankara was that Turkey cannot block Cyprus' entry into the EU and cannot hope to join the organisation as long as it occupies northern Cyprus. To convince Denktash and Ankara -- both of whom are advocates of partition -- to enter serious negotiations, the EU signalled that it would accept whatever the two communities agree on in terms of the key issues of movement, settlement and property ownership -- all of which are free within the EU.
The EU's united position on Cyprus also amounted to a breakthrough for the organisation, whose member states have previously insisted on their own foreign policy agendas. The EU experience over Cyprus could encourage Europe to try to formulate unified stands on other international issues, such as the conflict between the Palestinians and Israel, which appears unlikely to ever be resolved as long as the US, Israel's close ally, remains the sole sponsor of peacemaking efforts.
The launch of the settlement process was welcomed by the EU, UN, US, Russia, Greece and Turkey. EU Enlargement Commissioner Guenther Verheugen, stated, "We get the impression for the first time that there may be an agreement." He plans to wrap up Cyprus' EU accession requirements by the end of this year while Greece, which assumes the EU rotating presidency in 2003, plans to oversee the final act of Cypriot membership.
US President George Bush, speaking to reporters as he met Turkish Premier Bulent Ecevit in Washington last week, stated, "We're very encouraged that there's a dialogue now taking place." Bush thanked Ecevit for promoting the talks. Ecevit replied, "They may not attain concrete results immediately, but the very fact that they are in the process of dialogue may lead to satisfactory agreements between the two communities."
His reference to "two communities" rather than "two states" -- Ecevit's usual terminology -- is seen as an encouraging sign. Ecevit previously threatened to annex northern Cyprus, risking war with Greece, if the republic enters the EU without a settlement. The US told Ecevit that any solution should involve a state with a single international personality, ruling out Denktash's proposal for two loosely linked independent states. Denktash is now speaking of a "partnership state."
Greek and Turkish Cypriot politicians and citizens on both sides of the dividing Green Line are cautiously optimistic. Mustafa Akinci, the head of the Turkish Cypriot Communal Liberation Party that supports reunification under a federation, warned of the high price of failure. He told Al-Ahram Weekly, "Cyprus would be divided [permanently]. Accession to the European Union would give the Greek Cypriots a short-term victory, but this would mean that all the Turkish Cypriots would leave. Relations between Turkey and Greece would deteriorate and Turkey would have bad relations with Europe. Turkey would no longer wish to join the EU and would become isolated."
To prevent this from happening, Akinci suggested that Europe give "Turkey a clear channel for accession. This can be done in parallel with the accession of the whole of Cyprus, although Turkey could begin the accession process at the time Cyprus enters the EU and join much later." Akinci said that, in any case, the Cyprus negotiations must not be permitted to go the way of the Palestine-Israel peace process that has suffered a total collapse.
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