By Charlie Charalambous
STAUNCH nationalism on both sides of the dividing line is the real obstacle to reconciliation and a federal solution, Friends of Cyprus chairman Lord Bethell has told the Cyprus Mail.
“Many of Mr Denktash’s supporters have told us ‘there is no such thing as Cyprus or a Cypriot identity, Turks and Greeks cannot live together’ – now that is a depressing thought,” Bethell said, talking about his formal and informal contacts in the occupied areas.
But Bethell said his contacts with ordinary Turkish Cypriots indicated that they wanted an end to the conflict and wanted to live together with their fellow Greek Cypriots.
Lord Bethell also said opposition parties in the north believed Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash was not committed to a federal solution, but wanted integration with Turkey.
“Federation is the only possible solution, but there is a great deal of doubt whether he (Denktash) supports federation,” Bethell told the Cyprus Mail in an interview.
Friends of Cyprus believe that a settlement can only be achieved by negotiations conducted in good faith.
“I’m not sure Mr Denktash and his friends can negotiate in good faith, I’m not sure he’s made up his own mind whether he wants reconciliation,” said Bethell.
“Certainly he doesn’t talk about reconciliation, he talks along the lines that the two communities can’t live together because he says in the past Turkish Cypriots were kicked around and they are not going back to that.”
Although Bethell believes that most Greek Cypriots support reconciliation, he said there was a nationalistic element that polluted the atmosphere of trust between the two sides.
“It doesn’t help if (Greek Cypriot) children are being taught at the teachers’ knee about the terrible crimes that Turks committed.
“We could, of course, in Britain continue our hatred of the Germans and crimes of Hitler, and the Crusades were a bad time for Christians and Muslims.”
And apart from the government’s education policy, Lord Bethell warned jingoistic Greek Cypriot politicians to mind their language.
“Every time I see Mr Denktash, he has some statement – made 20 years ago or two weeks ago – of a nationalist type, and he says: ‘there, you see Greeks are all the same they want to make it a Hellenist Republic’.”
Denktash has an army of researchers scanning the press for anti-Turkish comments made by Greek Cypriot politicians, and the fruits of their labour are stacked up in his office, Bethell said.
“If a politician in the south tries to win votes on a nationalist stance, you can be sure a copy of what he said will be in Mr Denktash’s drawer within a couple of days to show foreign visitors.”
Friends of Cyprus have spent four days on the island to discuss the benefits to both communities of Cyprus’ EU accession.
However, Bethell said that the Turkish Cypriots viewed the EU and the UN as being pro-Greek, as they do the Friends of Cyprus.
“If you try to walk down the middle of the road you are likely to be run over.”
Bethell urged both sides to realise that times had changed and said a peaceful solution would be based on the realisation of that fact.
“We have to accept that the landscape has changed, what it’s changed into I don’t know, but it doesn’t mean going back to 1974, ’64 or 1960.”
