A SERIES of restrictive measures imposed by the Turkish Cypriot side against Unficyp in retaliation over the rewording of the force’s mandate will come in to force today.
UN spokeswoman Sarah Russell told the Cyprus Mail that the UN had received official notification from the north yesterday detailing the measures.
She said a senior Unficyp officer met Turkish Cypriot officials yesterday morning. "We talked with them and they gave us a statement and a list of the measures," Russell said. "We are carefully reviewing them to assess the implications in consultation with UN headquarters in New York."
Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash has been threatening for weeks to either ban or restrict the movement of the force after the Security Council dropped an addendum to the renewal mandate, which registered his side’s approval of the force.
"There is an issue of non-recognition here," Denktash said yesterday. "Thus we do not recognise the existence of them (the UN). If they do not recognise the existence of the TRNC and its laws, they should not come here."
Under the new regime, peacekeepers will now be banned from using 12 of the 13 agreed crossing points along the island’s 180-km long buffer zone.
From today, they will only be allowed into the north through the Ledra Palace checkpoint in Nicosia. The measure applies to both official and social visits. Peacekeepers will also be forced to take out motor insurance from a company in the north when they cross.
This measure carries out an earlier threat by the Turkish Cypriot side that Unficyp troops would be treated like tourists.
The third measure is a demand from the Turkish Cypriot side that Unficyp pay for electricity and water used at buffer-zone camps and observation posts. Electricity supply to the north is provided free of charge by the Electricity Authority of Cyprus, but Unficyp has been paying its bills in the south. Water bills are paid to the north already, Russell said.
But the Turkish Cypriot ‘Foreign Ministry’ said the 1,200-strong force, which has been on the island since 1962, would have to comply with payment dates or face the services being cut off.
Eight camps with troop numbers ranging from two to 150 are stationed in these areas, which stretch from the Turkish Cypriot enclave of Kokkina on the island’s northwest coast to Famagusta on the other side of the island.
According to Reuters, figures published in the north show that Unficyp is frequently late in paying its bills.
Other than the ban on crossing at agreed areas, the measures are not impossible hurdles. "They are a hindrance and will obviously slow us up," Russell said. "But we will do our best to fulfil our mandate."
The Turkish side has not gone as far as slapping a ban on visits to enclaved Greek Cypriots, a measure that would have had severe implications both on the elderly people who live in occupied Karpasia, and on the upcoming proximity talks in Geneva.
"He (Denktash) is not going to let the Greek Cypriots in the Karpass become martyrs," a diplomatic source commented yesterday.
The source believed Denktash was merely flexing his muscles before the talks, since he had backed down on his earlier threat not to go to Geneva in anger at the Security Council’s decision.
