GREEK and Turkish Cypriots enter the decisive phase of reunification talks today, the pace forced by the illness of veteran Turkish Cypriot chief Rauf Denktash and plans to let the island join the EU.
“If we cannot solve the issue in a mutually acceptable settlement within 2002, I think it will be impossible to come back and address the issue after the year is over,” Turkish Foreign Minister Ismail Cem told Reuters in a recent interview.
The result then, many feel, would be serious tension between NATO allies Greece and Turkey and between the EU and Ankara.
Denktash adviser Mumtaz Soysal has compared the talks that began in January to a bout of “oil wrestling”, the Turkish sport in which two beefy men in leather shorts, bodies glistening with olive oil, try to pin each other to the ground.
“What went before was an opening overture,” he quipped. “The fighters act out a ritual, take the measure of each other.”
“Neither knows what the other may give in return for what,” he told Reuters ahead of today’s reopening of talks in the United Nations-controlled buffer zone between the two sides. The oil wrestler image if applied directly to Denktash, 78, and Cypriot President Glafcos Clerides, 82, might stretch the cognitive powers. But the next stage of negotiations will see the two old adversaries abandon “positioning” and lunge into concrete discussion of how a government may be constituted.
What is clear is that there would be two zones, the northern Turkish and the southern Greek, with some degree of autonomy, united by some form of central government. Beyond that, all is in question, including the land each zone would occupy and what happens to property lost when Cyprus was invaded in 1974.
The northern Cypriot enclave, recognised only by Ankara, was formed on about 37 per cent of the island’s territory occupied by Turkish troops in 1974.
Greek Cypriots have suggested Turkish territory be reduced to 24 per cent, more closely reflecting the population balance. Turks would lose a swathe south of a road linking the eastern port of Famagusta with the capital, Nicosia, as well as land near Morphou, a western town close to rich citrus groves.
“If such claims were applied, we calculate 57,000 Turkish Cypriots would be displaced again — practically a third of the population,” Denktash’s adviser Soysal said.
One source close to the talks said losing even another five per cent of the island would be too much for Turkish Cypriots.
Denktash, pressing the pace, said on Wednesday he may need heart surgery in six to 12 months. “That’s why I said from the beginning, without disclosing this problem, that June is a convenient time to finish everything we can,” he told Reuters.
So much depends on Denktash and Clerides. Rivals since their days as lawyers before independence from Britain 42 years ago, agreement between them would do much to quell suspicion haunting both sides since communal violence in the 1960s and 1970s.
The European Union is also seeking signs of a settlement before Spain’s six-month presidency of the bloc ends in June. The EU says it will admit Cyprus with or without a settlement.
If that happens, Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit has said Ankara could go as far as annexing the north to safeguard its interests on the island; something that would almost certainly put paid to Turkey’s own hopes of EU membership.
“March is the month for building bridges,” said one Western diplomat. “There really isn’t much time left.”
The sources close to the talks say Turkish Cypriots are seeking, in essence, a “state not like any other”.
The unique nature would be in a complex system of rotation in central ministries. The presidency, prime ministry, finance ministry and foreign ministry, for instance, would rotate between the two communities, a balance retained at all times.
This would be reflected in a single international identity. If the Cyprus ambassador to a country was a Turkish Cypriot, his deputy would be a Greek and vice versa.
North and south Cyprus would have their own parliaments, which would seek consensus. Where conflict arose, representatives from the two zonal governments would conciliate.
Greek Cypriots want a central joint parliament of Greeks and Turks, with the Turkish minority’s interests protected perhaps by a system of weighting of votes on key issues.
Turkish Cypriots seek to limit the scope of central government, thereby, in their eyes, limiting the scope for possible conflict. Security, for instance would be the domain of the constituent states with liaison between the two sides.
Greek Cypriots baulk at Turkish proposals for a union of two “sovereign states”, seeing in them schemes to “pocket” the advantages of international recognition and then pull out of the union. Turkish Cypriots say unilateral secession would be out.
The powerful Turkish military, according to official sources attuned to General Staff thinking, has no objection to a deal on Cyprus, lying only 70 km off Turkey’s coast. Turkish forces there, now at 30,000, could be reduced to 3,000-5,000.
But there might be some concern about the vulnerability of western areas if territory south of Morphou were ceded. “For the military it’s a matter of “depth”. It wouldn’t take much to get to the sea over this thin strip of land,” one source said.
Here again, trust is the key to any compromise. The oil wrestlers, many hope, may develop that trust as they come to grips with each other under the gaze of their world audience.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
