CYNICS always had a good chuckle, in the past, when it was suggested, by politicians or newspaper columnists, that there was great interest for the Cyprus problem abroad.
Over the past eight days however, it could be said without a hint of irony, the problem has attracted unprecedented international attention, with the top people in Washington and Brussels as well the UN Secretary-general repeatedly underlining the need for a settlement before Cyprus joins the EU on May 1.
Immediately after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s meeting in Davos, the Saturday before last, with the UN chief Kofi Annan, the Americans entered the fray. Secretary of State Colin Powell congratulated Erdogan for Ankara’s readiness to accept the Annan plan as a basis for a settlement and to allow the Secretary-general to “fill in the blanks”. Powell, meanwhile, also asked Greece’s Foreign Minister George Papandreou to ask the Cyprus government to show flexibility, as if it was the Greek Cypriot side which had been blocking an agreement in the last 14 months.
On Thursday, after a meeting with the Turkish foreign minister, Powell went a step further, saying “we are getting close to solution”. On Friday it was the turn of the EU Commission President Romano Prodi, to talk about the “window of opportunity”, after meeting President Papadopoulos. Before him, several EU big-wigs had been publicly urging the two sides in Cyprus to accept the Annan plan. Even Russia felt obliged to issue a statement in favour of a settlement that would enable the whole of Cyprus to join the EU on May 1.
While the international community has displayed impressive unity in offering unqualified support for a settlement based on the Annan plan before May 1, there is still much confusion over how this objective would be achieved. The oft-repeated commitment of the two sides to a settlement remains theoretical, while the mechanics and process of arriving at the objective have not yet been defined by Annan because neither side has taken a clear stand about what it considers acceptable.
Erdogan, for instance, has been trying to have the man who had been conducting the talks, Alvaro de Soto, replaced. He suggested that Powell or Annan take the role of mediator in talks, but the Secretary-general expressed full confidence in De Soto who “knows the issues inside-out”. Ankara has also tried to change the objective of negotiations, proposing that the signing of an outline agreement of principles by May 1 would be a more realistic target; the two sides could then work on completing it. Two such agreements had been signed, in 1977 and 1979, without evolving into anything more than reference points.
While Ankara has been scoring points in the good behaviour stakes, Papadopoulos is now paying the price for his complacency, clumsy diplomatic moves and the negativity which has become the trademark of his government’s public pronouncements on the national problem. He wrote to Annan urging him to call for a new round of negotiations, but decided not to engage in “negotiations by correspondence”, once he received a response which he did not like. At Thursday’s meeting with Annan he repeated his readiness to start talks, without any conditions, as soon as the UN Secretary-general invited him to do so.
Papadopoulos still has certain objections to Annan “filling in the blanks” in the peace plan and would still not commit to putting a plan to a referendum. Erdogan, on the other hand, has agreed to Annan filling in the blanks and to the holding of a referendum, on condition that Greek Cypriot side also agreed. Is he bluffing? This is a much more advanced position than the one taken, 10 days ago, by Turkey’s National Security Council, which wanted a “speedy solution by way of negotiations which refer to the Annan plan and are based on the realities of the island.” Rauf Denktash has kept unusually quiet in the past 10 days even though he is strongly opposed to a solution based on the Annan plan and would never commit himself to a referendum, before knowing what agreement would be put to the vote.
The overriding impression is that both sides are primarily concerned with avoiding the blame for failure to reach an agreement before May 1, which is the target of the international community. Both are engaged in trying to pass the buck to the other side, but each time the buck is passed on, they are forced to make a small move forward, which Annan has been cleverly exploiting. Direct, high-level US involvement, which is fully backed by the EU, is also pushing the two sides closer to negotiations. Once there, and assuming Annan will have set certain conditions, it would be very difficult for either side to bail out without taking the blame for the collapse.
Then again, Denktash has never been bothered about taking the blame for the failure to reach a settlement. The only difference now is that Turkey, which has been conducting all consultations about the resumption of talks, might not be prepared to offer him the support he had always taken for granted. If Turkey has decided (this is a big if) that it would give up Cyprus for the sake of its EU ambitions, then Denktash will have to play along or step aside. And the Cyprus government will have no choice but to go along with the wishes of the UN, the US and the EU. But the key is in Ankara, as diplomats like to say.
