AN international think tank yesterday called for more EU involvement in any new Cyprus push, saying the bloc had a responsibility to foster real dialogue between the sides.
The report by the International Crisis Group (ICG) said all sides should recognise that this may be a last chance to act on a UN-mediated basis.
“The comfortable belief that the status quo could if necessary be maintained almost indefinitely is badly out of date,” the ICG said.
It said ideally new Cyprus talks beginning in 2008 would lead to agreement within a year or two, on a settlement “whose parameters have been clear for three decades”.
The twin events of 2004 – failure of the Annan plan and the Greek Cypriot membership in the EU – have set new dynamics in motion, the report said.
This included the “Taiwanisation” of northern Cyprus; ever-greater political divergence between Greek and Turkish Cypriots; a widening gulf between the EU and Turkey; rising stresses involving the EU and NATO; and diplomatic guerrilla warfare between Turkey and Cyprus.
“The sum of consequences for Europe’s tranquillity are rather remarkable when one considers that they flow from a dispute over a small island of one million relatively prosperous people, who are far from physical conflict and whose main industry is tourism,” the ICG concluded.
It said the UN, EU and other states involved should approach a new push for negotiations realistically and that diplomatic capital and bicommunal good will had been wasted by the July 8, 2006 process, “for which neither the Turkish Cypriot nor the Greek Cypriot side was properly prepared and from which neither expects much real change”.
“The resulting stalemate has deepened popular cynicism. The EU and the UN now have a greater responsibility to become more engaged,” it added.
“The EU has a special need and responsibility to foster new debate and a real dialogue involving Greek Cypriot, Turkish Cypriot, Turkish and Greek opinion leaders.”
The ICG said EU and Greek Cypriot leaders should understand that for a Cyprus settlement to happen, they must reassure Turkey that its EU membership was a real prospect.
Greek Cypriots should realise that pursuit of a unitary state by using their EU leverage against Turkey and ignoring the Turkish Cypriot administration “is pushing Turkey away from the EU and making permanent partition of the island more likely”.
“Likewise, Turkey must accept that persuading Greek Cypriots it is not an existential threat is the key to progress in removing the Cyprus obstacle to its EU ambitions,” it added.
If talks were to resume in 2008, the ICG said the EU should follow them closely and work with both sides because if they talks break down again the EU would face tough decisions.
“The Turkish Cypriots are EU citizens and should not be left in an indefinite limbo,” the ICG report said. “Neither should the EU, already deeply implicated in the mistakes that have led to the current situation, continue to allow its own future to be mortgaged to the fate of the Cyprus problem.”
The ICG group is co-chaired by the former European Commissioner for External Relations Christopher Patten and former US Ambassador Thomas Pickering.
