By Jean Christou
UN Special Adviser Espen Barth Eide on Friday tried to dispel growing concern, particularly in the north over the agreement between the leaders to respect the property rights of both owners and current users when it came to a Cyprus solution, saying much had been misunderstood.
Speaking after meeting President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci separately on Friday, Eide blamed the media for misunderstanding and wrongly reporting certain things. He did not specify which media but government spokesman Nicos Christodoulides said after the meeting with Anastasiades that though the issue had been touched on during their discussions, he had the impression that Eide was not referring to the Greek Cypriot media.
After the leaders announced on Monday that they had agreed that the rights of all property owners, and current users, would be respected under a settlement, and that a property commission would be created to decide on return, exchange or compensation, Akinci began receiving some flak in the Turkish Cypriot press over his silence on what was being discussed.
The Turkish Cypriot leader said later on Friday that “along with the change there will be some “pain”.
“The change will promise a new future for both communities, a better future, he added. As the leader of the Turkish Cypriot community he said he would defend the rights of the Turkish Cypriots. “But at the same time we should know that we must respect the rights of the other community. I would expect the same from the other side,” he added. He also said he was avoiding the blame game, and would continue to do so.
On Friday Turkish mainland daily Hurriyet ran a story on the implications for Turkish Cypriots living on Greek Cypriot properties, saying it could mean that 76 per cent of all property in the north could be returned to Greek Cypriots. Foreign nationals who purchased Greek Cypriot properties post-1974 were also concerned, the paper said.
It quoted the former Turkish Cypriot ‘finance minister’ Ersin Tatar criticising Akinci for making sweeping statements on issues that were ‘red lines’ for the Turkish side with people being kept in the dark as to the implications. Akinci has responded to the concerns by planning to give briefings to journalists and ‘parliament next week’.
On Friday, Eide said that though he was a believer in the importance of a free and critical press, he said it should never happen “to the detriment of truth”.
He said a number of stories that had appeared in the press recently were “completely wrong or significantly misunderstood or quoted totally out of content”.
Asked on Friday by Greek Cypriot journalists where in the EU acquis communautaire it says that “the user” of a property has rights, Eide said it had been established in legal decisions in the European Courts and in European jurisprudence. “What I can confirm is that the leaders have agreed that there is an individual right to property, that will affect both dispossessed owners and current users but which remedies and how requires a very detailed list of categories but I think another misunderstanding which has developed is that one person has a right and another person loses his right that`s a misunderstanding,” he said.
He added that in modern thinking actually “three people can have a right”. “The question is which remedy is used to uphold that right. That can be reinstatement, it can be economic compensation, it can be alternative property, it can be exchange. There are many different remedies that can be used. The hierarchy of this has to be settled. There are of course various views exactly on the hierarchy… but when we say we have to have a European solution that means we have to have a European solution also and this is quite clearly established in modern European jurisprudence that there are right of original owners and rights of current users. And if you want a European solution you have to respect that that is modern European thinking,” he said.
Eide said that in the Turkish Cypriot press there had been a certain misinterpretation “which is when all of us insist on a genuinely European solution that in any way means that we are moving away from the idea of a bi-zonal bi-communal federation. We are not. A bi-zonal, bi-communal federation and full respect of the values and principles on which the EU is based, is the premise for the talks. And that refers to the 11th February 2014 joint declaration and that stands carved and stoned and there is no change to that. What I am saying they are working to fulfil all these ambitions at the same time and it is my very strong conviction that is possible”.
He said that when the two referenda for a solution are held it would be the responsibility of the press to make sure the issues are portrayed accurately.
Eide did say that during his meetings on Friday with the leaders discussion had taken place on how they could open up more in order to avoid misunderstandings. “We will be significantly more inclusive and open on what is going on because at that time there will probably be more comprehensive understanding”.
The next meeting of the two leaders is scheduled for the September 1.
Eide said: “There is still a lot of work ahead of us and there is no reason for complacency. There is no time to lose and there will be many months of hard work before eventually a final deal can be presented”.
