The plan to open the fenced area of Famagusta may have been announced more than a year ago by the Turkish Cypriot leadership, but the Greek Cypriot reaction did not last long, the threat largely ignored until the last few weeks, when reports emerged that work had begun.
“They (the Turks) are not bluffing,” the Famagusta mayor Simos Ioannou told state radio on Friday morning, citing reports that barbed wire had been moved from the beaches, some crumbling buildings had been demolished and a few streets were cleaned.
Greek Cypriot negotiator, Andreas Mavroyiannis, told CNA, “building has already begun on the north part and soon it will begin on the coastal front of the fenced off area.” The opening of the town was “not instantaneous,” implying that the government chose to ignore what was happening.
President Nicos Anastasiades referred to the matter, 10 days ago, addressing a gathering organised by the Famagusta municipality in Dherynia when he said that any “any violation of the special status of protection of Varosha,” would “torpedo any prospect of the resumption of the talks.”
It is Catch-22 because without a resumption of the talks there can be no return of Varosha residents to their town, a point made a few days ago by Ioannou who said, “after elections of the Turkish Cypriot leader (in October) talks need to definitely start.”
Ioannou acknowledged that the opening had to be averted for talks to resume but if such an effort failed the government needed to have a Plan A and B for Famagusta.
Apart from reporting Turkey to the UN Security Council for violating UN resolutions 550 and 789 stipulating the return of the town to its inhabitants and trying to secure measures from the EU, Anastasiades, last weekend also said he would block Turkey’s European course.
Turkish Cypriot ‘foreign minister’, Kudret Ozersay, who has made the opening of fenced area of the town his personal cause, claimed Anastasiades was overestimating his influence in the EU. He has also tried to sell the opening of the derelict town that has been empty for 46 years, as an opportunity for the Greek Cypriots to return to their properties, under Turkish Cypriot administration.
The opening of the town, which is fully endorsed by Ankara, has also become an issue in the forthcoming ‘presidential’ elections in the north, with two of the candidates – Ozersay and ‘prime minister’ Ersin Tatar – both claiming ownership. Mustafa Akinci, who is ahead in opinion polls, has avoided jumping on the Varosha bandwagon.
“Varosha is most definitely going to open,” Tatar told Reuters News Agency. “The tide has shifted, a new page has been turned…. The inventory work is almost complete, we are in the opening phase.”
There was a reaction to the Turkish plans by the European Commission, whose spokesperson Vivial Loonela on Friday repeated the EU’s support for the UN Security Council resolutions on the status of Varosha and emphasized that “it remains crucial that Turkey commits and contributes to the settlement of the Cyprus problem.”
The 1992 UN resolution 789 calling for the implementation of resolution 550, which stipulated the transfer of Varosha to Unficyp administration has been completely ignored by Turkey.
Meanwhile there are divisions among Greek Cypriots about how we should proceed. Lawyer Achilleas Demetriades had urged all owners of properties on the coastal front of Varosha to file applications with Immovable Properties Commission (IPC) in the north seeking their right of return. He said this was the only way to contest a decision by the Turkish Cypriot court, upholding the claim of ownership of most Varosha real estate by Evkaf (the Islamic endowment foundation).
“If we deprive Turkey, through legal measures, the coastal front, it might not open the fenced area,” Demetriades said last month, also criticizing the government’s policy of discouraging people from Famagusta applying to the IPC. This government inaction was helping the Turkish Cypriot plans for the fenced off part of the town, he said.
In his speech to Famagustans in Dherynia, Anastasiades took a very different position urging them not to take any action. “I recognise that a war of psychological blackmail is being exercised with the aim of driving you to en masse applications to the so-called compensation commission or, and this unfortunately is being heard from certain circles on our side, to agree to the return of your properties under Turkish Cypriot administration, in the event that Turkey agrees to open Varosha,” he said.
All that would be achieved by heeding this advice would be “the speeding up of the implementation of the objective of the extremist Turkish Cypriot circles and Turkey,” warned the president, without explaining how doing nothing would be better.
Famagustan journalist, Costas Zachariades, in a column in Politis on Thursday, took exception to Anastasiades’ pleas, and was probably expressing the feelings of many people of the town, in accusing the Greek Cypriot leadership of consistently letting them down.
“As Famagustans we gave an excessive amount of time to each political leadership of this country to solve the issue of Varosha and the Cyprus problem and secure the return to our town, but all of them, without exception, failed spectacularly.”
He urged the president, after the mess-ups of 46 years, “to allow the few Famagustans still living, if they face the prospect (of returning under Turkish Cypriot administration) to decide freely, without blackmail, psychological pressure and aphorisms.”
The government’s policy of preserving the status quo has failed and now the hopes of a return of Varosha to the Greek Cypriots are fast disappearing.
“The problem of Famagusta is proof of the fact that the status quo in Cyprus is not static,” said former foreign minister Ioannis Kasoulides. “We have still not understood this.”
