Mr Muftizade (‘Turkish Cypriots might have some legal action up their sleeves, too’, Letters, May 31, 2009) states that “Everyone should know (if they already do not know) that there was a Population Exchange Agreement dated August 2, 1975 between Greek and Turkish Cypriots reached under the auspices of the UN Secretary-General and implemented in September 1975 under UN supervision”. No Population Exchange Agreement exists.
The Vienna III Agreement stipulated that the Turkish Cypriots still remaining in the south in 1975 (about 10,700) were free to move to the north and the Greek Cypriots still remaining in the north (about 10,000) were free to stay there and were to be provided with facilities to lead a normal life. The Greek Cypriots in the north would also be permitted to move to the south ‘at their own request and without having been subjected to any kind of pressure’.
Furthermore, had a Population Exchange Agreement existed then it would have violated Protocol 4 of the European Convention of Human Rights, ECHR (the right of free movement and residence and the prohibition of mass expulsions) and so would have been void.
The drafters of the Annan plan, which essentially included a compulsory population exchange agreement, had to use trickery to overcome this problem. Namely, Cyprus would be dissolved, and so ending all its Human Rights obligations, to be replaced by a new state that would only partially sign up to the ECHR.
Mr Muftizade further states, “No inter-communal fighting or acts of violence took place in Cyprus since the implementation of this Agreement”. The lack of violence is not due to this agreement but due to the complete military victory of one side over the other.
Had the other side won, the Greek Cypriots would have wanted Cyprus to be a modern, viable democratic European state and so inter-communal violence would not have been in their interest, while the Turkish Cypriots would have had to end the “seemingly deliberate policy of self-segregation” (UN Report S/6426), accept a realistic constitution, and hence inter-communal violence would not have been in their interest too.
The case of Gokceada (Imbros) where the Greeks were expelled, even though they were almost 100% of the population, shows that whether or not the Greek and Turkish Cypriots intermingled, Turkey would have invaded and expelled the Greek Cypriots; using some other pretext.
Panos Gregory
Croydon, UK
