Eroglu: ‘treated with contempt’

THE GREEK Cypriot negotiating team is failing to take seriously proposals tabled by the Turkish Cypriot side and sometimes even treats them “with contempt”, the Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu has said.
In a rare interview, Eroglu told the Sunday Mail that the talks with President Demetris Christofias are “going slowly”, repeating his view that the latest effort is “the last chance” for a solution.
“Everything that needs to be discussed has been discussed … but Christofias seems to be seeking more time by blaming me and calling me intransigent,” he said.
He complained that his team’s proposals in the talks are “not taken seriously” and are even sometimes treated “with contempt” by the Greek Cypriot team, despite the UN considering them “reasonable”.
The Turkish Cypriot leader hinted that his vision for the island’s future rested on a model very close to the situation prevailing today.
“No one on Cyprus is any longer a refugee,” said Eroglu, adding: “On both sides people have established new lives, so what we need is a solution that does not bring about social upheaval.”
In effect, Eroglu sees ethnic separation as the key to a solution, hence the focus in the leaked Turkish Cypriot property proposals on finding innovative ways to finance compensation and relocation for Greek Cypriot refugees with a “limited” return.
He called on Christofias to lead his people by telling them “the facts” about the “pain” of a solution which both sides will have to share.
Sharing in this pain, however, does not include giving up the ‘TRNC’ and its flag or sending mainland settlers back to Turkey, he said.
When Eroglu defeated moderate incumbent Mehmet Ali Talat in ‘presidential’ elections in April this year, many believed that the ongoing talks aimed at reuniting Cyprus would instantly grind to a halt.
After all, Eroglu’s politics were well known. Having served as ‘prime minister’ almost constantly from the inception of the ‘TRNC’ until 2005, one could logically surmise that Eroglu was one of the breakaway state’s foremost architects and ardent supporters. And one did not really need to surmise at all. A simple trawl through Eroglu’s past statements revealed numerous declarations of love for “Mother Turkey” and its military personnel, along with verbal attacks on Greek Cypriots and their “devious” leaders.
Eroglu, it should not be forgotten, along with notoriously hawkish former Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash, led the ‘no’ campaign against the UN-backed Annan plan in 2004. At one of these ‘no’ demonstrations, he and Denktash delivered speeches from behind a banner reading, “Making friends with a Greek Cypriot is as easy as skinning a pig”. For those who don’t know, you cannot skin a pig.
More recently, in the run-up to last April’s election, Eroglu warned voters against backing his moderate opponent Talat, because the latter was willing to dissolve the ‘TRNC’ in return for a federal deal that would leave the Turkish Cypriots without sovereign rights. Furthermore, he told settlers from Turkey (now a sizeable part of the electorate) they would likely be deported from the island if Talat got his way. In short, Eroglu came to power on the understanding that he would ditch peace talks with the Greek Cypriots and seek recognition for the north as an independent and sovereign state protected by Turkey.
If this is the case, why then is Eroglu still meeting with President Demetris Christofias week after week? And why is he constantly pestering the UN Secretary General for an intensification of talks? He says he is a man in a hurry for a solution to the Cyprus problem, but why?
Unlike Denktash, Eroglu is not flamboyant. Instead, he is a product of rural Cyprus, humble and avuncular. His speech is gentle and calm, and seemingly devoid of bothersome emotions such as passion and ambition. He is not a visionary, but rather a man who wants to do right by “his people”.
Facing me in his northern Nicosia office, the 72-year-old Eroglu has barely changed in appearance for decades; he has had silver hair forever. Nor has he put on airs and graces as a result of his elevation from ‘prime minister’ to ‘president’. He even strikes me as slightly reserved, bearing out the fact that he does not relish giving interviews to the press.
I begin by asking how the talks are going, to which he replies that they are “going slowly”. He adds however that this round of talks has to be seen as “the last chance”. The reasons for this somewhat incongruous urgency, he says, are the looming Greek Cypriot and mainland Turkish elections in 2011, which he believes will cause further delays to the talks that have already been going on since September 2008.
Moreover, Eroglu believes there is little left to discuss.
“Everything that needs to be discussed has been discussed… but Christofias seems to be seeking more time by blaming me and calling me intransigent,” he says. He also complains that proposals put forward by his team for discussion between the two sides are “not taken seriously” by Christofias and his advisers, and are even sometimes treated “with contempt”. The UN, on the other hand, regards the Turkish Cypriot proposals as “reasonable”, he insists.
Perhaps it is unfair to say Eroglu is not a visionary, because he does actually have a vision or sorts. The only problem with his vision is that it differs little from the reality that already exists on the island.
“No one on Cyprus is any longer a refugee,” Eroglu says, adding: “On both sides people have established new lives, so what we need is a solution that does not bring about social upheaval”. Such statements tie in with the latest Turkish Cypriot proposal on resolving the issue of the approximately 200,000 thousand Cypriots, Greek and Turkish, who were displaced by intercommunal fighting in the 1960s and war in 1974. The proposal is that ethnic separation remains largely in place, with the vast majority of displaced citizens being offered financial compensation or alternative property rather than the right to return.
“I’m not saying some Greek Cypriots cannot come and live among us, but it has to be limited,” he says, but adds: “If 160,000 Greek Cypriots returned to the north, where are we supposed to go?” Any suggestion that Turkish Cypriots could move back to the properties they left behind in the south is met with the mantra that the parameters for a settlement have long been established and that they refer to a “bizonal, bicommunal” setup with an ethnically defined north and south. A return to the north of all Greek Cypriot refugees would, he argues, eliminate the possibility for this kind of settlement. 
Eroglu’s proposal has predictably been slammed by Christofias’ team and the Greek Cypriot media, the reason being that it does not offer the right of return to all Greek Cypriot refugees – something that has been promised by successive governments since the Turkish invasion. It is however fairly simple to understand why Eroglu and his team are unable to offer anything more without causing the displacement of large swathes of their own people, some of whom have already been refugees more than once in their lives.
“I’ve explained this to Christofias, and I understand that he has responsibilities towards his people. But he needs to lead. He needs to tell his people the facts,” Eroglu says. “There will be pain; let’s share that pain,”
Sharing the pain seems to be a positive and compromising approach, so I ask the veteran leader what pain he and the Turkish Cypriot community is willing to endure for the sake of a solution.
“Will you have to give up the ‘TRNC’ and its flag?”
“No.”
“Will you have to send mainlander settlers back to Turkey?”
“No.”
“Will you have to give back Morphou?”
No answer.
Perhaps he does not want to weaken hi
s negotiating position by saying what he might be willing to concede, but it would be useful to know which bit of the pain he is willing to share.
It strikes me that Eroglu is not a worried man. As we spoke, his advisors and representatives were meeting under UN auspices, attempting to bring the disparate Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot proposals on property “closer” to each other. The impression I got however was that while Eroglu might wish his team all the best, he expects no breakthroughs. In fact, more than that, I got the impression that Eroglu has little or no fear that he might be cornered by a positive move from the Christofias camp, simply because the beleaguered leader is being rounded upon by his own community for “selling out” to Turkey or the Turkish Cypriots virtually every time he opens his mouth.
In the meantime, Eroglu seems to think he can wait it out, exhausting, in apparent good faith, all avenues offered by the talks. It will cost him nothing (except time) to be amenable and put forward proposals that remain within the framework of the UN’s parameters.
In fact, he may never need to be a hardliner again.