NEWS of Tassos Papadopoulos’ defeat in Sunday’s first round presidential vote has generally been greeted with pleasure in the Turkish Cypriot north.
“He was an EOKA fighter, and a Turk hater,” Nicosia taxi driver Cevdet Ozguler told the Cyprus Mail on Sunday night, adding: “I’m very glad to see him go”.
A similar view was expressed by Basaran Duzgun, editor of top-selling Turkish-language daily Kibris, who said his defeat was “a very nice surprise”.
“It shows that the Greek Cypriots wish to turn their backs on nationalistic fanaticism, and that they want a solution,” he added.
The perception that the departing president would never have agreed to a power sharing deal involving Turkish Cypriots is a widely-held one in the north, with many believing that Papadopoulos held ultra-nationalistic views that rendered it impossible for him to negotiate seriously with Turkish Cypriots or Turks.
Yesterday, Turkish Cypriot ‘prime minister’ Ferdi Sabit Soyer cautiously welcomed the news of Papadopoulos’ surprise defeat by saying it was the result he had wished for, and that he now envisaged a new beginning of negotiations aimed at resolving the four decades-old Cyprus problem.
“Both politicians [left in the running] support a federal solution, and although they may have differing views on exactly what this entails, it will instigate the start of a new [peace] process,” he said on Sunday night.
The mouthpiece of the north’s administration, Turkish-language daily YeniDuzen, hailed Papadopoulos’ defeat with the headline, “Greek Cypriots reject partition”. Inside the paper, columnists praised the Greek Cypriot people for saying ‘no’ to the man who said ‘no’ to the Annan plan, and for saying ‘yes’ to Kasoulides, the man who said ‘yes’ to the Annan plan.
However, there were also warnings within the Turkish Cypriot community that the end of the Papadopoulos era could spell the end of a very “comfortable” period for the Turkish Cypriot side’s negotiating team.
“It is not going to be as comfortable as it has been for the last three years,” Ahmet Sozen, International Relations lecturer and head of the Cyprus Policy Centre at the Eastern Mediterranean University (EMU), told the Mail yesterday.
“In the past, they could hide behind Papadopoulos’ intransigence, just like the Greek Cypriots for years hid behind Denktash’s intransigence. But now everything will be out in the open.”
Sozen believes that in the light of Papadopoulos’ surprise defeat, the Turkish side may be forced to review its approach to negotiations, and that it was likely that Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat would be consulting Ankara in the wake of Sunday’s runoff.
But ultimately Sozen believes the Turkish Cypriot side will not budge from its commitment to a federal solution of the Cyprus problem.
“It has made so many statements that it has to remain committed to the UN process,” he said.
Duzgun, whose paper has in recent years given full support to the ‘government’, agreed by saying that the Turkish Cypriot side would have “no excuses” for backing out of a federal deal.
Asked whether he thought Ankara would still be willing to see a federal deal take place in the light of its deteriorating relations with the EU, he said, “We’ll have to wait and see.”
