A CONTROVERSIAL bridge that has come close to causing a major rift between the Turkish Cypriot authority and the Turkish military will be removed today from the proposed Ledra Street crossing in central Nicosia, according to statements released by the Turkish Cypriot leader’s office yesterday.
“We will definitely begin taking the bridge down tomorrow [Tuesday],” one of Talat’s chief aides told the Cyprus Mail yesterday. Asked whether the military had backed down over what it considered civilian encroachment into a military area, the aide simply repeated that the bridge would “begin being dismantled” today.
But doubt remained yesterday as to whether the promised dismantlement would in fact begin after the Turkish Chief of Staff Yasar Buyukkanit was seen over the weekend to criticise Talat for mishandling plans to open the crossing point.
In a statement published on Sunday, Buyukkanit said the Turkish Cypriot leader had been aware of the military’s reservations, but had announced his plans to remove the bridge nevertheless. Buyukkanit then caused Talat further embarrassment by telling the media that he and Talat had discussed problems at the proposed crossing point “in detail” at a meeting on Friday in Ankara, contradicting Talat’s statements that the subject of the Ledra Street crossing had not even been broached.
Yesterday’s events come as the latest twist in a saga that began in the autumn of 2005, when the Turkish and Greek Cypriot mayors of Nicosia expressed their desire to see the crossing opened. That, and several other attempts to open it, failed because of squabbling between Turkish and Greek Cypriot sides.
This time, however, the Greek Cypriot side barely entered the affray before disagreement broke out between the Turkish and Turkish Cypriot authorities.
Head of the Cyprus Policy Centre think-tank at the Eastern Mediterranean University (EMU) Dr Ahmet Sozen told the Mail yesterday that Talat’s run-in with the Turkish military could be part of an ongoing power struggle between Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the military elite that has traditionally held the sway over Turkish policymaking.
“Under Buyukkanit, the army have been more proactive in making the [Turkish] government look bad or lacking in confidence,” Sozen said, adding that with Talat now seen as an AKP ally, friction between his authority and the military would continue, “and perhaps intensify”, until the current Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced whether he was going to run in April’s presidential election. The military is staunchly opposed to such a move because of what it sees as Erdogan’s anti-secularist views.
“Cyprus,” Sozen believes, “has become a battleground for such things, and Talat is involved in a struggle over which he has no control.”
Whichever way the Ledra bridge issue resolves itself, Talat looks set for a rough ride, both with the military and his electorate.
“Either he has accept what the military says, or he has to design his policies in consultation before making them public,” Sozen said. He added, however, that there was a third option open to Talat.
“He could say that if his policies cannot be realised, he will resign.”
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