GREEK and Turkish Cypriots yesterday unveiled a new booklet, Cyprus after a Solution: economic and social activity – the product of two workshops to analyse a post-settlement, united island.
Published by IKME – the Socio-political Studies Institute set up in co-operation with Turkish Cypriot bank Bilban – the book presents the discussions on the social, economic and political future of one state, one Cyprus.
“This is not just another book about Cyprus and its associated problem. This is a testimony that Greek and Turkish Cypriots can sit around a table and elaborate about the future of our motherland,” said the president of IKME Takis Hadjidemetriou.
“It is a message of hope that we all must embrace, preserve and develop in order to secure a better future for our country,” he said.
Turkish Cypriots were told on Thursday that they had been given permission to cross to the south for yesterday’s event at the Holiday Inn in Nicosia.
“It’s quite awesome for me to see my compatriots coming to this side despite the severe risks. I’m ashamed I can’t speak their language. It’s a matter of will and time,” said one refugee in the audience.
President of Bilban, Alpay Durduran, said the book was testament to the belief that the island’s conflict would come to an end and that the country would be re-united and become “more prosperous and more loveable”.
From the audience, there was praise for the transparency with which IKME conducted its work, funded almost exclusively by the Turkish Cypriot bank despite the appalling economic situation in the north.
Criticisms that bi-communal contacts were nothing more than US propaganda missions, propped up by a $12 million annual budget approved by Congress, leave IKME out in the cold.
“I am convinced more than ever before that these meetings are of the utmost importance and I hope our example can be followed by many,” said one bystander.
The book includes a series of essays by Greek and Turkish scientists, economists, politicians and researchers, presented in London last March to tackle the of problems of a re-united Cyprus.
The London conference was convened after a previous meeting in Brussels in October 1998 organised by Renos Prentzas.
The chief value of the book is the faith with which it was written and published as a common consensus between Greek and Turkish Cypriots.
The merit is in the questions posed, rather than the tentative answers, for the most part limited to idealist rhetoric of security, mutual understanding, respect and co-operation.
But the exception is the chapter devoted to community, social and cultural matters.
Written by Susie Charalambous, it argues for a restructuring of communal infrastructure along the lines of the model that has evolved in the London Cypriot community of Haringey, where Greek and Turk are united in the same tri-lingual organisations.
Yet despite the prevalent optimism of the morning that coincided with the resumption of proximity talks, Hadjidemetriou did question “the value of a book that deals with Cyprus after a solution when this solution is not so near”.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
