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Friday, Dec 24, 2004

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Turkey, European Union and Cyprus

By R. Kannan

The question of normalisation between Turkey and Cyprus has a goal post now -- October 3, 2005. Both sides could avail themselves of this moment and turn it into a win-win situation.

"IT ALL comes down to Cyprus," a European Union diplomat was quoted as saying during the December 16-17 E.U. summit in Brussels in reference to Turkey obtaining a start date for accession talks for E.U. membership. Weeks before the lead-up to the summit, Cyprus' President, Tassos Papadopoulos, sought to make Turkey's recognition of the island at the summit a precondition for its entry talks. Since 1974 Turkey and official Cyprus have had no relations.

Conventionally, major decisions are taken on the basis of unanimity in the E.U., and Cyprus, a nation of less than a million, could have torpedoed Turkey's E.U. bid. Turkey, a Muslim and not so prosperous nation of some 70 million, had fulfilled the E.U.'s Copenhagen criteria of democratic, human rights and fiscal reforms. Cyprus was not part of a formal requirement for entry talks. However, from May 1, Cyprus was one of the E.U.'s 25 member-states and indispensably part of the E.U.-Turkey equation.

Turkey's E.U. aspiration is 41 years old. As the Turkish Premier, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, later exulted, Turkey was "rewarded for 41 years of efforts." E.U. leaders sought and won an agreement from Turkey that the accession talks would be open ended and entry could not be guaranteed. Always implicit in any such negotiations, the condition was explicitly spelt out in Turkey's case in an apparent bid to soften the unfavourable public opinion in some member-states to Turkey's E.U. course.

Cyprus' insistence on recognition remained a sticking point though. Refusing to heed, Mr. Erdogan reportedly ordered his return flight. In the end, after hours of haggling Turkey got October 3, 2005 as a start date for accession talks promising in return to extend a 1963 customs union agreement to the 10 new E.U. member-states, including Cyprus, before that date.

In his acceptance speech on December 17, Mr. Erdogan, however, brushed aside the significance of the compromise arrangement claiming it did not amount to "recognition". This, insiders say, invited a quick response from Mr. Papadopoulos who sought the floor to "remind" his audience that 25 member-states, including Cyprus, had decided on a date for Turkey. Mr. Papadopoulos later justified his consent for a date as motivated by the larger interests of the island and the opportunities it presented for a solution for the Cyprus problem.

Turkey's 1974 military involvement in Cyprus following a Greek junta coup led to the de facto division of the island. Ankara's subsequent unilateral recognition of the Turkish Cypriot north later (not recognised by anyone else) concurrently meant that it also "derecognised" the otherwise internationally accepted Cyprus Government. The presence of Turkish armed forces, loss of effective control over the north, the barring of Cypriot shipping and flights from Turkish air and seaports and Turkey's solidarity with the secessionist north in international forums are among the more ungainly realities the Greek Cypriot side has had to deal with as a result of Turkey's non-recognition. Recognition therefore means a rolling back of this awkward situation, at least legally.

Turkey was obliged to extend the 1963 E.U. customs union agreement to Cyprus with the expansion of the bloc last May. Procedural, obligatory and circumlocutory the agreement was short of explicit recognition but E.U. leaders seemed to think that this could serve as a compromise. Turkey nonetheless saw it as an additional requirement outside the Copenhagen criteria. Its Foreign Minister, Abdullah Gul, explicitly ruled out any "direct or indirect recognition" before a settlement to the Cyprus problem. Back in Cyprus, the moderate Turkish Cypriot leader, Mehmet Ali Talat, suggested that Turkey would be committing "suicide" if it were to recognise Cyprus now — meaning the beginning of the end of the 30-year Turkish Cyprus foreign policy edifice. Mustafa Akinci, another moderate Turkish Cypriot leader, however, conceded that this course was "inevitable." It was against this background that Mr. Erdogan travelled to Brussels to clinch a date.

Relations between the Turkish Cypriots and the Greek Cypriot majority broke down in 1963, only three years after Cyprus' independence. Since then Turkish Cypriots have shunned the common political institutions leaving them entirely in Greek Cypriot hands. Four decades of U.N. efforts to broker peace came to naught last April when three fourths of Greek Cypriots rejected a comprehensive U.N. peace plan even while two thirds of their Turkish Cypriot compatriots embraced it. Ahead of the vote, Mr. Papadopoulos had argued that the U.N. Plan would only perpetuate the island's division instead of healing it.

As Mr. Papadopoulos noted in the aftermath of the summit, the road ahead is laden with "possibilities and opportunities" — if only the parties were to seize them. The question of normalisation between Turkey and Cyprus has a goal post now — October 3, 2005. Both sides could avail themselves of this moment and turn it into a win-win situation. In the north, a "parliamentary" vote in February could consolidate the moderate forces and provide a fillip for another peace initiative.

A recent poll confirmed that the presence of Turkish forces, Turkish "mainlanders" and apprehensions over the unbalanced financial burdens had all led to the `no' vote against the U.N. Plan. With political will, the protagonists could reach compromise on these and any other issue. There is agreement that a solution entails a bi-communal bi-zonal federation. A start date for Turkey with Cyprus' support presents another serious opportunity to achieve this goal.

(R. Kannan heads civil affairs with the U.N. peacekeeping force in Cyprus. The views expressed are his own.)

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