Tag: PARTITION

  • No ifs or buts, Turkey must be part of the EU

    No ifs or buts, Turkey must be part of the EU

    Cyprus is just an excuse for those who cannot stomach the accession of a Muslim country

    Jack Straw

    Gul and Straw
    Photo: NATO

    The most important strategic decision facing the EU is its future relationship with Turkey. The UK’s position has long been clear and bipartisan — full Turkish membership of the EU as soon as possible. David Cameron told the Commons in June that “we should back \[Turkey’s membership\] wholeheartedly”. Britain’s unambiguous support for Turkey will be underscored by the visit of Abdullah Gül, its President, this week, with the award to him tomorrow by the Queen of the Chatham House Prize.

    Forty-six years after Turkey first signalled its wish to join the EU, there was some hope in 2005 that rapid progress towards this goal might be achieved. Following tortuous negotiations under the UK Presidency all 27 members of the EU agreed on 3 October 2005 actively to start accession negotiations with Turkey .

    But the wheels have come off, with potentially disastrous consequences. In the summer, in light of Turkey’s refusal to back tougher sanctions on Iran , Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, claimed that Turkey may have been “pushed by some in Europe” towards Iran. This “pushing away” has not followed from any conscious rethinking of the 2005 decision to embrace Turkey, but principally because Europe’s strategic future with Turkey (population 74 million) is now hostage to negotiations over Cyprus. (Greek Cypriot population 0.75 million, Turkish Cypriot 0.25 million).

    Cyprus is an internationally recognised sovereign state. However, the writ of the Government of Cyprus extends only to the south of the island, ever since the Turkish Army’s occupation of the predominantly Turkish Cypriot north in 1974. A UN “Green Line” runs through the middle of the capital, Nicosia, with the government of the not-so-far recognised “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” (TRNC) in control in the north, with thousands of Turkish troops garrisoned there too.

    There are two stories: one of the “unjustifiable” Turkish invasion; the other of such “violent oppression” by the Greek majority of the minority that Turkish protection was (and is) vital. Both sets of stories have truths, but because Greek Cyprus was admitted to the EU before any settlement of the island’s future it is their truths which dominate EU decisions on Turkey .

    Of the 35 chapters of the draft accession treaty with Turkey, 18 (the key ones) are blocked or frozen — eight by a formal EU decision, four by France, and six by Cyprus. Although there is opposition in France to Turkish membership, the naked vulgarity of those whose real objections are that Turkey is 98 per cent Muslim would be far easier to counter without the convenient excuse that Cyprus provides.

    Each of the blocks on Turkey’s accession can be plausibly explained by reference to some failure by Turkey , or the TRNC, to meet formal undertakings in full. But there is a larger reality here, that failures by the EU or Cyprus are brushed aside. In 2004 the President of Cyprus, Tassos Papadopoulos, signed a UN accord for a referendum on a new power-sharing constitution. He then campaigned duplicitously for a “no” vote. He was rewarded with EU membership, while solemn EU commitments to the Turkish Cypriots who kept to their side of the bargain and voted “yes” have never properly been delivered.

    Despite Turkey’s longstanding acknowledgement that because of its size, and differential wage costs, there would have to be decades-long transitional restrictions, especially on free movement of labour, it has been more toughly treated by the EU than any other applicant state.

    Take Bulgaria and Romania . They were admitted to the EU in 2007 after waiting only ten years. Their GDP per head is similar to Turkey’s. There are serious concerns, still, about corruption and inadequate judicial systems in these two countries. Yet the EU chose (and I was party to this) to apply a Nelson’s eye to some of those shortcomings in pursuit of a wider strategic goal. In other words the EU showed some practical vision now so lamentably lacking for Turkey.

    Under a succession of able Special Representatives the UN has made heroic efforts over the years to find a one-state solution for Cyprus, in accordance with the UN mandate for a “bi-zonal bi-communal federation, with political equality”. This task now falls to Alexander Downer, the former Australian Foreign Minister. He’s talented and experienced, and might pull off success.

    Next week, the Greek Cypriot President Demetris Christofias, and the TRNC President Dervis Eroglu have critical talks with the UN Secretary-General. We should pray for success. But the chances of a settlement would be greatly enhanced if the international community broke a taboo, and started publicly to recognise that if “political equality” cannot be achieved within one state, then it could with two states — north and south.

    It is time for the UK Government to consider formally the partition of Cyprus if the talks fail. This will be very controversial in the UN as well as the EU. Russia will be vehement in its opposition — as it was with Kosovo. But those who respond by inviting me to wash my mouth out with carbolic might like to say how much longer the EU and the UN can tolerate the current approach, whose only consequence so far has been to paralyse the development of relations with Turkey.

    Good reasons led me to believe that having (Greek Cypriot) Cyprus within the EU would assist the peace process. This judgment has not been borne out by events. When in 2004 Cypriot behaviour did lead us to have second thoughts, we should have faced down the explicit threat from Greece to veto all other accessions (of states such as Poland and Hungary ) unless Cyprus came in at the same time.

    We cannot turn the clock back. But we can change the terms of trade. The EU needs Turkey rather more than Turkey needs the EU.

    Jack Straw was Foreign Secretary 2001-06

    The Times, London

  • Talks are ‘last chance for solution’ on Cyprus

    Talks are ‘last chance for solution’ on Cyprus

    KKTCBy James Blitz in London, Kerin Hope in Athens and Delphine Strauss in Ankara

    Cyprus might slide towards formal partition if a make-or-break meeting of Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders at the UN this month fails to find a solution to the long-running crisis, diplomats fear.

    Three years after the UN began its latest attempt to broker a deal, Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, has taken the unprecedented step of summoning the leaders of the Republic of Cyprus and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus to New York in an attempt to end the deadlock.

    The talks are set for November 18. But officials in the UN and leading western governments have warned that there is a limit to how long they will back the negotiations, saying they are running out of patience with the inability of both sides to strike a deal.

    “If we don’t get agreement now . . . then it really is ‘goodnight, nurse’ ”, a leading diplomat involved in negotiations told the Financial Times.

    “There’s a chance the UN will withdraw its good offices in hosting the talks. We’re not going to stay here for ever, going through mindless meetings and meaningless talks.”

    Another senior diplomat from a European Union nation warned that the peace talks ran the risk of failing completely. “This meeting is the last chance for a solution because progress so far has been pitiful,” the diplomat said. “We’re approaching the point where it’s time to face up to the painful consequences of failure.” The Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders have held almost 90 face-to-face negotiating sessions in the drive for a settlement. Talks to create a single federal state comprising both communities appeared near success in January after years of often difficult talks. But discussions have stalled because the Greek Cypriots are demanding extra territory on the island before they agree to abandon their historic rights to property that is on the Turkish side.

    The pace of talks has also slowed since Dervis Eroglu was elected Turkish Cypriot president last April, replacing Mehmet Ali Talat.

    Critics of Demetris Christofias, the Republic of Cyprus president, said the Greek Cypriots were using filibustering tactics. “The Greek Cypriot leadership pulls back when advisers are close to agreeing,” said one person with knowledge of the talks.

    The senior EU diplomat said failure to strike a deal this year would bring a real risk that Cyprus would move to formal partition. While the Greek part of the island is an internationally recognised state and member of the EU, the TRNC is formally recognised only by Turkey. “If there is no significant progress by the end of 2010, it will have disastrous consequences and Cyprus could be permanently divided in 2011,” the diplomat said.

    “Withdrawal of the UN good offices after a failed peace process means that a non-negotiated partition becomes a real possibility and Turkey would likely push for wider recognition of the TRNC.” 

    According to the diplomat, the TRNC’s prospects of being recognised as an independent state have increased after an International Court of Justice ruling that Kosovo’s declaration of independence did not violate international law. “Partition will damage Cyprus economically, politically and culturally,” the diplomat told the FT.

    “It will also threaten broader regional instability because it will mean Turkey and Greece have to spend more militarily on preserving the formal border across the island.”

    Diplomats said the Greek Cypriots wanted all their property in the north of the island – comprising 75 per cent of total property in the TRNC – reinstated. The Turkish Cypriots want to keep the property and pay the Greek Cypriots compensation instead. “Both sides have started to come together on some aspects of the negotiation but haven’t reached sufficient convergence,” a UN official said.

    Mr Eroglu wants to reach agreement on property before moving on to other areas. The sensitivity of the issue was confirmed last week when Turkish and Turkish Cypriot politicians met to discuss how to finance any compensation for Greek Cypriot owners.

    Leaked reports of the session, attended by a Turkish bank chief executive, sparked a furore. “If things carry on as they are then it’s just negotiations for the sake of negotiations,” said a Turkish Cypriot official, adding that the New York meeting could produce simply an “X-ray photo” of the stalemate or a “prescription to break the deadlock”.

    , November 7 2010