DIVIDE AND RUE – HOW THE BARBED PROBLEM OF CYPRUS IS AGAIN A SNAG FOR EUROPE
By Vincent Boland and Kerin Hope
FT
October 16 2006 03:00
In a bleakly efficient-looking laboratory at the United Nations
compound in Nicosia, a team of forensic scientists is helping to lay
the ghosts of Cyprus’s five-decade-old conflict to rest. Their work
on the divided Mediterranean island, identifying the victims of a war
that at various times has involved Cypriots, Turks, Greeks, Britons
and all manner of international peacemakers, takes place within the
buffer zone that has split it in two since 1974.
Thirty-two years after the Turkish army invaded Cyprus to prevent the
island’s unification with Greece, this initiative is today the only
substantive one involving co-operation between the Greek Cypriot and
Turkish Cypriot authorities. Along with the array of human bones spread
out on the lab tables, that is a stark reminder of how unfinished
this conflict is.
But this long-forgotten war is set to return to the political
forefront. Its -resolution to the satisfaction of the European Union –
extremely unlikely – is looming as a precondition for Turkey’s further
steps towards integration with the 25-strong bloc.
While a row between the Turkish and French last week over recognition
of the 1915 massacres of Armenians as "genocide" has put another
formidable obstacle in the way of Turkey joining the EU, Cyprus poses
a much more immediate difficulty. It is possible that, by the end of
this year, the problem will derail the admission of Turkey as a member
– the EU’s most ambitious and controversial geo-strategic project.
Olli Rehn, the EU enlargement commissioner, warned this year of
a looming "train crash" between Turkey and Brussels, because of
disagreements over fundamental issues. These ranged from reform of
the Turkish penal code – which seems relatively easy to solve or work
around – to the question of Cyprus, no closer to resolution than it
was three decades ago.
The risks are huge. Were Turkey’s EU bid to collapse, "the EU’s overall
foreign policy credibility risks serious damage", according to Kirsty
Hughes, author of a much-noted Friends of Europe report on the issue
last month. In Turkey, it could halt the country’s cultural march
westward, which began 80 years ago under the rule of Kemal Ataturk,
and instead empower Islamist and nationalist political forces.
The continuing separation of Cyprus’s two communities by a 180km-long
"Green Line" – drawn on a map by a British commander using a green
pen – still confounds and preoccupies its protagonists. A solution
to the split is a task for the UN, a fact that is accepted by all
parties. But that job has been made more complicated by the EU,
which began membership talks with Turkey last October, after having
admitted Cyprus as a member in 2004.
Many EU diplomats now accept that it was a mistake to allow Cyprus to
join at that stage – particularly because of the influence the Greek
Cypriot government has thus gained over the negotiations with Turkey.
For many years after 1974, Turkey and Greece, historical enemies but
fellow Nato members, engaged in their own cold war over Cyprus, while
the island’s political leaders held endless, fruitless talks. This
glacial approach was unfrozen in 2003 with the reactivation of a
minutely detailed UN settlement proposal backed by Turkey, Greece,
the EU and the US. The deal was put to a referendum on the island in
the spring of 2004. It was backed overwhelmingly by Turkish Cypriots
but was rejected equally decisively by Greek Cypriots.
The EU, which had banked on its acceptance by both sides and had
committed to admitting Cyprus regardless of the result, found itself
importing a divided island as a member. The island is officially
known as the Republic of Cyprus, whose internationally recognised
government is a Greek Cypriot administration. But the Turkish Cypriot
part declared itself the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in 1983,
recognised only by Ankara.
The republic’s entry to the EU boosted the position of the Greek
Cypriots and especially of their president, Tassos Papadopoulos,
who has threatened to veto every aspect of Ankara’s EU negotiations.
Turkey, for its part, accuses the EU of reneging on pledges to
end the economic and political isolation of the TRNC after the
2004 referendum. Ankara has refused to extend its EU agreements to
cover Cyprus, which the bloc says it should do by the end of this
year. If it does not do so, opponents of Turkish EU membership such
as France and Austria (and, of course, Cyprus) could insist that the
negotiations be ended – the "train crash" scenario – or suspended,
which would be the equivalent of driving the train into a siding.
Diplomats say the choice facing the Turkish government, as it heads
towards a general election next year, is between refusing to make
further compromises on Cyprus and keeping its EU negotiations on track.
Finland, holder of the EU’s rotating presidency, has tabled a
compromise that may break the immediate negotiating deadlock, but
even the modest proposals it makes may be too much for such entrenched
protagonists as Turkey and Mr Papadopoulos.
Failure to move, however, would ensure that the TRNC remains a legal,
diplomatic and economic black hole, technically inside the EU but
for practical purposes outside it. It is hard to describe a part of
the world that has year-round sunshine and a vaguely holiday-island
ambience as miserable. But this ersatz republic, a state caught in
a seventies time-warp, is close to it.
Its 190,000 people have a standard of living roughly half that of
the 600,000 Greek Cypriots. The TRNC survives on tourism, income from
fee-paying universities attended mostly by Muslim students from around
the world, and subsidies from Turkey that run to roughly $400m (£216m,
â~B¬320m) a year. Organised crime is rising, according to diplomats.
Nearly two-thirds of the workforce is employed by the state, which pays
more than private enterprise and therefore undermines it. "This is our
number one problem, even more than our isolation," says Erdil Nami,
head of the TRNC chamber of commerce. A fall this year in tourism
revenue and in the number of students attending the universities may
point to a longer-term downward trend. The daily flight to Ankara one
recent lunchtime was nearly empty; a year ago it would have been full.
Turkish Cypriots seem unable to help themselves, dependent as they
are on the actions of Turkey, the Greek Cypriots, the UN and the
EU, and they have an enormous sense of victimhood, beginning with
the collapse in 1963 of a power-sharing agreement with their Greek
co-islanders. Emine Erk, a Turkish Cypriot human rights lawyer, says:
"Where we are today is the inevitable outcome of developments since
1963."
The Greek Cypriots insist thatthey bear no ill-will towards their
Turkish counterparts. Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis, director of EU-Turkey
affairs for the Greek Cypriot government, says: "Our problem is
not with the Turkish Cypriots. It is with Turkey and its interests
vis-a-vis Cyprus."
In particular, the Greek Cypriots are suspicious of the aims of
the Turkish military, which maintains some 35,000 troops (including
dependants) on bases in the TRNC, just 100km from Turkey’s southern
flank.
They also want Turkish "settlers" – migrants from Turkey who moved
to the island after 1974 – to leave. Ms Kozakou-Marcoullis estimates
their number to be "at least 160,000". Mete Hatay, the author of a 2005
report on the issue for the Peace Research Institute of Oslo, estimates
that there are only about 35,000, including children born in the TRNC.
Both sides in Cyprus agree that the solution to their division must
be a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation, though the discrepancy over
"settler" numbers shows how difficult this will be to achieve. In
the meantime, it is the TRNC that suffers disproportionately from the
status quo, and from a growing sense of resignation among residents
and even their political leaders.
Mehmet Ali Talat, president of the TRNC, says: "Is there anything
happening on the ground that could move the situation forward? I’m
afraid not." Mustafa Akinci, a politician and longtime voice for
rapprochement with the Greek Cypriots, is even bleaker. The failure
over many years to end the division of Cyprus makes partition seem its
final and inevitable fate, he argues. "The passage of time doesn’t
help either side," he says. "All Cypriots have to be wise enough to
see this."
Limited co-operation – such as the UN forensics project to identify
the missing – may not only heal the emotional trauma of conflict but
also be a model for further progress.
Some 2,000 remain missing from the war years. In a month of work,
the scientists have assembled the remains of at least 23 people
recovered from a mass grave. Laid out on the tables at the unit –
skulls here, femurs there, ribs, hands and other parts next to them –
the bones await examination and DNA testing.
The families of the missing are clinging to the hope of recovering
their loved ones but "they don’t expect miracles," says Luis
Fondebrider, the UN team’s Argentine leader.
Although the prevailing pessimism makes co-operation on accounting for
the missing from the Cyprus conflict all the more important, amid the
gloom, there is an occasional optimistic gesture. On Ledra Street in
Nicosia, the Turkish Cypriot authorities have built a footbridge that
would reunite what was once the city’s premier shopping precinct,
divided by the Green Line. They await its completion by the Greek
Cypriots from the other side. A sign in four languages on the bridge
says: "Due to open soon".
Quite how soon, nobody knows.
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