Cyprus negotiations: Dervis Eroglu

Turkish Cypriots should not be held hostage by the continuation of the status quo on the divided island, writes Dervis Eroglu.

Negotiations for the settlement of the Cyprus question have been going on for the last 43 years. Throughout this period, the Turkish Cypriots – victims of the age-old Greek Cypriot campaign to transform the island into a purely Greek Cypriot state – have done their best to resolve the issue by accepting the major UN initiatives aimed at a peaceful settlement. The last instance of this was the Annan plan, named after the former UN secretary-general, which was submitted to the separate and simultaneous referenda of the Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots on 24 April 2004.

The Annan plan, while being accepted by the Turkish Cypriots by a convincing 65 per cent majority, had met with the rejection of the Greek Cypriots by a staggering 76 per cent margin. Despite this serious setback, negotiations resumed in 2006.

The current process has its origins in the meetings between my predecessor, Mehmet Ali Talat, and the Greek Cypriot president Dimitris Christofias, in March 2008 and again in May 2008. Although progress was achieved on some of the six chapters or headings on the agenda of the talks, this could not be publicly acknowledged due to the objections of Christofias.

After my election in April 2010, I wrote to the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, informing him that I would continue the talks from where they left off on the basis of the United Nations parameters that have been established over the years. I remained loyal to my commitment and proved my critics wrong who were claiming that the talks would collapse upon my assumption of office. The good faith and flexibility I have demonstrated at the table is also evident from the recent reports of the secretary general on his mission of good offices in Cyprus.

In tandem with the expectations of the international community, I have maintained that the negotiations cannot be an open-ended process and that it is our people’s right to see what lies ahead of them. The urgency of a settlement has also been frequently stressed by Ban Ki-moon, as “the window of opportunity”, as he put it, “is fast closing”. The Greek Cypriot side is poised to assume the presidency of the European Union in the second half of 2012 and will be in no mood to negotiate seriously or make the necessary concessions. This will be followed by elections for the Greek Cypriot leadership in February 2013. All concerned acknowledge that such occasions are no time to negotiate compromise solutions to complex political problems. Hence, the opportunity that currently exists will be lost, as people on both sides are losing any remaining faith in the negotiating process. Ban Ki-moon, in the statement he made after his meeting with the two leaders in New York on 1 December 2011, makes reference to an “end game” in so far as the forthcoming tripartite meeting that we will have in the second half of January 2012 is concerned. The international community is clearly and justifiably fatigued with this decades-old issue and endless negotiations. They want to see light at the end of the Cyprus tunnel.

No one, however, can be as fatigued and frustrated as the Turkish Cypriots. They have been victimised by, and have had to live with, this problem for the last half-a-century. Even after their liberation by Turkey in 1974 from physical violence and aggression, they continue to suffer from a Greek Cypriot-instigated isolation extending over a wide spectrum of human activity. Civilised Europe has not done a lot to lift this inhuman and undeserved isolation, in spite of the promises it had made before the referenda of 2004 and the specific decision it took in this regard on 26 April that year. Concrete action would not only be an overdue moral obligation towards the Turkish Cypriots, but would also provide the necessary motivation to the Greek Cypriots in terms of a settlement.

The Turkish Cypriot people want justice and fair and equal treatment from the international community. They have done and will continue to do everything they can to bring this issue to a close. Their preferred option is a just and viable settlement on the basis of a bi-communal, bi-zonal federation that will comprise two constituent states of equal status. If this does not prove possible due to the unwillingness of the other side, Turkish Cypriots should not be held hostage to the continuation of the status quo, which is found “unacceptable” in almost every recent relevant UN resolution and document.

Dervis Eroglu is the leader of the Turkish Cypriots