The Republic Of Cyprus Does Not Exist!

Readers Mail….

From A.A. Wisley….

So far as the UN, UK, and EU are concerned the RoC is alive and well. In my view, though, there is a possibility, that should be investigated, that the RoC does not exist.  I confess that it seems unlikely that this has not already been explored somewhere by the top legal minds who have discarded the idea. However, support for my idea comes from none other than the British High Commissioner to “Cyprus”, Irfan Siddiq, who publicly said, on 27th July 2023, that the 1960 Constitution no longer exists.

The other day, as one does, I was reading a legal opinion by Professor Lauchterpacht, an eminent lawyer, now dead, an expert in international law. This touched on various subjects including the validity of UN Security Council resolutions embargoing the TRNC. One comment piqued my interest and led to the following line of thought.

The Republic of Cyprus was created by a web of agreements between the founding Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot Communities and the UK with further collateral agreements between these parties and also Turkey, Greece and the newly created RoC itself. These agreements, treaties, and the Constitution of Cyprus all have the nature of contracts. Contracts can come to an end by various routes. One such route is in consequence of what is known, by lawyers, as Fundamental or Repudiatory Breach. (“”FoRB””)

A “FoRB” occurs where one party to the agreement/ treaty/ constitution breaches the terms of the contract in such an important way as to destroy the fundamental essence of the contract. The aggrieved party may then terminate the contract, relieving it of all further responsibilities under the agreement and entitling it to recover damages.

So, when the Greek Cypriots evicted the Turkish Cypriots from their rightful place in government in 1963 that was a breach which fundamentally undermined the terms of the 1960 Constitution. When the Greek Cypriots undertook a decade-long campaign of ethnic cleansing and twice attempted to erase, entirely, the Turkish Cypriot population from Cyprus, that underlined that the founding, Greek Cypriot Community party to the Constitution, believed and acted as if the Constitution no longer existed and that the Turkish Cypriot Community had no rights whatsoever, including any internationally guaranteed human rights. These events are, no doubt, the reason why Mr Siddiq believes that the 1960 Constitution has been repudiated and no longer exists.

If the 1960 Constitution ceased to exist, by reason of the acceptance by the Turkish Cypriot Community of the “FoRB”s, a legal requirement, then there is no Republic of Cyprus, at least as comprehended in the founding documents. With no partnership government the Island of Cyprus would revert to the internationally recognised, separate, Greek and Turkish Communities within Cyprus, the original founding constituents of the defunct Republic.

It would follow that all international decisions, based on the existence of the original RoC, cannot have any validity. Phantoms have no legal status.  It is, therefore, wrong for the international community to fail to recognise the right to statehood of the TRNC, as the TC successor to part of the defunct Republic. It is also wholly wrong to say that the TRNC cannot dissociate itself from the territories of the dead 1960 Republic as justification for the continued international sanctions on the party which has been so brutally oppressed.

If the 1960 Republic is at an end due to the FoRB then the TC community is entitled to seek damages against the GC Community, and Greece, the value of which will be a staggering sum, in the many billions of $, plus a 30% stake in all the oil and gas around the Island.

It is worth thinking about.

A. A. Wisley