Daily News of Life and times in North Cyprus goes around the world
Roger Jennings wrote an article in October 2016 click here predicting the failure of the negotiations. As background, his Grandfather is the highest decorated person in Greek history for saving more than 1,250,000 Greeks and others in 1922-23. Roger attended the dedication in Volos, Greece, of a monument honouring his Grandfather Asa K. Jennings.
Former US Ambassador to South Cyprus John Koenig has stated that the Greek Cypriot leader Nikos Anastasiades is responsible for the collapse of the negotiations.
Koenig shared a message from his Facebook account saying “There is plenty of blame to share around, but one person stands out as the cause of the impasse and collapse: This is Nikos Anastasiades. He never was the courageous, committed leader he claimed to be – not even in 2004 – but instead a self-absorbed small -time operator with grand ambitions and no spine.
“Anastasiades owns this failure but many others will pay the price. (Maybe I should write that book I threatened to write when I left Nicosia!)”
Source: TRNC Public Information Office –
To read more news and information from the TRNC Ministry of Foreign Affairs, please click here
Pictures shown are courtesy of the TRNC Public Information Office Facebook page.
By Mehmet Nesip Ogun………
Professor of Security studies at Columbia University, New York…….
After the Greek Cypriot Assembly’s decision to commemorate the January 1950 referendum on ENOSIS (Cyprus Island will politically and administratively be part of Greece) at public schools in South Cyprus on February 10, 2017; ongoing negotiations literally stopped for two months.
On February 16, 2017, the leaders had met at the UN-mandated buffer zone in Cyprus. According to press, Turkish Cypriot President Mustafa Akıncı raised the problem and stated that the Greek Cypriot Assembly’s decision is wrong and it would harm the negotiations. Upon this statement, Greek Cypriot Leader Mr. Nikos Anastasiades remarked that he had nothing to say and left the negotiations. Even though this incident was told exactly like that by Mr. Akıncı, United Nations special envoy for Cyprus, Mr. Espen Barth Eide, declared the opposite and stated that Mr.Akıncı decided to leave the meeting after a while, according to various press sources.
Turkish Cypriot President Mustafa Akıncı and his spokesperson Mr. Barış Burcu repeatedly stated that if the Greek Cypriot Assembly would not void this decision, the Turkish side would not participate in ongoing negotiations. Nevertheless, the Greek Cypriot assembly decided to give this commemoration authority to the Ministry of Education on 7th April 2017 as a result of the Turkish Cypriots’ determined stance and the leaders agreed to meet on April 11th and 20th, and 2nd, 11th and 17th May.
Cyprus negotiations have been going on for 50 years. There is no little detail that has not been mentioned during the talks. However, there are some main disagreements between Greek and Turkish Cypriots. Negotiations are based on six different topics which are territory, property, economy, EU Relations, governance, security and guarantees. There are conflicts of ideas under almost each topic.
Under the EU Relations topic, the Turkish side would want EU agreements to be effective after the transition period after a possible solution and want the agreement to be part of the EU’s primary law. Conversely, the Greek side would want the EU agreements to be effective right after the solution and oppose that the agreement be part of the EU’s primary law.
Turkish Cypriot President Mustafa Akıncı has said many times that rotating presidency and equal political participation is one of the Turkish side’s red lines, Mr. Anastasiades stated in different platforms that the Turkish side is a minority and it shouldn’t expect that minority should be equal to majority. Besides, no positive remarks were made by Mr. Anastasiades about rotating presidency.
There are also major disagreements on territory and property issues between parties. Both delegations have declared their offer of new territory maps to UN officials during the Geneva talks in January 2017. Nevertheless, both leaders did not agree on maps for new borders and territory. Mr. Akıncı stated that “The map submitted by the Greek Cypriots to the UN is unacceptable”. There is also a big question on how the property issue will be resolved after so many years where many of the properties have been sold to different users throughout the years in both sides.
It could be stated that the main disagreement lies on the security and guarantees topic. The Greek side does not accept any Turkish Military presence on the Island and does not want Turkey as a guarantor power. Nevertheless, the Greek side states that guarantor power is outdated in this era and since the EU could be a guarantor, there is no need for any other guarantor power or countries. On the other hand, the Turkish side wants to keep Turkey as a guarantor country since Turkish Cypriots had so many traumatic experiences between 1963 and 1974.
Nonetheless, as there is no agreed timeline or end line for the negotiations, the leaders will meet several times in April and May. Mr. Akıncı seems more optimistic than his counterpart part Mr. Anastasiades. There is going to be presidential elections in February 2018 in the Greek side and Mr. Akıncı would like to solve the Cyprus problem before the election campaign will start.
Both Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is celebrating the National Sovereignty and Children’s Day on April 23. As the tradition has been going on for so many years, children from different countries have been coming to TRNC and Turkey to celebrate Children’s Day.
However, the Greek side did not allow Serbian children to pass to the Turkish side to participate in these events. After keeping both Serbian and Russian delegations at Larnaca Airport for many hours, the Greek Cypriots sent them back to their countries.
While the negotiations are going on and there is a big effort to solve the Cyprus problem, the Greek side’s decision raised questions about how will this problem be solved? Since the Greek Cypriots do not have any toleration of Turkish Cypriots’ presence in the International environment, how can the Turkish Cypriot side expect the Greek Cypriot side to resolve the topics mentioned above?
Espen Barth Eide
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is ready to “play ball” on reaching a deal to reunify divided Cyprus because it would help resolve overarching regional issues including mending Turkey’s relations with the European Union, a United Nations envoy said Dec. 8.
But U.N. secretary-general’s special envoy on Cyprus Espen Barth Eide indicated that it was unclear where Erdoğan wants to steer a summit in Geneva next month that aims to hammer out a comprehensive peace accord.
Greece, Turkey and Cyprus’ former colonial ruler the United Kingdom will participate at a five-party summit from Jan. 9, 2017 to Jan. 12, 2017 to overcome the major hurdle of providing security in a federation made up of the Greek- and Turkish-speaking zones.
Turkish President Erdoğan
“I think Erdoğan is ready to play ball and that’s what they communicate,” Eide told the Associated Press in an interview. But it is less clear what Turkey’s negotiating position will be, he said.
The island was divided between a Greek south and a Turkish north when the Turkish military intervened in 1974 under the terms of the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee in response to an Athens-backed coup aiming to unite the island with Greece……
Greece insists military intervention rights that Cyprus’ 1960 constitution accorded to the guarantor nations must be scrapped under any peace deal. Turkey wants to keep a troop presence in a post-settlement Cyprus; Turkish Cypriots see that as essential to their security but Greek Cypriots view it as a threat. Britain says it will abide by what the two sides on the island decide.
Eide met with Greek and Turkish officials earlier this week to help prepare a security formula that will be acceptable to all sides. The U.N. envoy said neither Greece nor Turkey wants one of Europe’s most intractable problems to remain frozen, because a Cyprus deal would help resolve problems that are part of a “big picture.”
Cyprus undersea gas deposits
The U.N. envoy said a Cyprus peace deal would go a long way in boosting cooperation on exploiting the East Mediterranean’s substantial undersea gas deposits. It would also help restore frayed EU-Turkey relations, particularly regarding an agreement preventing refugees reaching Europe.
A reunified Cyprus would also have a “symbolic effect” on a strife-torn region while an expected economic boom on the island would “inspire” neighboring countries, said Eide.
But the U.N. envoy warned that failure this time may result in a change of the “status quo” on the island. He did not elaborate on what the change could entail.
He added Greek Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akıncı feel they could work out a deal they can both “live with” on how much territory will make up the two federal zones – something that caused talks to briefly deadlock last month.
Eide said next month’s Geneva summit will “almost certainly” run longer than the scheduled four days.
The U.N. envoy said if all goes well, the two leaders aim to put a finalized deal to a simultaneous vote on both sides somewhere around the middle of next year, after a few months of sorting out the details of how a deal will be implemented and explained to the public.
Source: Hürriyet Daily News
