The Greek Cypriot attitude

According to what has been reported in the media, the Greek Cypriot negotiation demands are as follows:

* Turks cannot be compensated for things done between 1963 and 1974.
* Let the solution be based not on two nations but on "two peoples = one nation." In other words, let there be a single state.
* Let the land to be transferred from the KKTC to the south be put under immediate U.N. control.
* If the 114 federal laws, around 6,000 pages, and the agreement are not completed before a solution, let there be no referenda.
* Let the solution be in agreement with the European Union Acquis. In other words, let the special provisions protecting Turks not become EU primary law.
* Those older than 65 and those moving to Karpas should not be included in the 21 percent Greek Cypriot migration.
* Let property be returned to its original owners and no limitations imposed on buying property.
* Let the Greek Cypriots who move to the north be able to exercise all their political rights and get elected to the federal assembly.
* The Turkish Army’s presence should immediately be decreased to 6,000 members.

Additional demands are constantly being inserted into this list at every round of talks. The United Nations, by proposing a very large peacekeeping force, thinks that a solution will cause a conflict. The Greek Cypriots, fearing the same thing, want all those who came from Anatolia to return home because they might arm themselves.

This shows, as noted in a March 10 Foreign Ministry statement, that the Greek Cypriots do not want a just solution.

This extremist attitude on the part of the Greek Cypriots might be a ploy by them to prevent amendment of the Annan plan in our favor. If this is true, this would mean that the Greek Cypriots are happy with the original version of the plan and want to preserve it as is.

In public polls in some Greek Cypriot newspapers, the votes against the plan seem very high. To those who know that the Greek Cypriot media is in cooperation with its government in this national issue, learning that these polls are phony and that their real aim is to pressure the Turkish Cypriots to vote against the plan would come as no surprise.

If U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan fails to include Turkey’s mandatory demands in the final document because of this Greek Cypriot intransigence, the Turkish Cypriots might reject the plan in the referendum. Papadopoulos might even want this. He is aiming to prevent the formulation of a solution by May 1, thinking he can up his demands to the Turkish side when Greek Cyprus becomes an EU member. This is a very risky tactic for both Greek-Turkish and Turkish-EU relations.

Greek Cypriots, because they believe in their righteousness, might pursue such a reckless policy and assume that the EU would understand. The U.N. Security Council recognized Greek Cyprus as the government in its Resolution 184 (1964), even though they had violated the internationally recognized Cypriot Constitution of 1963, segregating the Turks and punishing the small Turkish community. The U.S. Congress placed an arms embargo on Turkey after the 1974 intervention. The illegal Greek Cypriot application to become an EU member was accepted in 1993. The EU held the Turkish side as solely responsible for the solution of the problem for Turkey’s EU membership. This stance by the West, recognizing Greek Cyprus as the real owner of the island — while viewing the Turks as an unfortunate historical remnant of the Ottomans — caused the Greek Cypriots to see themselves as always being in the right. And now they don’t want to make any concessions, knowing that their EU membership is assured.

These conditions and the fact that Turkey and most of the Turkish Cypriots want EU membership no matter what ensure that the Greek Cypriots don’t need to make concessions, anyway. The acceptance of all of Annan’s preconditions for the recommencement of negotiations, the censorship of Denktas’s statements — as if some don’t want the Greek Cypriot intransigence to become known — and describing an agreement by May 1 as very good and the Greek Cypriot membership alone as a disaster are all ruining our negotiation stance.

If the government ignores our mandatory demands, does not have the courage to say that it would reject the plan put to a referendum and does not pressure the EU, we cannot expect any change in the Greek Cypriot attitude.

No one should dismiss the potential of the political instability of a solution based entirely on the concessions we made.