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This article was downloaded by: [Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen]On: 24 November 2014, At: 04:16Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
Peace Review: A Journal of SocialJusticePublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cper20
Can Cyprus Be Solved?Àlvaro de Soto aa Ralph Bunche Institute , New YorkPublished online: 28 Nov 2012.
To cite this article: Àlvaro de Soto (2012) Can Cyprus Be Solved?, Peace Review: A Journal of SocialJustice, 24:4, 398-405, DOI: 10.1080/10402659.2012.732412
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Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice, 24:398–405Copyright C© Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN 1040-2659 print; 1469-9982 onlineDOI: 10.1080/10402659.2012.732412
Can Cyprus Be Solved?ALVARO DE SOTO
In 1977, three years after the 1974 division of the island, the Greek Cypriotand Turkish Cypriot leaders agreed to create a bi-zonal, bi-communal federalsolution. This agreement was confirmed in 1979. With these agreements, theleaders acknowledged the failure of the dispensation created in 1960, andmade clear that there can never be a unitary system again.
On this basis rest three and a half decades of diplomatic efforts thatculminated in separate, simultaneous referendums on the 2004 plan for
a Comprehensive Settlement to the Cyprus problem—approved by the TurkishCypriots but rejected by the Greek Cypriots. No wonder the question “CanCyprus be solved?” is being posed, for the categorical Greek Cypriot rejectionof the plan combined with the disheartening results of efforts since 2008 raisequestions about whether the problem can really be solved. If a unitary systemis ruled out, a federal solution is roundly rejected by one of the parties, andthe Security Council considers the status quo unacceptable, wither Cypriots?
In order to respond seriously to the question posed in the title, a goodstarting point is to analyze the responses of the Greek Cypriots and the TurkishCypriots in the 2004 referendums. It should be followed by revisiting thetruncated aftermath of the 1999–2004 effort that came to an end on April 24,2004.
From the perspective of one who has been in the mediation craft since themid-1970s, it is always a hopeful sign when a negotiator crosses the thresholdthat separates his interests and concerns from those of his adversary andshows a willingness to put himself into his adversary’s place, and that of hisconstituents, with the hope of identifying their basic interests and concerns. Inaddition, the negotiator hopes to find ways of accommodating his adversaryso that the agreement they are negotiating will be accepted and sustainedbeyond the negotiating room. To cross that threshold requires courage, self-confidence, and good faith. If the two sides (assuming they are only two) reachthat stage, chances are that the end will come into sight.
In January of 2000, Glafcos Clerides was prepared to approach the talkswith Rauf Denktash in that spirit, but was—understandably—frustrated by theformat on which Denktash insisted. The format consisted of “proximity talks,”
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meaning that the leaders did not meet each other; they met me, separately,with the purpose of “preparing the ground for meaningful negotiations.” Itwas agonizing, especially for the two veteran leaders who had in fact spenthundreds upon hundreds of hours going over the details of essentially thesame issues over the years. Clerides cooperated by dutifully answering myquestions on the issues. But I vividly recall his polite, yet firm, reaction to mydogged probing: “With all due respect, Mr de Soto, I don’t want to negotiatewith you. I want to negotiate with Mr. Denktash.” In November of 2000, whenthe Secretary-General ruled that the ground for meaningful negotiations hadbeen prepared, Denktash told him that he did not like the direction in whichhe was being taken and walked out of the talks.
I t took over a year to get him back. On December 4, 2001 at a meeting I at-tended in Nicosia, Clerides and Denktash agreed to resume talks in January
of 2002, directly this time, ending Denktash’s thirteen-month walkout. At adinner Denktash hosted the following evening, no substance was discusseduntil Clerides, raising his glass in a toast, looked Denktash in the eye and said:“Let’s see it through this time, Rauf.” That was the end of the substance.
During the direct talks, that began the following month in the freshlyrefurbished arrivals terminal of the old Nicosia International Airport in theUN Protected Area, I was occasionally able to persuade Denktash to meetClerides and me (without their aides) in a little drawing room that I had setup precisely for this purpose. It was there that Clerides, in my presence, cameto the threshold and made his pitch to Denktash. I am paraphrasing, but whathe said, in effect, was: “I have certain concerns that must be covered if theagreement that we reach is to have a chance of being approved in a referendum.I am prepared to set these out for you. I assume you have concerns of your own.I would like to help you satisfy them, and I would like you to help me satisfymine.” Clerides had just offered to cross the threshold if only Denktash did thesame. Denktash listened intently, but he did not respond at that time or later.
By the end of 2002, having lost whatever hope remained that the leaderswould negotiate an agreement, we determined that in order to ensure thata reunified Cyprus should accede to the European Union (EU) within theenlargement calendar they should be by-passed and the people allowed to havetheir say. Kofi Annan came to Cyprus to ask them to travel to The Hague tendays later—by then Papadopoulos had replaced Clerides—to respond to hisrequest to allow the plan, already twice revised, to be put to referendum. Eventhough AKP (Turkish initials for the Justice and Development Party) was inpower, and Denktash’s political supporters were no longer in the government,he held out as long as he could—the Republic of Cyprus’ accession suitedhim perfectly, and every month that passed made it more inevitable. In TheHague, Denktash not only rejected Annan’s request, he added that he wouldno longer participate in the existing framework, that negotiations would have
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to restart from scratch, and they would need to begin by agreeing on principlesrather than the concrete provisions of a settlement plan.
When Denktash returned to Cyprus from The Hague, the Turkish Cypri-ots, who had been carefully studying and debating the plan since the firstversion, vented their fury at him in the largest demonstrations ever seen inthe north of the island. Denktash, thrown off balance, had to do somethingdramatic to retake control or at least change the subject. He did it suddenlyand without warning by opening the long-closed, north–south crossings.
Denktash had refused to reciprocate Clerides’ offer to cross the threshold,but in the event his own people outflanked him. For years they had taken
Denktash’s word that the only way to protect their identity and security wasin a separate, independent Turkish Cypriot state. Having studied the plan,they concluded that their identity and security would be protected within theframework of the bi-zonal, bi-communal federal solution proposed. When thetime came to vote thirteen months later, two thirds of them voted in favorknowing that many of them would have to undergo major upheaval and manyto be uprooted for the second or third time.
Obviously things today are not where they were at that time—in a raceagainst the calendar. One of the differences from 2004 is that this time thetwo leaders will have to cross the threshold. They will not allow themselvesto be leapfrogged again. Nor is it the right way to go. As Kofi Annan said in2004, “A solution obviously requires more than a comprehensive and carefullybalanced peace plan. It also needs bold and determined political leadershipon both sides in the island, as well as in Greece and Turkey, all in place at thesame time, ready to negotiate with determination and to convince their peopleof the need to compromise” (my emphasis).
In his report to the Security Council after the failure of the fifty-four-month effort, Annan acknowledged the right of the Greek Cypriots to rejectthe plan. But he added that their rejection was “a major setback,” pointing outthat what they had rejected was not simply an idea or an outline or a blueprint,but a full-fledged solution; it was the first comprehensive attempt to realizethe goal the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriots set for themselves in1977 and in 1979 (a bi-zonal, bi-communal federal solution). Moreover, itwas deemed viable by the European Commission as well as functional andfinancially sound not only by the Commission but also by the InternationalMonetary Fund. Cyprus would have entered the EU as a unified whole.
Annan summarized what the Greek Cypriots had foregone by rejectingthe plan: A reunified Cyprus able to act with one voice in Europe and beyond;the return to the Greek Cypriot side of a large swathe of territory; the returnof their homes in the north to most displaced Greek Cypriots, including amajority (some 120,000) under Greek Cypriot administration; the withdrawalof all troops not permitted by international treaties; the halting of further
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Turkish immigration and the return to Turkey (if Greek Cypriot figures at thetime were correct) of a number of settlers. It was, he said, “[T] he best chance[the Cypriots] have ever had to reunify their country.”
“I t may be,” said Annan, “that, for a range of reasons, the electorate wasnot adequately prepared for the decision with which it was faced because
of the shortness of time, or a lack of objective information, or the imbalancebetween the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ campaigns, or the belief that a new opportunitywould come along soon, or a combination of all of these factors.” But he wasnot satisfied with that explanation, for it failed to account for the crushingmagnitude of the rejection, even if one third of the “no” votes were only a soft“no,” as AKEL (Greek initials for the Progressive Party of Working People)described its position. He suggested that the Security Council should addressGreek Cypriot fears about security, which seemed to be based on “historicdistrust of Turkish intentions.”
As a side note, the failure of the Greek Cypriot side to use the uniqueopportunity to tackle these issues directly with Turkey, which was the wholepurpose of the last-ditch negotiations at Burgenstock, Switzerland in lateMarch 2004 with the Greek and Turkish prime ministers in attendance, wasdeeply lamentable. However, Annan did not be-labor the point. It was neces-sary to look further. Perhaps the Greek Cypriots were knocked off balance bytheir first face-to-face encounter with a federal solution.
It is not criticism, nor is it disrespectful to say that, save for a fewspecialists and legal scholars and politicians, until then Greek Cypriots didnot have a formed opinion of what a federal state consists of or of how it isdifferent from a unitary state. The same could be said of ordinary citizens inmost unitary states. From Cyprus one has to fly several hours to reach thenearest federal state; there are none in the immediate neighborhood. Cypriotsvisiting Austria, Germany, India, or Nigeria might not readily see in whatway they are different from, say, pre-1974 Cyprus. Therefore, the notionthat the two constituent states of the putative United Cyprus Republic (theGreek Cypriot much larger, more populous, and many times wealthier thanthe Turkish Cypriot) would be politically equal and that they would sharepower with it at the federal level may have been a lot to swallow in one go,all the more so on the eve of EU accession. At that point, they were quitesusceptible to the argument that an attempt was afoot to snatch from them thelong sought after prize of joining Europe.
I would have thought that the 1977–1979 agreements needed someconsiderable explanation. Did anyone tell the Greek Cypriots then, or sincethen, that they would change the system of governance and the structure ofthe state? If nothing else, the unitary arrangements agreed in 1960, which,while despised by many Greek Cypriots, became anathema to the TurkishCypriots, would be buried for good. To educate the public is not to insult
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it; it is the duty of political leaders. Greek Cypriot political leaders seemto have concluded that there were few political dividends to be gained fromexplaining to the voters what the agreements of 1977 and 1979 actually meant,let alone the comprehensive plan those agreements led to three decades later.For the Greek Cypriots to metabolize what a federal solution with the TurkishCypriots actually entailed would have required painstaking preparation overtime by leaders willing to take the political risks of explaining to them, first andforemost, what it would not entail (for example a return to the status quo ante).
Many Greek Cypriots were relieved by Denktash’s rejection: Whetherintentionally or not, by rejecting Annan’s request, he had inadvertently
spared Greek Cypriots from having to take a position and their leaders fromgiving them advice.
One can understand Greek Cypriots’ unhappiness and suspicion at thereturn, crashing down from a snowy Swiss mountaintop like an avalanche, ofthe sinister plan they thought they had gotten rid of a year before, albeit twicerevised since. The opponents of the plan had no difficulty exploiting theirdiscomfiture. I marvel, grudgingly, at the artful minimalism of the campaignagainst the plan. On returning to Nicosia as the countdown to referendum daybegan, I spotted the huge new billboards along the highway from Larnacaairport with the single word oxi—the Greek word for no—in a soft white fontagainst a charcoal background. Nothing more and no explanation of what onewas expected to say no to; none was needed. Mies van der Rohe would havebeen awed.
Although I claim no credentials in semiotics or psychology, I couldnot help sensing that, at that particular time, the tiny word oxi appealedto something deeply ingrained in the collective unconscious of the GreekCypriots—a code-word, a form of meta-language, a subliminal call to the bar-ricades eliciting the continuing resentment at the imposed 1960 independencearrangements and their feeling, at some level, that here was the internationalcommunity trying to push them around yet again.
Following the results of the April 2004 referendums, Annan saw noprospect of any renewed peace effort. In his report to the Security Council,he ventured that perhaps the Greek Cypriots had not fully understood, forlack of explanation from their leaders, what a federal system involved. Giventhat political equality between the constituent states and sharing power atthe center were inherent to such a system, Annan suggested that they mightcalmly reflect on whether they were really prepared to accept it: Were theyready to share power and prosperity with the Turkish Cypriots in a federalstructure based on political equality? He encouraged the participation of civilsociety as well as political parties in such a reflection.
The Greek Cypriot leader’s angry rebuke of Annan’s report slammedthe door to such a reflection. It was also the start of the demonization of what
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the press—never the UN—called the “Annan Plan.” The Cyprus problem laydormant until the election, in 2008, of a new Greek Cypriot leader, who soonstarted talks with his Turkish Cypriot counterpart. Though the parties madeclear that the talks would be Cypriot-led, a new UN envoy, Alexander Downer,was appointed. Recent comments by the UN Secretary-General and Downer,however cryptic, seem to indicate that in their fifth year the talks are notyielding the desired results.
I n rejecting the plan so sweepingly, the Greek Cypriots have raised doubtsabout whether they can ever accept a federal solution. The Turkish Cypriots
went through a thorough process of self-examination (and re-examinationof the leader who misled them); they unequivocally threw in their lot witha federal solution and rejected the leader. The fact that they later chose arejectionist reflected disappointment at the absence of progress rather thanrepudiation of their acceptance of the plan. But it is unclear where the GreekCypriots stand. It is thus deeply regrettable that, due to their leader’s abruptdismissal of Annan’s suggestion, the opportunity for the Greek Cypriots toreflect on this was truncated. That is the most important unfinished businessof the 1999–2004 process. It is difficult to imagine successful negotiationsuntil it is put to rest.
The Turkish Cypriots were left at the altar by the Greek Cypriot majority,and this situation grew the farther one traveled from the line that currentlydivides the north from the south. The inverse proportion between hostility tothe plan and the proximity of the coastline remains a puzzle to me. There is alsothe demographic factor: younger voters, with little if any emotional attachmentto the north, voted against the plan in significantly higher proportions thantheir elders. This suggests that the chances of a solution will diminish overtime. Also, what about the emotional factors during those turbulent few weeksbefore the referendums? What is their relevance today? Insecurity is by itsnature subjective; it is not based on reality or reason and thus cannot be sweptaway by realistic, rational arguments. How did all these factors interact? In aless febrile atmosphere, could different results have been expected?
We will not know the answer to the above questions until the GreekCypriots go over them again calmly and decide what they want. Political andcivil society leaders have a responsibility to rise above slogans and receivedwisdom, and help their people come to conclusions. Europe, not just the EU,can help. During a recent visit to Kosovo, the High Commissioner of theOrganization for Security and Co-operation in Europe was quoted as sayingthat addressing the past is vital for the prevention of future conflict. Is that notin some way relevant?
Finally, since the accession of the Republic of Cyprus to the EU, a tan-gle of EU-related issues, a new test for future souls wishing to tackle theproblem, has appeared: Turkey (accusing the EU of having reneged on its
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late-April 2004 promise to establish direct trade with the Turkish Cypriots)refuses to allow Republic of Cyprus vessels and aircraft access to its portsand airports; the Republic of Cyprus blocks EU–Turkey accession negotia-tions on all but secondary issues; and France has prevented negotiations onany chapter whose negotiation presupposes that the end result will be fullaccession, as had been agreed by the European Council. Is it safe to assumethat these will fall away once the parties with the support of the Guarantorsagree to a settlement? Could it perhaps be the other way round? Is it reallytolerable to let this tangle of issues linger unresolved? Does Europe reallywant to allow a situation so antithetic to Turkey to fester at a time whenTurkey, astride Europe and Asia Minor, has such a crucial role to play inthe volatile region where it lies? Or should someone be taking on this setof problems as a complex multilateral and multilayered challenge, with aview, as Jean Monnet advocated, to changing the context to make it morefavorable for negotiating a settlement? I do not even want to get into the con-frontation brewing over exploration and exploitation of Eastern Mediterraneanhydrocarbons.
I n conclusion, my reply to the question, Can Cyprus be solved? is a con-ditional yes: Yes, it is possible to solve it, if it can be ascertained with
confidence beforehand that the Greek Cypriot people understand and ac-cept that a settlement with the Turkish Cypriots consists of a bi-zonal, bi-communal federal solution and that this brings with it the political equalityof the Turkish Cypriot constituent state and sharing power for the purposeof federal governance. This has become necessary because the size of theGreek Cypriot rejection of the plan that was put to referendum in 2004 calledinto doubt whether the people can in fact support any proposal based on the1977 and 1979 agreements on which the plan was based. In order to ascer-tain this, Greek Cypriots might look again at Kofi Annan’s 2004 suggestion:Greek Cypriots should hold a soul-searching reflection amongst them to clar-ify convincingly where they stand. If, as I very much hope, they concludethat they can support it, the doubts pursuant to the Greek Cypriot rejec-tion of 2004 will have been dispelled and negotiations can resume in goodfaith and a Greek Cypriot leader need not fear political punishment from hisconstituents.
Should the Greek Cypriots say no, it follows that the only option remain-ing is to negotiate a partition from the Turkish Cypriots, at the end of which,having recognized a separate Turkish Cypriot state and thus leapt beyond theunilateral character of its secession of 1983, the Security Council’s ban onrecognition will be obviated and can be repealed.
Why should the Greek Cypriots go through this? One reason is thatunless they make clear where they stand, no leader will be able to negotiateproperly on their behalf. Annan was ultimately inclined to attribute the size
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of the rejection to the fact that Greek Cypriot voters found themselves witha plan for which they were unprepared, because no one had spelled out forthem what a federal solution meant.
The second reason is that the Greek Cypriots will feel better aboutthemselves if they take the time and make the effort to ponder over thesematters, work out where they stand, and develop some idea of what they canlive with. It would even give them the opportunity to get over the traumatic2004 experience.
The third reason is that an in-depth reflection will provide Greek Cypriotswith an opportunity to correct the portrait of them, which Rauf Denktashpainted over the years. He said many things on that, of course, but onesentence stands out: “The only relationship with the Turkish Cypriots whichthe Greek Cypriots are prepared to entertain is a relationship of domination”;that single sentence encapsulates his view of the problem and why he wasreluctant to come to terms with them. Perhaps Greek Cypriots are not awarethat their powerful rejection led the Turkish Cypriots and many others toview the Greek Cypriots as rejecters of any form of coexistence, while atthe same time, using EU membership to hold them in a vise-like grip thatconstrains their freedom, thus confirming Denktash’s domination narrative.My devout hope is that, reflecting calmly, the Greek Cypriot people will reachthe conclusion that coming to terms with the Turkish Cypriots, in a mannerthat both sides can live with, is desirable and that the agreed bi-zonal, bi-communal federal solution (unwieldy as it may seem for a small island) canprovide a good framework. Denktash obviously did not believe that it could.Greek Cypriots have the chance to prove him wrong.
RECOMMENDED READINGS
United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus. 2004. The Comprehensive Settlement of theCyprus Problem, March.
UN Security Council Document S/2004/437. 2004. Report of the Secretary-General on HisMission of Good Offices in Cyprus, May.
Alvaro de Soto, in his 25-year UN career, mediated the 1992 peace accords to end the 12-year war inEl Salvador and led the 1999–2004 negotiations on Cyprus. He was the chief envoy for the Arab–Israeliconflict from 2005 to 2007. He is a member of the Global Leadership Foundation and a Senior Fellow atthe Ralph Bunche Institute in New York. He teaches conflict resolution at Sciences Po in Paris. E-mail:[email protected]
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