Papadopoulos faces summons

Greek Cypriot president Tassos Papadopoulos may be called as a witness in a libel case in Cyprus. The case concerns allegations in the FT that his former law firm was linked to the illegal transfer of billions of dollars from Belgrade to Cyprus during UN embargoes against Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

The president, the law firm Tassos Papadopoulos & Co and another partner in the firm are suing the FT for libel damages.

Mr Papadopoulos, who in 2002 was leader of the Democratic party and a presidential candidate, was named by the FT as a member of “Cyprus’ close-knit elite”, which “instead of taking measures against Yugoslav sanctions busting facilitated the transactions”. Sanctions-busting is thought to have bankrolled at least two Balkan wars in the 1990s.

According to the articles, Mr Papadopoulos’ law firm registered on the island Yugoslav offshore companies subsequently identified in a UN war crimes report as fronts for money-laundering operations orchestrated by the regime of Slobodan Milosevic. The articles quoted from an interview by Mr Papadopoulos with a Cypriot newspaper in 2002, where he admitted his law office set up the companies but denied money laundering. He further denies any wrongdoing.

The law firm dismisses the FT’s reports as malicious, because of the imputation that the plaintiffs were involved in unlawful activities or were professionals of “questionable ethics”.

Since becoming president, Mr Papadopoulos has left the law firm. But Pavlos Angelides, chief lawyer for the FT, aims to put the head of state on the stand.

The trial has focused on the testimony of Pambos Ioannides, a one-time associate of Mr Papadopoulos.

Mr Ioannides read a deposition, saying one of the law firm’s clients, a Cyprus unit of a Serbian bank, Beogradska, did get cash flown in from its main office in Serbia to help it continue its operations after sanctions began. The Central Bank of Cyprus had verified the cash transfers were legally sound.

“The plaintiffs are not aware that any of their clients...violated any sanctions against Yugoslavia or broke any laws,” he said.

The trial was adjourned.

ECB 'considers impact of reunified Cyprus'

The implications of eventual reunification of Cyprus have been raised as a factor in its suitability for joining the eurozone, according to the Greek finance minister.

The move by the European Central Bank is unusual because of its political implications.

The ECB will next week publish its assessment of Cyprus's bid to join the 13-member currency union on January 1 next year. The European Commission is due to issue a separate report: both are expected to give a green light for membership

But George Alogoskoufis, the Greek finance minister, says he expects the ECB to raise concerns about the implications for Cyprus if the richer, Greek part of the island reunites with the poorer Turkish north.

"The question of what would be the fiscal implications of the reunification of the island was raised by the ECB," said Mr Alogoskoufis, an ally of the Greek Cypriot government in Nicosia.

Such issues are seen as highly political by the Greek Cypriot authorities, who do not recognise the legitimacy of the Turkish-speaking northern administration.

Cypriot officials say the impact of reunification on the island's economy would be minimal because of the relatively small size of the Turkish statelet.

But economists warn that inflation could accelerate because of a "catch-up" effect in wages and prices in the north, while the cost of setting up a federal administration for the reunified island would drive public spending to record levels.

Some Greek Cypriot officials are concerned that if reunification is delayed, the euro may be unofficially adopted in the north, where Cyprus pounds are widely used although the Turkish lira is the official currency.

Cypriot bankers say this would be a risky move by authorities in the north. The benefits to tourism of using the euro would be offset by increased currency risk, as the Turkish Cypriot budget is underpinned by large subsidies from Ankara.

Concerns in Cyprus were raised last month when Peer Steinbrück, German finance minister, said there would be "political implications" if Cyprus joined the euro.

Some in Nicosia feared the European Union intended to make adoption of the euro into a political bargaining chip, with an implied threat to Cyprus that its membership on January 1 could be in danger if it continued to obstruct EU membership with Turkey.

"There would be no legal base for this and it would be a very bad precedent for the eurozone," Mr Alogoskoufis said. However, German officials have told Nicosia Mr Steinbrück's remarks were misunderstood and that it was essential all future applications to join the euro should be taken only on econ-omic grounds.

Cyprus and Malta, both Mediterranean islands, hope to join the euro next year, following Slovenia's accession to the single currency area. The ECB refused to comment on the contents of next week's report.

Britain rejects Turkish Cypriot request for direct flights

Turkish Cypriot President Mehmet Ali Talat has announced that the UK's Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has rejected an application by Turkish Cypriot officials for launching direct flights between Britain and northern Cyprus.

In an interview with Turkish Cypriot daily Kıbrıs Gazetesi that was published yesterday, Talat said the CAA in their response to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) officials argued that launching direct flights between Britain and Turkish Cyprus -- which is recognized only by Ankara -- was legally impossible.
Yet the KKTC authorities, based on earlier consultations with experts in international law, believe that the CAA's argument is not valid. Therefore they are preparing to start legal process before British justice via a leading law office based in Britain, Talat explained, noting that he was "hopeful" of the outcome of this legal process.
Turkish Foreign Ministry officials last year prepared a file on the issue and informed not only London but also other European Union capitals that there was no legal handicap standing in the way of launching direct flights between EU countries and the TRNC.

"Britain should consider the outcome from the steps it is thinking about taking," Foreign Minister George Lillikas was quoted as saying at the time, when he cautioned that any British steps to start direct flights between London and Ercan Airport in Turkish Cyprus would have a negative impact on bilateral ties between Britain and Greek Cyprus. "We hope Britain and other countries will not take any official initiative that will legitimize that [Ercan] airport operating against international law. The opening of Ercan Airport will harm not only bilateral relations but also all of Cyprus," he said, claiming that such a move would lead to a permanent division on the island. British Prime Minister Tony Blair said his country was working on direct flights with northern Cyprus. Blair, a staunch backer of Turkey's EU membership bid, said British officials were consulting international aviation rules to see if direct flights were possible.
At the time, the internationally recognized Greek Cypriot government openly opposed the British move while warning of the consequences of such a step in a veiled threat to London.

ECHR gives historic ruling on TRNC property commision

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled a decision highly important for Turkey and Turkish Cypriots, disposing the case of Xenides-Arestis vs Turkey in favor of the plaintiff.

The ECHR on Thursday concluded the case of Greek Cypriot Xenides-Arestis versus Turkey and recognized the Immovable Properties Compensation Commission established in Turkish Cyprus as an "effective domestic remedy" for Greek Cypriots to apply for property ownership.

The court thus gave the green light to the North's property commission yesterday - despite saying it was not in a position to deliver justice on the case that sparked its existence.

The court ruled for €850, 000 to be paid to Arestis by Turkey and directed the 1.400 of Greek plaintiffs to the Turkish Cyprus property commission.

The Greek Cypriots maintained their claim that the commission is illegal.

Council of Europe sources speaking on the condition of unanimity labeled the ruling as "Turkey's legal victory."

In the verdict, it was claimed that Greek Cypriot national Xenides-Arestis had been prevented from living in her home and having access to, using and enjoying her property since August 1974 following the conduct of military operations in northern Cyprus by Turkey in July and August 1974.

In addition to €850,000 in respect of pecuniary damage, under Article 41 (just satisfaction) of the European Convention on Human Rights, the Court also awarded the applicant €50,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage, and €35,000 for other costs and expenses.

The Court welcomed the steps taken by the Turkish Government in an effort to provide redress for the violations of the applicant’s Convention rights as well as in respect of all similar applications pending before it, a statement from the court said on Thursday.

Architect of 1974 dies

Bulent Ecevit, a resilient leader who served four terms as Turkey’s prime minister in a turbulent era, died yesterday in a hospital in Ankara, the Turkish capital. He was 81.

Mr. Ecevit, who suffered a stroke in May from which he never completely recovered, died of circulatory and respiratory failure, the Gulhane military hospital said.

For much of his political career — almost half a century — Mr. Ecevit was a leftist and a nationalist. An opponent of religious fundamentalism, he helped maintain Turkey’s position as the world’s most secular Muslim country.

During his final years in power, Mr. Ecevit turned away from the leftist that had shaped his career. He abandoned much of his hostility to private enterprise, and, after helping to keep Turkey out of the European Union in the 1970s, he came to believe that integration with the West was a good idea.

In his last term, beginning in 1999, Mr. Ecevit governed in a coalition with a right-wing party. He pursued pro-business policies and maintained Turkey’s status as a faithful NATO member and ally of the United States despite his lifelong scepticism about the sincerity of American commitments to democracy and human rights.

The hardships encountered when he finally embraced market economics to win the European Union’s confidence helped end his political career. With his health failing, his Democratic Left Party lost badly in the country’s 2002 elections, forcing him from office.

Mr. Ecevit was unusual among Turkish politicians in the simplicity of his lifestyle. He was never accused of participating in the corruption that plagues his country’s political and economic life. He was popularly known by the nickname Karaoglan, or Dark Boy, a reference to his black hair and moustache, which he continued to dye despite his advancing age.

After leaving office, he devoted himself to writing.

Bulent Ecevit (pronounced buh-LEHNT EH-jeh-vicht) was born in Istanbul on May 28, 1925. His father was a professor of medicine and his mother one of the first women in Turkey to become a professional painter. He was their only child. He graduated from Robert College in Istanbul, where much of the country’s English-speaking elite has been trained. He later took courses at foreign universities, including Harvard.

Interested in journalism, Mr. Ecevit worked as a press attaché at the Turkish Embassy in London. In the mid-1950s, on a State Department fellowship, he worked at The Winston-Salem Journal and Sentinel in North Carolina. The racism he saw in the South deeply disturbed him.

In a front-page article on Jan. 9, 1955, his last day with the newspaper, he wrote that he had found it strange that the United States should fight oppression in the world while white Americans were “guilty of refusing to drink from the same fountain as the man who has fought on the same front for the same cause; guilty of refusing to travel on the same coach or seat as the man who has been working with equal ardour for a common community; guilty of refusing to pray to God side by side with the man who believes in the same prophet’s teaching.”

After returning to Turkey, he joined the Republican People’s Party, founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic. He was elected to Parliament in 1957.

While establishing a reputation as a rising star on the non-Marxist left, he also worked as an art critic, columnist and newspaper editor. He published several volumes of poetry and translated the works of T. S. Eliot and Rabindranath Tagore.

Mr. Ecevit always considered himself a champion of the underdog, a view that linked his support for American blacks, Palestinians, Turkish workers and the Turkish minority on Cyprus.

His government maintained close ties with Israel, but he denounced Israel’s attacks on refugee camps in 2002 as “genocide.” Criticized for the remark, he said he had meant to accuse both sides.

He allowed American planes to use Turkish bases for their patrols over northern Iraq, but he sympathized with Iraqi civilians, who he said were suffering because of economic sanctions imposed by the United States.

Mr. Ecevit had no such sympathy for Kurds in Turkey, however. He insisted that they were not a minority and for most of his career opposed proposals to legalize education or television broadcasting in the Kurdish language, arguing that such steps would lead to separatism and strife. But in his final term, pressed by the European Union, he became less categorical.

From 1961 to 1965, Mr. Ecevit served as minister of labor, and in 1972 he deposed his mentor, Ismet Inonu, who had been Ataturk’s closest comrade, to take over leadership of the party. The next year he was elected prime minister.

In 1974, Mr. Ecevit ordered Turkish troops to land on Cyprus after the government there was overthrown by militants aligned with the Greek military dictatorship. The island has been divided between ethnically Greek and Turkish sectors ever since.

With the support of labour unions and some leftist groups, Mr. Ecevit served as prime minister twice more during the 1970s. He favored generous social programs, a large government role in the economy and protective tariffs to keep low-priced foreign goods out of Turkey.

Mr. Ecevit’s insular policies and those of his long-time rival, the more conservative Suleyman Demirel, had the effect of sealing Turkey off from many of the intellectual, political and economic trends surging elsewhere. Turkey remained stagnant while underdeveloped countries from Spain to South Korea became more democratic and prospered.

During Mr. Ecevit’s term as prime minister that began in 1978, hardly a day passed without political assassinations and bombings. After he and other political leaders proved unable to control the violence, military officers staged a coup on Sept. 12, 1980, and remained in power for nearly three years.

Mr. Ecevit and other political leaders were jailed after the coup. They were released after a few weeks but banned from politics. In 1981, he was imprisoned again for three months after publishing an article criticizing military rule.

During this period Mr. Ecevit’s wife of Jewish origin, Rahsan Aral, his political partner and fierce defender over many decades, formed the Democratic Left Party on behalf of her husband. She survives him. They had no children.

After Mr. Ecevit was allowed to return to political life in 1987, he and his wife exercised total control over the party. No one could run for office on its ticket or even join it without their approval.

In 1995, he asked his supporters to “make me prime minister once more before I die,” but few believed he would realize that ambition. Scandals tarnished many of the country’s political leaders, however, and Mr. Ecevit emerged unexpectedly as prime minister in 1998.

He had the good fortune to be in office when Abdullah Ocalan, leader of a Kurdish rebellion that devastated south-eastern provinces, was captured in February 1999, just before Mr. Ecevit’s interim government was to face the voters.

The prestige he gained from that arrest led him to victory in the April 1999 election. In his final term, he embraced many ideas he had once abhorred, like the value of free enterprise and close ties to the West. Many of his former supporters were alienated.

He also acknowledged that his earlier opposition to Turkey’s joining the European Union had been a historic error. “It is now understood,” he said, “that there can be no Europe without Turkey and no Turkey without Europe.”

2003, Christofias had trumpeted a big drive for the “propping up of the institutions” of this country, but in practice he has been carrying out a demolition job on them.

The depressing conclusion is that nothing can change in this country, which the European Union now admits was a mistake to allow into its ranks. If there was a union of banana republics, I doubt it would have agreed to grant us membership. Because if the test was political culture and behaviour, we would be living in a pseudo-state rather than the Turkish Cypriots, who are proving to be much more European in their political thinking than us.

Northern Cyprus Property Prices set to Skyrocket following Court Verdict

North Cyprus property prices have been kept under the shadow of the courts. A British Court refused to enforce a judgment which would have forced a British couple to leave their villa in Northern Cyprus.

The Government of Cyprus estimates that there may be 100,000 foreigners living in North Cyprus. Many of these are from Great Britain. The Orams couple has a typical story with an unusual twist.

The Orams spent their life savings building a villa and swimming pool. They bought their property according to the law of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Northern Cyprus was created in 1974 when Turkish troops landed in response to a Greek backed coup attempt.

They heard that someone in Cyprus was planning to sue but they never dreamed that they would be the target. After investing 160,000 British pounds in their dream house they were brought to court by Meletios Apostolides. The British court ruled that a judgment obtained against a British couple which built a villa in North Cyprus could not be enforced in the British courts. Apostiledes was ordered to pay most of the court costs to Linda and David Orams.

In the past few years Northern Cyprus has reaped the rewards of improved relations with the outside world; building projects have sprouted all over with a championship level golf course now nearing completion and a 500+ berth Marina complex commencing building work this year. Properties are especially popular with people from the UK for investment, retirement or holidays. One developer is building a new village.

In addition to traditional villas, one developer has introduced a new concept to Northern Cyprus. Luxury apartments with swimming pools, mini market, exercise room, maintained gardens and club with restaurant and bar.  

Now with this court verdict North Cyprus property prices are expected to start to increase rapidly.

Orams case ends in High Court victory for British couple

The Orams couple who have been fighting a legal battle to keep their holiday home here in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus have won their British High Court battle.

The Court ruled that protocol -10 of the EU Treaty of Accession of the Greek Cypriot Side to the EU meant that the enforcement of the Greek Cypriot Administration judgment could not occur in England.

The reasoning provided by the Learned Judge was that the Protocol was hierarchically superior to any enforcement regulations and that the jurisdiction of the Greek Cypriot Courts did not extend to property located in the Turkish Republic of Cyprus.

The consequences of the judgment is that Mr. and Mrs. Orams having brought property in the TRNC have been protected by the English Courts and EU law from having any compensation ordered by the Greek Cypriot Courts being enforced against them.

The Court also concluded that Mrs. Orams was to be believed when she said that she had insufficient opportunity to prepare a defense before a default judgment was entered against her in the Greek Cypriot Courts.

The Court said that the papers were in Greek, a language that Mrs Orams did not understand and that the judgment of the Greek Cypriot Court should not be recognized.                                     

The judgment of the British High Court is seen as a total vindication of the Orams’ position and is a substantial victory in a battle by them to maintain and retain their home in the TRNC and England.

The judgment also allows others in the same position to invest in the TRNC without the threat of enforcement of judgments rendered in South Cyprus.

The judge gave Mr Apostolides, who was not in court, permission to appeal.

He also ordered that he should pay 75% of the Orams' £863,000 costs, with an interim payment of £150,000 - although £75,000 of that will be stayed, pending appeal.

The remaining £75,000 has to be paid within 28 days.

Speaking to the press after today’s verdict, Mrs. Linda Orams  said she was very happy with the court’s decision but added that this not mean that they had reached the end and that this was the beginning of a long road.

Explaining that she and her husband had complete faith in the British justice system and the European Union, Mrs. Oram expressed confidence that they will win the second appeal as well.               

She also thanked the Turkish Cypriot and British people for their overwhelming support throughout the hearing.        Answering a question on whether or not Cherie Blair had used her influence as wife of Tony Blair-the British Prime Minister to win the case, Mrs. Orams expressed the belief that Mrs. Blair had applied to no such tactics to win the case.

“She just used her deep knowledge and experience on human rights law” she added.

The British couple was defended by a group of six-lawyers with the participation of Cherie Blair.

Meanwhile, Lawyers defending the property rights of the Orams family will arrive in the Republic tomorrow and hold a press conference to explain their point of view on the verdict.

Linda and David Orams were taken to the Court in South Cyprus by the Greek Cypriot Administration with the pretext that the couple built a house on the land in the TRNC formerly owned by Greek Cypriot refugee Meletis Apostolides.

President Talat Meets With Pakıstanı President Musharraf

President Mehmet Ali Talat met with Pakistani President Perzev Musharraf at his Presidential Palace, Aiwan-e Sadr. President Talat was in Islamabad on an official invitation by President Musharraf.

During the meeting, which lasted for about an hour, President Talat and Pakistani President Musharraf discussed relations and cooperation between the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and Pakistan. The two leaders also discussed possible joint ventures mainly in the fields of tourism, education and industry.

President Talat told Musharraf about the latest developments in Cyprus and then thanked him for his invitation, and the support given to the Turkish Cypriots by Pakistan.

Pakistani President Musharraf said Pakistan is supporting the policy of lifting the isolations of Turkish Cypriots. He added that Pakistan is ready to help efforts to find a permanent solution to the Cyprus problem and reiterated that Pakistan will be supporting Turkish Cypriots under every condition.

TRNC President Presents Massa's Award

President of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), Mehmet Ali Talat presented first-time winner Felipe Massa of Ferrari with the first-place trophy at the Istanbul Grand Prix.

For the first time in the history of Formula 1, the winner’s trophy was presented by representative of a country other than the host country.

This was reportedly the idea of Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodities Exchanges (TOBB) Chairman Rifat Hisarciklioglu.

After discussing the subject with the Turkish Foreign Ministry, Hisarciklioglu spoke to Formula 1 Boss Bernie Ecclestone by phone and managed to persuade him.

The idea was also supported by chairman of the Istanbul Chamber of Trade, Murat Yalcintas.

Concerned that certain parties might attempt to block the move, Hisarciklioglu said the authorities chose not to announce it sooner, adding “This is an important opportunity for the recognition of TRNC among 203 countries in diplomatic terms.”

F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone asked Hisarciklioglu who was to present the award and the TOBB Chairman responded by saying “The presenter of the trophy for first place is not certain, but I will present the award for second place and the third place trophy will be given by Murat Yalcintas.”

Ecclestone reportedly objected to Hisarcklioglu’s announcement that “TRNC leader Talat will present the award” on race day.

In the Formula 1 races, the winning pilot’s award is traditionally presented by an official of the host country.

Ecclestone also opposed to the idea on grounds that TRNC is not internationally recognized.

The F1 boss was convinced thanks to Hisarciklioglu, and the award was eventually presented by Talat.

Talat appeared on television screens across 203 countries that broadcast the race with the subtitle “TRNC President” appearing on the TV screen.

The nearly 2 billion people watching the race tuned in to watch the award ceremony.

TOBB Chairman Rifat Hisarciklioglu revealed that Talat’s presenting Massa’s award was his own idea, which he did not disclose to Talat nor Formula 1 authorities until the day of the race in order to prevent any conflict or attempts to block it.

Elaborating on the issue, the TOBB chairman had reportedly invited Talat to attend the race as Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan had announced on Tuesday that he would not be able to attend as official state business coincided with the event.

“I planned for Talat to present the award but I did not reveal my plan. I did not even tell him. If I had revealed this, politics would interfere and cause conflict. We concealed the plan until the race was underway,” Hisarciklioglu said, and added that he proposed the idea to Talat at the start of the race.

“It is possible if you wish, but I don’t wish to inconvenience you or cause trouble,” Talat replied.

Citing that Formula 1 authorities wanted them to determine the presenter one night prior to the race, Hisarciklioglu said “it is not certain who will join the ceremony from the protocol.”

Hisarciklioglu said they informed Formula 1 authorities that Talat would present the award at the start of the race.

The rate of inflation for last month rose by 1.6 percent.

The figure was announced by the State Planning Organisation which said that the inflation for the year ending July, has reached to 13.5 percent. The Organization also noted that the highest rise was recorded in the price of lemon which increased by 156.4 %, while the biggest drop was recorded in the prices of vegetables and fruits during the last month.

Meanwhile, the main opposition National Unity Party (UBP) has criticized the government for last week’s sharp rise in fuel prices. The Public Sector Workers’ Union – KAMU SEN has joined other trade unions in protesting the increase. In a written statement today, the UBP Leader Huseyin Ozgurgun said that the latest increase in the price of fuel and liquid petroleum gas will lead to a rise in the price of other goods and services, lowering the consumers’ purchasing-power.

Reminding that there was a drop of about 30 percent in the value of the Turkish Lira against hard currencies recently, the UBP leader accused the Republican Turkish Party-Democrat Party coalition government of doing nothing to reduce the impact of this situation on the people. He called on the government to engage in dialogue with trade unions towards that end. The Public Sector Workers’ Union - Kamu-Sen held a protest in front of the Prime Minister’s Office today to protest the rise in fuel prices.

Union members left a black wreath in front of the building in protest.

Oram's Trial gets hearing in high court

In the final day of the high court hearing Lord Justice Jack decided to deliberate a decision for September of this year after being able to fully review the case. A source claimed that the decision will depend on if the judge sees fit whether under EU law a decision passed by a Greek Cypriot court in the TRNC can be then used in a UK court in the absence of being able to exercise its rule.  In defence of the Oram’s, Cherie Blair QC and top human rights lawyer said that the realities of the island meant that by de facto now the island had two separate entities and that a ruling against the Oram’s  would put 200 000 Turkish Cypriots and 80 000 in the UK at risk of losing their homes. It was impossible to implement this ruling and that the EU had no jurisprudence in an area outside its territory. The case will be reviewed and a decision announced sometime in September of this year.

Mrs Cherie Booth argued that according to the EU law, the court judgement of an EU country (in this case RC) cannot be carried out in a country where the aquis communiqué is suspended (in this case TRNC) by the EU and the enforcement of the judgement would in fact conflict with EU Regulations and the Independence of the UK Court and therefore asked the judge to decline the enforcement of the judgement.

She explained that TRNC is not a recognised country but it is not a lawless state either, giving the recent tfl case in London as an example.

She reminded the court again that the land in dispute is situated in a country where the RC has no effective control and emphasised that according to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the enforcement of the judgement requires the state to have an effective control.

She reminded the court also that the enforcement of the judgement would be contrary to the EU law and the UK would be breaching the “Treaty of Accession” and the protocol of the section 1 of the Community Law.

Mrs Booth also argued that the Court in Cyprus adopted Default Proceedings and obtained a Default Judgement which can not be enforced in the UK High Court.

Mrs Booth finally emphasised that the case is not an individual matter: She explained that there are 80,000 Turkish Cypriots living in the UK, 200,000 in TRNC, 800,000 GCs living in Cyprus and therefore, the case will have a wider implication and asked the judge to set aside the case.

The judge told the court that:

He would reserve his judgement,

The appeal requires a number of questions in the law,

The case is important for everyone and not just for the parts involved,

The case will go to a council for a draft,

He did not know when the decision will be made available but confirmed that it will take time.

No hotel for Greek Cypriot rep in Baku


Greek Cypriot Ambassador to Moscow, Leonidas Pantelides, met with frustration on a trip he took two days ago to the Azerbayjianian capital of Baku to attempt to block decisions made in support of Northern Cyprus at a meeting of Islamic Conference Organization (IKO) foreign ministers. Pantelides was reportedly unable to receive a hotel room in Baku, and spent the night going between bars, restaurants, and the streets of the capital.

According to sources in Turkey, Ankara had known that the Greek Cypriots would be sending a representative to the IKO meeting, and had contacted Baku authorities to ask that the Greek Cypriot representative be blocked from the meeting.

When in fact the Greek Cypriot authority did send Pantelides, the Azeri leadership told him that they would not extend accreditation to him for the IKO conference, and that all the hotels in the capital were full.

At a previous IKO conference in Yemen, a Greek Cypriot ambassador did succeed in entering into proceedings, even attempting to participate in a commemorative group photograph, though he was discovered by the Turkish delegation at the last moment.

Meanwhile, one of the results from the IKO conference in regards to Northern Cyprus was a firm proclamation in support of the entity, with a stress on the necessity of lifting current isolationary blockades on the northern side of the island.

Oram's Case given date at London High Court

ON THE anniversary of the 20^th of July the day the Turkish army invaded Cyprus, the London High Court will deliver its final judgment on the controversial Orams case, which is expected to have an enormous effect on the future of Greek Cypriot refugee properties in the TRNC

Lawyer Constantis Candounas, who has asked the High Court to enforce a decision by a Cypriot court ordering David and Linda Orams from Hove, Sussex, to return land property to his client Meletis Apostolides, said the trial had been set for July 18, 19 and 20.

The action, under an EU regime making possible the enforcement of court decisions of one member state in the courts of another, was filed on December 21, 2005 and, besides being the first of its kind in the UK, it became even more controversial when the Orams retained the legal services of Cherie Blair QC, wife of the British Prime Minister.

Candounas told The Cyprus Weekly that he attended a hearing at the High Court with the Orams’ solicitors on March 1, 2006, during which the Court gave instructions for Apostolides’ expert witnesses to submit their evidence by March 29.

The Orams were to reply within a week, which they did, and then the lawyers of both sides were given two weeks to meet together.

Not easy

Greek Cypriot newspaper, ‘The Cyprus Weekly’ asked if the date coinciding with the 32nd Turkish invasion anniversary carried any special significance, Candounas said it was very fortunate that they could get such an early date.

He explained that it was not easy to find a time slot suiting the lawyers of the two sides and the High Court judges.

Cherie Blair tried to get a postponement until Linda Orams’ appeal to the Cyprus Supreme Court against the ruling of the court of first instance was heard, but the High Court rejected this, as it could have taken as long as a year to 18 months.

Leading the UK legal team for Meletis Apostolides against Cherie Blair and other lawyers from the Matrix Chambers, will be Thomas Beazley QC, of Blackstone Chambers, with Simon Congdon of Holmans Fenwick Willan Solicitors and another QC from Brickstone Chambers.

Unaware Linda and David Orams claimed they had bought Apostolides’ property in Lapta, near Kyrenia, in good faith from a Turkish Cypriot without being aware of the legal and political implications and build a luxury villa there.

The Greek Cypriot controlled Nicosia District Court ordered them to demolish the villa and return the property to its rightful owner. In the face of the Orams’ refusal to comply with the decision and being unable to enforce it because of the Greek Cypriot law is unenforcible in the TRNC, Apostolides can ask to have the judgment executed against the Orams’ UK property.

The British High Court will not review the merits of the case but will decide on matters of procedure and public policy.

The development has slowed down the arbitrary sale of Greek Cypriot refugee properties in the TRNC, mainly to UK nationals, which had reached alarming proportions.

It would be no exaggeration to say that the High Court decision will seal the fate of the Greek Cypriot refugee properties either way.

ON THE anniversary of the 20^th of July Peace Keeping Operation by Turkey, the London High Court will deliver its final judgment on the controversial Orams case, which is expected to have an enormous effect on the future of Greek Cypriot refugee properties in the occupied areas.

Lawyer Constantis Candounas, who has asked the High Court to enforce a decision by a Cypriot court ordering David and Linda Orams from Hove, Sussex, to return land property to his client Meletis Apostolides, said the trial had been set for July 18, 19 and 20.

The action, under an EU regime making possible the enforcement of court decisions of one member state in the courts of another, was filed on December 21, 2005 and, besides being the first of its kind in the UK, it became even more controversial when the Orams retained the legal services of Cherie Blair QC, wife of the British Prime Minister.

Candounas told The Cyprus Weekly that he attended a hearing at the High Court with the Orams’ solicitors on March 1, 2006, during which the Court gave instructions for Apostolides’ expert witnesses to submit their evidence by March 29.

The Orams were to reply within a week, which they did, and then the lawyers of both sides were given two weeks to meet together.

Prime Minister dispels rumours

Prime Minister Ferdi Sabit Soyer dispelled the rumours that the “construction sector was dying” and said that property sales to overseas was showing a regular trend.

Prime Minister Soyer addressing the MPs today during the general assembly meeting gave number about the transactions that took place on the property sales to the foreigners.

He said in the year 2000 there was 228, in 2001:309, in 2002:591, in 2003:955, in 2004:2827, in 2005:1571 and in the first few months of 2006 there were 300 applications by the foreigners for purchasing property in TRNC.

As for the transactions that have actually taken place Prime Minister Soyer said, in 2000:114, in 2001:231,  in 2002:130, in 2003:425, in 2004:249, in 2005:667 and in 2006 267 foreigners bought property in the north.

Soyer said there was no slowing down in the property sales to the foreigners and that it displayed a consistent regular trend. He said the rumours that say “construction industry had died” did not reflect the actual situation, nevertheless he said there were more and more people that were entering in to the real state business therefore market was being divided.

He acknowledged the problems faced by the estate agencies and development companies and said new regulations would be prepared to answer their problems.

Prime Minister Soyer laid stress upon that, whoever bought property in the north was under the guarantor of the government. 

Prime Minister Soyer also gave assurances that, after the proposed moratorium by the Greek Cypriot administration on “disallowing sale of the Greek Cypriot properties that was left in the north back in 1974”  was rejected by the European Commission it could not be brought up in any other EU platform

Labour MP Andy votes against Turkish Cypriot interests

Human rights group Embargoed! today released details of the meeting they had with North London MP Andy Love on Friday 31 March following his signing of Early Day Motion (EDM) 1792, which seeks to undermine the politically equality of Turkish Cypriots and to remove the United Nations from its role as principal facilitator in the Cyprus Conflict. During the meeting, Mr. Love conceded his support for this badly worded EDM would offend Turkish Cypriots, and he further shocked the group when he admitted the EDM had been drawn up by the Cypriot High Commissioner in London. However, Mr. Love refused to withdraw his signature and maintained his actions and approach to the complicated Cyprus problem was “balanced”.

Embargoed! were extremely disappointed with the response they received from MP Andy Love, whose Edmonton (UK) constituency contains a large number of both Greek and Turkish Cypriots. Whilst highly knowledgeable on Cyprus, the group felt Mr. Love’s comments, as summarised below, indicated a high level of bias towards Greek Cypriot concerns and interests:

* While Mr Love demonstrated understanding of the root causes of the Cyprus Conflict and the impact of 42 years of embargoes on Turkish Cypriots, he showed little concern for the fact that signing this EDM would further undermine the rights of the Turkish Cypriot people and encourage the intransigent stance of Greek Cypriot leader Mr. Papadopoulos.

* Mr. Love believed it was not for him to challenge the status of the internationally recognised, wholly Greek Cypriot controlled Republic of Cyprus or to support the political equality of Turkish Cypriots (who in December 1963 were forced out of Government by Greek Cypriots and relegated to a “community” status), hence his signing of EDM 1792, which he says “reflects the position of the international community on Cyprus”. All this despite the fact this approach undermines the UN’s commitment and efforts towards a bi-zonal, bi-communal solution for Cyprus.

* Mr. Love was against the visit of UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to North Cyprus and his meeting with Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat as it had caused him massive problems [with his Greek Cypriot constituents].

* Mr. Love felt more sympathy is needed towards the Greek Cypriots who for decades have been regarded as the sole victims on the island, enjoying international support and the economic monopoly on the island at the expense of Turkish Cypriots, but are now struggling to come to terms with the international backlash following their “no” vote to the UN Annan Plan for a comprehensive settlement in 2004. He stated that Greek Cypriots also feel they have conceded enough towards the “minority” Turkish Cypriots (a stance which even undermines the 1960 Constitution – albeit frozen – of Cyprus).

Dr. Fusun Nadiri, one of the Embargoed! delegation to meet with Andy Love, said, “We asked Mr. Love why he doesn’t ‘do the right thing and show more balance in his actions on Cyprus’? His response was that ‘if he had not signed the EDM he would upset lots of people’. Clearly, he is more concerned about Greek Cypriot votes than basic Turkish Cypriot human rights!” She continued, “Embargoed! intend to continue the dialogue we’ve started with MP Andy Love so we can help him develop a more positive and helpful position on Cyprus that respects the equal traditions of both communities.”

In addition to Dr. Fusun Nadiri, the Embargoed! delegation meeting MP Andy Love comprised Ipek Ozerim (Embargoed! Campaigns and Communications Officer), Ata Cholak and Halil Aras (Embargoed! members). The meeting was facilitated by local Labour Councillor Ahmet Karahasan, who was also in attendance. The meeting took place at the MP’s Edmonton surgery in Fore Street and lasted for about 1.5 hours. 

COMMENTARY

Cyprus’s risky stalemate

Fred Halliday

The blockage of political progress in Cyprus since 2004 only freezes the island's unresolved question, says Fred Halliday

On the three-and-a-half-hour flight eastwards from Rome to Larnaca, I re-immerse myself in the details of the "Cyprus question". As I read again the half-truths, self-indulgent rhetoric and bogus history that accompany most discussion of the island's modern politics and its associated massacres and invasions, my heart sinks and uneasy memories return.

Also in open Democracy on the politics of Cyprus:Alex Rondos, "Cyprus: the price of rejection" (22 April 2004)The last time I had been in Cyprus was in July 1974, on holiday but in time to have a ringside view of the dramatic events of that time: the growing tension on the island as the Greek nationalist right sought, with the help of the military junta in Athens, to undermine Archbishop (and president) Makarios; the dramatic events on that Monday morning of 15 July when I went to buy fresh yoghurt at the village shop to find the owners in tears and the radio announcing that Makarios was dead; the realisation that a fascist coup had taken place, but that Makarios was alive and that his people were resisting; the days of tightening military control, the arrest by a group of paramilitaries of the socialists from the Edek party who were holding their summer school in the hotel next door. In Nicosia itself there was chaos at the airport, but all seemed sure that the Turks would not attack: "the Russians will make sure it never happens", I was told.

On the morning of Saturday 20 July, there was the sound in Nicosia of artillery shells being fired from nearby and the sight of Turkish paratroopers, their parachutes like puffs of smoke across the dawn sky, dropping on the northern part of Nicosia. Messages on the BBC World Service instructed us to assemble at the Hilton hotel, from where we were evacuated to a British base in the south of the island, then in transport planes to somewhere in Wiltshire.

Much leftwing analysis of these events exaggerates United States responsibility in identifying the hidden hand of a US-inspired conspiracy masterminded by then secretary of state Henry Kissinger, a reprise of the coup in Chile in September 1973. In any event, and somewhat in contrast to Chile, Cyprus gradually slipped from the news. (Years later, at a Royal Institute of International Affairs meeting in London, I told the visiting Bülent Ecevit - the Turkish prime minister who ordered the 1974 invasion - that, in addition to the other burdens of history he carried, he had also once interrupted my breakfast...)

The crossing-place

The 1974 crisis indeed marked the most dramatic turning-point in the history of the Cyprus question. It led to the occupation of 40% of the island by Turkish troops and - in effect, and despite the proclamation in 1983 of a "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus", the annexation of this area to Turkey. It also involved what, two decades later in the context of disintegrating Yugoslavia, would be termed "ethnic cleansing", the forced reallocation of population into a wholly (with a marginal exception in the northeast of the island) Turkish north and wholly Greek south, and the establishment of a militarised frontier between the Greek and Turkish regions.

Both sides share responsibility for the outcome (not forgetting the British colonial inheritance that allowed the "question" to be posed at all). If the Turks certainly acted without justification in occupying as much of the island as they did and in remaining intransigent for so many years thereafter, the Greeks are also to blame for provoking the crisis in the first place, and for years of indulgent calls for enosis (union with Greece) from the 1950s onwards.

In the ensuing decades many attempts were made to overcome this partition, with the aim of restoring the unity of Cyprus (even minimally) as a single state with common citizenship, and of finding a means of resolving the many property disputes and personal abuses on both sides that accompanied the 1974 events and which political and religious leaders have done much to keep alive.

In April 2003 it seemed as if a breakthrough had finally been achieved, following a change of policy in Ankara by the Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (Justice & Development Party / AKP) government (elected in November 2002), and the emergence within the Turkish Cypriot community of a new leadership under prime minister (later president) Mehmet Ali Talat that was more flexible than the previously unbending one associated with Rauf Denktash. When the Turks unilaterally (and to the great surprise of many) opened the frontier, tens of thousands of Greek Cypriots drove north to visit the towns and properties they had once known, and later visited the casinos of the north that have no counterpart on the Greek side; at the same time, many Turkish Cypriots, who remained under Cypriot law citizens of the once united island, found work in the south and, reclaiming citizenship, took advantage of health and other facilities available to them there.

Many Greek Cypriots I met said they they refused to make the trip, as it would mean having a foreign state, in this case Turkey, stamp their passport on the territory of their own country; but they nonetheless welcomed the reduction of tension and the new mingling of populations, albeit on only a daily basis, that had followed. At a slower pace, but with broadly positive intent, the Greek Cypriot government removed some of the guard-posts and other obstacles erected in 1974 along the "green line" through the heart of Nicosia itself. Most surprisingly, given the violence and bitterness of the past, and some lethal incidents in the years prior to 2003, there have been no serious incidents of conflict of any kind reported since then in either the north or south of the island.

Today the crossing at the checkpoint in central Nicosia beside the restored Ledra Palace hotel is a relaxed, even somewhat surreal, affair: a desultory guard on the Greek side checks your papers, you then walk a few hundred metres along a dusty road that skirts the old Venetian defensive walls of the city on the right, and the hotel (alongside a United Nations building) on the left; once around the corner, you encounter a Turkish guard beside a few faded propaganda posters. Apart from the odd tourist, many of those trudging between frontier-posts are Turkish Cypriots who have been on shopping visits in the south. There is little sign of military occupation, or menace, at least on this sunny weekend afternoon. This is not Panmunjom, the Allenby Bridge or cold-war-era Friedrichstrasse.

The referendum switchback

The optimism generated by the opening of the frontiers in 2003 was compounded by the decision of the European Union to agree to the accession of Cyprus to the EU. It was expected that in return for this agreement, both sides would make concessions: the Greeks to ensure that the entry actually took place, the Turks to ensure that their part of the island was given access to the benefits of European Union membership, and that flexibility on their part would help in the overall negotiations with Brussels on Turkish entry to the EU.

Moreover, responding with renewed diplomatic enthusiasm to events in Cyprus, the United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan sought in a series of meetings inside the island and at international venues to broker an agreement between the two communities. This would have restored a confederal Cyprus, reduced the level of Turkish and Greek forces on the island, provided a mechanism for settling property and other issues arising from 1974 and given all the citizens of the island access to the European Union. A major obstacle to Turkish entry into the EU, an irritant in relations between the Islamic and western worlds, and one of the last remaining intractable conflicts in Europe, would have been resolved.

The international community, i.e. the EU and the UN, certainly believed things were going well. It was widely assumed that everyone involved would come to their senses: the incentives were simply too great. But such optimism was to hit the rocks of political reality, within the island and within the two externally involved states: when it was put to a referendum in both parts of the island in April 2004, the Annan plan was rejected by a great majority of Greeks, even as it was supported by a majority of Turkish Cypriots.

The manner of the Greek rejection was another example (if one were needed) of the folly, self-indulgence and international irresponsibility of nationalist politics. Greek Cypriot leaders wilfully and frenetically misrepresented the terms of the Annan proposals; Greek Orthodox bishops piled in with menacing sermons; the Greek press engaged in weeks of invective and scaremongering; soldiers doing their military service were simply ordered to vote no. But pride of place for irresponsibility and mendacity must go to the president of Cyprus, Tassos Papadopoulos, a conservative politician with a less than stellar record over inter-ethnic violence who had long opposed UN reconciliation efforts and. His speech calling for a "no" vote, delivered just before the referendum, was a masterpiece of ingenuousness.

The Greek refusal

The underlying reasons for the Greek rejection, however, require closer attention and are of a more substantial character. The veteran socialist politician and leader of Edek, Vassos Lyssarides - one of the Greek Cypriot politicians who always sought to include Turks in his party - gave me a detailed account of the ways in which he found the agreement unworkable. In a discussion at his home, whose front door is still marked by bullet-marks from the 1974 events, he told me that the UN negotiating process (involving closed meetings between top officials) failed to bring Greek Cypriot opinion with it; and that the effort to raise support for the proposal referendum process was hampered by the distribution to voters of an unwieldy and unreadable volume documenting the statements and laws.

Greek Cypriots also objected to the fact that the agreement would have left large numbers of Turkish troops on the island, that immigrant from mainland Turkey since 1974 and who did not count as Cypriot citizens could stay, and that the process for settling property disputes and compensation was protracted and almost certainly unworkable.

However, beneath these specific points, and all alarmism and distortion apart, were three other important and deeply embedded factors.

First, while in recent years the Turks have been much more reasonable than the Greeks, and deserve support from Europe for this, Ankara simply waited too long, left it too late, in effect three decades, before making serious concessions to the Greek side.

Second, and equally on the negative side, was the issue of insecurity, the sense that the Turkish army could, if included within any unitary agreement, occupy the whole of the island, and that, in effect, the Greek Cypriots were safer inside the EU and with the Turks remaining outside.

Third, on the incentive side, the fact that the Greek part of Cyprus has, since 1974, and with the integration of tens of thousands of Greeks who fled the north, become a much more prosperous country, enriched by tourism, services, and, at least until EU membership imposed tighter controls, the inflow of large quantities of questionable Russian money.

Many Turkish Cypriots feel increasingly uneasy in their own region, and resent the newly arrived central Anatolian and other immigrants. An informed local observer, whose own landlord lives in north London, tells me that about half of all Turkish Cypriots live outside the country. As any visitor can see, the north is much poorer than the south. There are far fewer ATMs and no Starbucks, in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. By the same token, it is safe to walk the streets at night.

The cost of illusion

The international consequences of the Greek "no" vote are serious indeed (see Alex Rondos, "Cyprus: the price of rejection", 22 April 2004). In the years, decades, perhaps centuries to come it may be seen as one of the decisive moments in that short-sighted, and bigoted, European rejection of the middle east and of the Muslim world that will lead to centuries of conflict. It is will certainly not be counted as the only such event. The French and Dutch votes on the European constitution were equally problematic, and the Islamic world plays its own due part in this mutual incomprehension: yet as an act of parochial self-indulgence, the Greek Cypriot vote of April 2004 has few equals.

The Cyprus question has come to embitter Turkish negotiations with the EU and to be one of those questions - along with treatment of the Kurds and recognition of the Armenian genocide - which are used by opponents of Turkish accession to block progress. Yet while on the latter two issues the Turkish case is indeed a weak one, and open to much criticism, the use of the Cyprus issue and the Annan plan's failure against Turkey is partisan: a one-sided campaign by the Greek Cypriots, a complacent government in Athens and other European states (with France in the lead) that has little justification. For whatever else Ankara can be blamed, Cyprus is not a leading item on the list.

In the aftermath of the April 2004 rejection, the island therefore remains divided; the Turkish mood has hardened; and the diplomats and well-wishers of the international community will require a lot of reassurance to spend even more time and credit to get involved once again in the affairs of Cyprus. The Greek Cypriots cling to the idea that the world will in the end come to them and on their terms.

The Nicosia press is full of stories about new international initiatives. When I asked a Nicosia taxi-driver what he thought of Tony Blair, he regaled me with a stinging denunciation. Blair, he told me, was a "complete failure". Why? Not because of Iraq or any such triviality. "The man never set foot in Cyprus", he told me, "and he never came up with new proposals...on the Cyprus question". Needless to say, this same taxi-driver told me that the whole Turkish invasion of 1974 was organised by the British and that captured British pilots flying Turkish planes had been captured.

The expectations of a major new international initiative may prove illusory, not least because of impending parliamentary elections in Greece (16 September 2007 - unless delayed by the fallout of the forest-fire disaster) and presidential elections in Cyprus itself (8 February 2008) that are sharpening the political atmosphere in both countries. But the apparently more realistic view, echoed in much international coverage of the island, may also prove to be unfounded: that Cyprus in effect has been partitioned, and that the situation of today will now last, with a partially independent Greek protectorate in the south, and an almost wholly dependent Turkish colony in the north.

An unstable stability

In some ways the change of heart in Turkey under the AKP and the increased contacts between the two communities on the island itself do mark a significant and welcome step forward. However, the Cyprus situation is rarely straightforward, and the path ahead is unlikely to be smooth. This was brought home to me in discussion with an astute former Greek Cypriot diplomat I first met in 1974. He had voted "yes" in the 2004 referendum, but, as he put it, "only when I was sure it would lose". As he argued, the situation in Cyprus is in some respects unstable:

Turkey and Greece have far from settled their overall regional rivalry, which can flare up at any time, as the death of a Greek air-force pilot in a mock dogfight over the Aegean sea in May 2006 demonstrated

the mood of nationalist self-assertion in Turkey may have consequences for Cyprus (as it may, for different reasons, in northern Iraq)

international (United Nations), European and bilateral (United States, United Kingdom) capacity for controlling local events and the actions of their local allies is less than ever.

Meanwhile, and on the island itself, with the initiative perhaps passing to a new generation of more nationalist politicians, there has since 2003 (and probably will continue to be) almost no progress on the practical issues of property, compensation, territorial readjustment and commercial freedom of movement. Some see hope in the fact that Dimitris Christofias, the leader of Akel, the Greek Cypriot communist party, has now broken with Papadopoulos and has announced he will run for president in the next Cypriot elections; but no one can be sure this is more than a tactical gambit, and in any case Akel itself has sunk (its progressive veneer notwithstanding) into a mire of clientilism and dogmatic verbiage such that few can believe it is capable of taking a decisive initiative.

To students of other inter-ethnic and regional disputes - from Kosovo to the post-Soviet "frozen conflicts", this may sound all too familiar. In Cyprus too, the risks that remain, not least those caused by neglect and diplomatic complacency, may be as great.

Turkey, Cyprus and the European Division

Rebecca Bryant

More than three years after the opening of the ceasefire line that divides Cyprus, the island is closer than ever to rupture. When the Green Line first opened in April 2003, there was an initial period of euphoria, as Cypriots flooded in both directions to visit homes and neighbors left unwillingly behind almost three decades before. But a year later, when a UN plan to reunite the island came to referendum, new divisions emerged. While Turkish Cypriots voted in favor of the plan, their Greek Cypriot compatriots rejected it in overwhelming numbers. Visits stalled, and today social relations are mired in an increasingly divisive politics. Recent polls indicate that more Cypriots on both sides of the line favor partition than reunification, while Turkish Cypriots are anxious about a spate of lawsuits over property that they occupied when the island was divided. They perceive these suits as a direct threat to their existence in the absence of an acceptable plan for reunification.

Moreover, in the absence of such a plan, Cyprus has become a key obstacle in Turkey’s bid to join the European Union. Only a week after the fateful referendum in 2004, the Greek-controlled Republic of Cyprus itself joined the EU, and immediately began using its membership to put pressure on Turkey. Indeed, the prospect of doing so was one of the main reasons that Greek Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos gave for rejecting the UN reunification plan. Today, the stumbling block is the question of whether Turkey will “recognize” the Republic by opening its ports to ships bearing the Republic of Cyprus flag. The Turkish government has clearly stated that it will open ports only when the economic isolation of Turkish-majority northern Cyprus ends—something promised by the EU after the referendum but never delivered. Turkey had put its full weight behind the reunification plan, which would have ensured the withdrawal of Turkish troops from the northern part of the island. Indeed, the Turkish government was eager to be rid of the Cyprus problem, but subsequent events have shown that it will not be rid of it at all costs.

Contrary to what many analysts expected and hoped for so long, the bumbling entry of the European Union into the Cyprus equation has produced only an insoluble tangle. Local actors now use their access to EU legal and political mechanisms to threaten, bluff and bully their way into a future that looks more and more like partition. Turkey’s journey toward the EU may run aground on Cyprus’ shores. And as usual, it is Turkish Cypriots who are caught in between, unable to rid themselves of Turkey’s presence and unable to have their own political presence recognized by their Greek compatriots.

UNITE AND DIVIDE

Not long after the referendum, a Greek Cypriot refugee told me something that seemed boldly to summarize the growing mood in the south. Like many refugees, she refuses to cross the ceasefire line to visit her home in the north, saying that she will not be a tourist in her own country. But it soon became clear that her refusal meant something very specific in political terms. Such refugees desire a full return to their villages and the recreation of their communities -- something that would not have been allowed under the UN reunification plan. But the plan was only the latest instantiation of the idea of a federal government uniting two, ethnic states, an idea to which the Republic has paid lip service for more than 30 years. The refugee woman’s position, however, was clear: “Either we will return to the 1960 constitution and all refugees will go back to their homes, or we’ll continue to live in our dreams.” In other words, there would either be a unitary state in which Turkish Cypriots would return to their status as a minority, or, in her words, a wall should be built to keep them apart.

Internally displaced persons and their descendants make up about a third of the Greek Cypriot population and so constitute the single most important interest group in the south. Moreover, many refugees are closely tied to the refugee organizations that sprang up around lost villages and towns to fill the gap created by the loss of their communities. Not surprisingly, refugees were the key group to which much propaganda was addressed during the period leading up to the referendum. During that time, minute calculations of land to be regained and numbers of refugees to return eclipsed serious discussion of a federal state or the process of reconciliation. It became clear that there were many contradictions in the Republic’s stance on reunification, the most obvious being an avowal of support for a federal state while at the same time insisting on the absolute return of all displaced persons to their original homes.  

Indeed, in all its actions since, the Republic has made it increasingly clear that a federal state simply is not on the agenda. Interestingly, it is actually EU membership that has allowed the Republic to take this stance, enabling them directly to pressure Turkey without having to negotiate with Turkish Cypriots. In a November 2006 interview with the Turkish Cypriot Kıbrıs-TV, Greek Cypriot Minister of Foreign Relations Yiorgos Lillikas reiterated that the only interlocutor the Republic of Cyprus will recognize is Turkey. Indeed, until a brief meeting in July 2006, Papadopoulos had refused since the referendum to meet with his Turkish Cypriot counterpart, Mehmet Ali Talat, on these grounds. “Look, the Cyprus problem is becoming more and more confused every day,” Lillikas remarked. “We say, our interlocutor on this subject is not Mr. Talat, it’s Turkey. But because neither Talat nor Turkey accepts this, we’re constantly experiencing differences of opinion.” 

The Republic insists that it is really Turkey that controls what happens, and that Talat is an insignificant player. But the Republic also operates with a limited understanding of Turkish politics or of the complex relation between Turkey and its de facto colony in northern Cyprus. At the height of his power and popularity, former Turkish Cypriot president Rauf Denktaş was known for his ability to make or break governments in Turkey. The 1974 Cyprus intervention is a matter of Turkish national pride, and the recent rebellion of Turkish Cypriots against their “protectors” has soured relations, leading many Turks to call their Cypriot counterparts ungrateful. After sweeping to power in 2002 elections, the Justice and Development Party adopted a surprisingly compromising stance on Cyprus. While this softened line was initially unpopular, the demise of Denktaş and the rise in Cyprus of a party that seeks freedom from Turkish colonial rule has shaken popular attitudes toward the problem.  

What it has not shaken, however, is the refusal to be blackmailed. In July 2006, the Justice and Development Party published a booklet entitled “The European Union in One Hundred Questions.” The primary aim of the booklet seems to have been to dispel fears that EU requirements would divide the country or that the government would bow to demands that would damage national “honor.” Its stance on the recognition of the Republic is clear: “In the present circumstances Turkey cannot recognize the Greek administration of Cyprus under the name the Republic of Cyprus. Political recognition will come only when a comprehensive solution to the Cyprus problem can be found.” The Republic and its EU allies appear to believe that the Turkish government is simply bluffing and that it would not rebuff the chance at EU membership. Unfortunately, things are not as simple as that.

In the past, US support for the Turkish military overlooked that military’s anti-democratic tendencies in favor of its supposedly secularist ones. When Turkey’s EU candidacy became a real possibility, the support of another power besides the US became a balance that enabled the development of a stronger democracy in the country, one that might make the military answerable to the government rather than the other way around. But European support for Turkey’s candidacy has been wavering and contradictory, and many Turks now believe that the EU will simply continue to erect new hurdles before an ever receding finish line. Many Turkish analysts agree that giving in to the Republic of Cyprus’ demands will accomplish nothing, because new demands will appear to take their place. Turks recognize, moreover, that the Republic’s hardline approach conveniently dovetails with the desires of extremists in the EU to exclude Turkey at all costs.  

One of the unfortunate costs has been the shattering of political stability in Turkey, as the Cyprus problem becomes a wedge to drive in further divisions. In the summer of 2005, a middle-aged Turkish Cypriot woman hinted to me that she is an ülkücü, a word that literally means “idealist” but has come to connote members of a wide coalition of fringe, fascist-nationalist organizations based in Turkey that also have supporters in Cyprus. The most famous of such supporters is Denktaş, known for his association with the Gray Wolves, an organization infamous for its use of violence and provocation. When the Turkish Cypriot woman discussed her involvement in the larger web of ülkücü politics, she also angrily threatened that they would never allow the Turkish government to “sell out” Cyprus. Indeed, she hinted that they would go so far as to overthrow the Turkish government to prevent it.  

Although her threat appeared toothless at the time, such threats from the periphery nevertheless produce a sense of disquiet. Indeed, provocations in Turkey over the next months appeared to have links to Turkish nationalists in Cyprus. The assassination in May 2006 of a High Court judge in Ankara, originally blamed on Islamists, eventually was linked to one Muzaffer Tekin, a retired army officer with ties both to radical organizations in northern Cyprus and the Turkish “deep state” -- the term used for a nexus of military officers, police chiefs and far-right paramilitary groups existing in parallel to the official Turkish state. The assassination marked the crest of a wave of radical dissatisfaction with the Justice and Development Party government, known for its neo-liberal policies, its desire for integration into Europe and its Islamist past. And many analysts link the January 2007 assassination of respected Armenian Turkish journalist Hrant Dink to the isolationism and rising nationalism that European attitudes have produced. That nationalism was fueled by a recent EU decision to freeze segments of Turkey’s admission negotiations after the country’s refusal to open its ports to Nicosia’s ships. Although Turkish Cypriots themselves have largely stayed out of the fray, Cyprus has again come to the fore as a symbol of all that Turkey stands to lose as it stumbles westward.

Support among the Turkish public for EU membership has now fallen to an all-time low, in part because of the ways in which the EU allows the Republic of Cyprus to use its membership. But it should be no surprise that the same EU that allowed a divided Cyprus to enter as a political anomaly is now using that anomaly to put obstacles in the way of Turkey’s EU bid.

LAWFARE IN THE NEW CYPRUS

After the opening of the Green Line, many Turkish Cypriots traveled to the south to claim advantages available to them as technical citizens of the Republic.  Many acquired EU passports, while others began to work or to use the south’s better-equipped medical facilities. Still others sent their children to the English School, an institution established in the early British colonial period that was intended to quell nationalist fervor by producing an elite that would be loyal to the Crown. Ironically, many politicians who played an important role in the island’s division, including Denktaş and former Greek Cypriot president Glafkos Clerides, emerged from that school.

The school has a history of producing graduates who have gone on to study in the best universities in Britain and who have subsequently become community leaders. It should not be surprising, then, that almost 70 Turkish Cypriot families chose to send their children to the school, as soon as they gained access. As with all such gestures, this was heralded as a step in the direction of bicommunal harmony and reconciliation, and by all reports students in the school managed well together until an incident in early December that shocked and worried both communities.

Although reports are contradictory, it appears that a 12-year old Turkish Cypriot boy took offense when he saw a Greek classmate wearing a cross. Reportedly, they argued, possibly fought, and the Turkish Cypriot boy became angry and spat on the ground. The right-wing Greek Cypriot newspapers Simerini and Machi printed inflammatory stories claiming that the Turkish boy spat on the cross and that the school implemented a ban on religious symbols. The furor that resulted culminated when about 20 masked Greek Cypriot youths dressed in black entered the school from outside and attacked five Turkish Cypriot boys. The boys’ Greek classmates intervened and little serious damage was done, but the shock has rippled throughout the island. Reports linked the youths to neo-Orthodox fascist organizations with ties to Greece and names such as “Golden Dawn” (Chrisi Avgi). Such organizations have been increasingly visible since the opening of the Green Line, so far with only isolated incidents involving Turkish Cypriots.

At the same time, many Cypriots discuss the rise of these organizations and the English School incident as the predictable outcome of policies that have divided the communities since the ceasefire line opened. The most divisive of such policies has been the Republic’s implicit and explicit sanction of lawsuits over property that have created much ill will between the communities. In November 2004, the decision of one Greek Cypriot refugee to bring a lawsuit against a British couple who had built a villa on his property in the north sparked a series of such cases that also encompassed Turkish Cypriots. Soon Turkish Cypriots opened their own suits, mostly for the expropriation of their properties by the government in the south. Ironically, it was the open Green Line and the Republic’s EU entry that allowed this litigation to take place, since decisions may be appealed to European courts and enforced by EU law, if enforcement remains impossible in Cyprus. Not surprisingly, the Greek Cypriot refugee won his case against the British couple, and that case has now been remanded to Britain, where he hopes to seize the couple’s property there.

Only a few days before the English School incident, President Papadopoulos announced the passage of a law that criminalizes the sale of Greek Cypriot property in the north, in the unrecognized Turkish Cypriot state. Following the division of the island in 1974, Turkish Cypriots had settled in abandoned Greek Cypriot properties, and the government in the north eventually issued titles that allowed them to sell those properties. Now such sales have become criminal offenses, subject to five years in prison. The use of such legal mechanisms, encouraged and made possible by the Republic’s EU membership, is an instance of what has come to be known as “lawfare,” or the continuation of conflict by legal means. Clearly, that legal battle is escalating.

Although President Papadopoulos dismissed the November attack on the Turkish Cypriot boys as the work of “brainless thugs,” Turkish Cypriot president Talat saw it as a natural outcome of Papadopoulos’ own policies. “Whatever face you show to your people, that’s how they’ll behave,” Talat noted in an address that month. “If you design a law that includes Turkish Cypriots living in Greek property, and if you declare that Turkish Cypriots are criminals and say that you’re going to put them in jail, how would you expect the Greek Cypriot people to behave?”

The escalation of tensions has everyone on edge, waiting for an explosion. Only a day after the English School incident, Turkish Cypriots crossing to the south reported that Greek Cypriot police at the ceasefire line refused to accept their identity cards from the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, insisting that they would be able to cross only with Republic of Cyprus identity cards. Many Turkish Cypriots had acquired those cards, along with EU passports, when the ceasefire line opened; others refused to do so on principle.  By the following day, this “policy” had changed, and Turkish Cypriots were able to cross. Unfortunately, it is precisely such whims that in the past have proven so divisive.

EXTREME MAKEOVER?

What has become strikingly clear in all of this is that the political use of EU membership has only encouraged the rise of a militant nationalism that leaves no room for compromises such as federation. Before the opening of the Green Line, many activists and analysts still hoped for the development of a multicultural, civic nationalism in the island that would entail loyalty to a federal state. But at a recent conference on nationalism in Nicosia, a number of Cypriot scholars openly discussed the demise of Greek and Turkish nationalisms in the island and the emergence of Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot nationalisms that express identification with the island while rejecting its cultural or political unity. Certainly, the communities are divided by the interests that those loyalties serve, and by the ways in which the transnational configuration of the EU has given new impetus to local longings.

In Turkish folk literature, the clownish Nasrettin Hoca is a staple figure, and there are hundreds of stories and anecdotes about his misguided foolishness. In one such story, Nasrettin Hoca finds a stork, whose beak and legs he proceeds to amputate in order to make it resemble a “real” bird. The phrase, “Kuşa benzettım” (“I made it look like a bird”) refers to the ways in which one may destroy something with one’s good intentions.  

The stumbling of the EU into the Cyprus morass unfortunately calls to mind the stork’s sad story. The island has certainly become a more and more European “bird,” with a booming economy in the south and all the superficial signs of “Europeanness,” such as Gucci boutiques and chic outdoor cafés. Turkish Cypriots, too, have benefited, especially economically and educationally, if at a slower pace than their wealthier, recognized neighbors. But there has been much lost politically. In contrast to the years prior to the Republic’s EU entry, Greek Cypriot politicians have now begun to proclaim that they will not “give up” the Republic, despite previous avowals to support a federal solution that would have dissolved it. Even Turkish Cypriots, who had supported a federal solution, appear to be drawing back from it, retreating into a protection of what is already in hand.  That retreat also by necessity entangles Turkey, whose troops in the island are the only thing giving Turkish Cypriots a position from which to bargain. And so one can only wonder what sort of “bird” the island may resemble when its makeover is complete.

A Dangerous Trend in Cyprus

Rebecca Bryant

In late April 2004, voters in Cyprus went to the polls to pass judgment on a plan offered by the United Nations that held out the hope of ending over 30 years of conflict. The plan, bearing the name of Secretary-General Kofi Annan, would have reunified the island that has been divided since 1974, when a Greek-sponsored coup aimed at uniting the island with Greece provoked Turkish military intervention. The breakaway Turkish administration declared itself the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in 1983, but the Greek-controlled Republic of Cyprus remains the internationally recognized government of the island. Annan and European chanceries put their weight behind the reunification measure, hoping that its acceptance would pave the way for a united Cyprus to enter the European Union on its May 1 accession date. But while a majority of Turkish Cypriots voted yes, Greek Cypriots—in larger numbers—voted no.

One year after the referendum, Cyprus is undergoing new and potentially dangerous transformations. Greek Cypriots rejected the UN plan in the belief that European Union membership would give them a stronger position from which to negotiate a better deal. So far, EU membership has brought them little besides ill will from Europe. What their rejection has wrought in the island is a new period of inter-communal mistrust, along with rising nationalism in the majority-Greek south.

Denktaş Redux

On April 17, 2005, Turkish Cypriots went to the polls again in the final phase of a revolution that over the past two years led to the opening of checkpoints along the divided island’s ceasefire line and mobilization in support of the Annan Plan. Turkish Cypriots elected as their new president long-time opposition leader Mehmet Ali Talat, who in 2004 led the campaign in favor of the UN scheme. After 22 years in office, hardline President Rauf Denktaş, known for his determination to keep Turkish and Greek Cypriots apart, did not even bother to run. But the ouster of Denktaş—seemingly a momentous event—aroused little joy, as northerners watch Greek Cypriot obstacles to a solution appearing to mount daily. At 70 percent, the voter turnout was the lowest in the north’s history.

Indeed, despite Talat’s significant victory with 55 percent of the vote, Turkish Cypriots are dispirited and worried in the face of an uncompromising Republic of Cyprus led by a hardliner who appears in no danger of being ousted. Greek Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos has rejected Annan’s call to submit in writing Greek Cypriot requests for revisions to the plan rejected in the 2004 referendum. He has refused to engage in dialogue with Turkish Cypriot leaders and instead is using his new position as president of an EU country to put pressure on Turkey, the EU’s most controversial candidate for entry. In lieu of a negotiated settlement, the government now appears to encourage the use of individual mechanisms for compensating owners of property lost in the 1974 fighting that led to the island’s division, including using courts both in Cyprus and in Europe. This strategy promises to institute a new regime of legal tangles that may not be easily undone at the negotiating table.

What is most apparent in this new approach is that the Republic’s current government is determined to ignore Turkish Cypriots as political actors. That was clear at the time of the referendum and has become more obvious as the leadership of the Republic has evaded invitations to the negotiating table. But one would not expect Papadopoulos to be particularly concerned to include Turkish Cypriots, given his history. Only days after Talat’s election, the Greek Cypriot newspaper Alitheia created a stir when it publicized that journalist Makarios Dhroushiotis had documented in his latest book a secret plan proposed by Papadopoulos to the Greek army in 1964.[1] The plan provided for the complete annihilation of all Turkish Cypriot civilians within 75 minutes in the event of an impending Turkish invasion. Fortunately, Papadopoulos’ Greek military superiors rejected the idea. This revelation surprised no one, but it led many Turkish Cypriots to ask if perhaps Papadopoulos’ present strategy might not be a slower, more effective version of the same plan.[2]

All of this seems to recall a period that many thought had passed, when Rauf Denktaş turned up his nose at opportunities for dialogue, insisting on the independence and sovereignty of his unrecognized state. Moreover, rather than rejecting their rejectionist leader, Greek Cypriots have, since the referendum, called for solidarity in the face of world pressure. While the wave that brought Talat to power has sent ripples through Turkey and Greece, those effects seem to stop at the ceasefire line that still cuts Cyprus in two. Or, as a Turkish Cypriot postal worker put it, “We’ve had our revolution in the north. Now we have to start one in the south.”

Conspiracy Theories Die Hard

Not long ago, right-wing parties in northern Cyprus canvassed the villages with checkbooks and trucks filled with children’s shoes and pressure cookers. Getting services, jobs or promotions depended on one’s party affiliation. It is generally known that those close to Denktaş were favored in the post-1974 distribution of property left behind by Greek Cypriots fleeing southward. One leftist says that such “moneyism,” rather than nationalism, is still very much in evidence. Denktaş-style rejectionism fell out of fashion after the checkpoints opened; when better-off Greeks began to visit the north and patronize Turkish establishments, some of the nationalists went with the flow. “Those same people who ran around with a flag when Denktaş told them to,” the leftist says, “danced on the tables when the Greeks came over with all their money.”

In such an environment, it is not surprising that Turkish Cypriots should be cynical and prone to conspiracy theories. Nor should it be surprising that they were anxious to throw off ties to Turkey. The overwhelming presence of Turkish troops; the opening of the island to Turkish settlers and workers; the use of Cyprus for the Turkish black market, including drugs, gambling, prostitution and human trafficking; and the use by local politicians of ties with Turkey led many Turkish Cypriots to sour upon a power whose intervention they had once desired. Turkish Cypriots unable to find work were leaving the island, while poor Turks were arriving in droves. Denktaş infamously remarked that “the ones leaving are Turks, the ones coming are Turks,” suggesting that it made no difference whether they were from Cyprus or Trabzon. This remark is still repeated by Turkish Cypriots with a certain wry amusement today. The result was a rebellion against a local regime whose main political tactics seemed to be bribery and threat.

But while the main slogans of the Turkish Cypriots’ revolution reviled the Turkish occupation of their island, events began to take a different turn. By the end of 2002, Turkey was no longer the same old Turkey, and the new Justice and Development Party was eager to resolve problems in Cyprus to clear the way for its own EU accession bid. Meanwhile, the opening of the checkpoints in April 2003 made it clear that the reunification of the island would not be as simple as long-lost siblings embracing. Turkish Cypriots had prepared to rebel against Turkey if necessary, and it was something of a denouement when it turned out that the new Turkish government was as anxious to be rid of the Cyprus problem as Cypriots were to be rid of the “motherland.” The real surprise came when Greek Cypriots, who had always declared themselves ready for a solution, were caught off guard at the transformation of the subject of their propaganda into a real possibility. As one Turkish Cypriot researcher recently phrased it, “Because of Turkey we began to feel ourselves to be Cypriots. But now, because of the Greeks, we’ve become Turks again.”

One misconception common in the south is that the key to a solution is simply pressuring Turkey. Greek Cypriots are aided in this misconception by an interesting coalition of far left and far right in the north, who have united in the claim that the revolution that ousted Denktaş and brought Talat to power must be orchestrated by foreign powers, whether Turkey or the US. The absurdities of this situation become apparent when one realizes that the far-right, ultra-nationalist Greek Cypriot newspaper Simerini favors the far-left, ultraradical Turkish Cypriot newspaper Afrika as its source of information about the north. The latter insists that the current government in the north is only a puppet of Turkey, confirming for nationalists in the south that Turkish Cypriots have no political will of their own, are at the mercy of Turkey, and should be politically and economically strangled for their own good.

The reality is that while Turkey’s cooperation is certainly necessary for any solution to the Cyprus problem, Turkey could not force a solution on Turkish Cypriots. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyıp Erdoğan, recognizing this situation, has repeatedly invited Cypriot leaders to the negotiating table. In the south, Erdoğan’s call is seen as evasion, and Papadopoulos now threatens to erect barriers for Turkey at every step of its EU accession process. These threats are hailed in the south as a sort of David-and-Goliath battle. Unfortunately, the only possible results of this legal gamesmanship are either the Republic’s own further isolation from other EU countries or Turkey’s withdrawal from the EU process. Seemingly, these are both results that the Republic should not want, especially after years of insisting that Turkey should conform to EU norms. But it seems that these days the view from the moral high ground has grown a bit cloudy.

Preparing the People

These developments are disheartening for an island that only two years ago experienced the excitement of long-closed checkpoints opening, allowing Cypriots to visit their former homes. There was an initial enthusiasm, replete with emotional reunions with former neighbors in villages left unwillingly behind. But interestingly, it seems that one of the primary reasons for Greek Cypriots to reject the Annan Plan was the realization in very concrete ways that life simply would never be as it once was. What Greek Cypriot civil society leaders now repeat time and again is that the Annan Plan failed because there was no time “to prepare the people.” That preparation would have been as much psychological as political, “preparing” them to accept a new reality that for 30 years had never been part of their horizon of possibility.

A year ago, not long before the fateful referendum, I had the opportunity to return with a Greek Cypriot couple to their former village and to act as interpreter as the Greek Cypriot woman visited for the first time since 1974 the house where she was born and grew up. She had fled the village without a chance to look back, “without even a handkerchief,” as she says. A family from a village outside Ankara now lives in her childhood home, persuaded to immigrate by their son, who was wounded during the Turkish invasion of the island. The Turkish family acquired the property from the government, sold all their land in their former village and invested in the house that they now fear losing.

Many Greek Cypriots despised the Annan Plan because it appeared to legalize this sort of plunder. But the real irony of the plan is that it would have allowed both the Greek Cypriot couple who desire to return to their village and the Turkish family now living in their house to remain neighbors in a new sort of community that many have had difficulty imagining. The plan called for a bizonal, federal state in which property issues would have been resolved through restitution or compensation and a limited number of Greek Cypriots would have returned to their homes. Although it would have returned to the Republic of Cyprus many villages that before 1974 were primarily Greek, the plan also would have allowed large numbers of Turkish immigrants to remain in the island. As a result, the dream of recreating their communities that has sustained Greek Cypriot refugees for 30 years would have been sacrificed to a realpolitik that appears to many cynically to disregard the demands of what Greek Cypriots call “justice.”

The use of abstract, supposedly universal principles for culturally specific aims has a long history in the Greek Cypriot community. The dream of uniting the island with Greece was, even in the early part of the twentieth century, expressed in terms of abstract principles of “justice.” In the 1950s, Greek Cypriots expressed that dream in terms of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Greek Cypriots understood this as their majoritarian right, even though Turkish Cypriots perceived the demand for union with Greece as what Tocqueville called the “tyranny of the majority.” Since the division of the island in 1974, the only “just” solution for Greek Cypriots has been one that would expel the Turkish army and ensure an absolute return to their homes and the reconstitution of their communities.

The Annan Plan guaranteed none of that, and as a result, it was, for most Greek Cypriots, unjust. Much of what appeared to overtake Greek Cypriots prior to the referendum was a sort of self-righteousness about compromising such principles. In early May, when Papadopoulos reiterated that “no hardship, pressure or threat can force me to sign a settlement that will undermine the present and future of my country,” many saw him as sticking by the principles that have shaped the community for decades.[3] At the same time, such a principle of “justice” helps explain why the same Greek Cypriots who rejected a plan that would have provided them compensation for their lost property are now seeking that same compensation in courts of law.

Moreover, at a psychological level, large numbers of Greek Cypriots have found themselves caught between the moral demand that they remember and the pragmatic demand that they forget. Institutions of memory that have permeated life in the south for 30 years have been aimed at the constant reliving of trauma, rather than at overcoming it. Refugee organizations, committees of relatives of missing persons and even political parties all develop, sustain or symbolize narratives that produce what historian Dominick LaCapra calls a historical “acting-out,” or a compulsive repetition of the site of trauma.[4] Indeed, compulsive “acting-out” has been the dominant mode of historical engagement in Cyprus for more than 30 years. At the same time, people have, by necessity, gone on with their lives, creating contradictions that only became apparent after the opening of the checkpoints, when refugees returned to their villages and realized that the past was gone. The Annan Plan forced into full public view the heretical idea that nothing would ever return to the way it once was.

In this situation, it should not be surprising that Greek Cypriots are now having some trouble articulating exactly what they want from a solution. It should also not be surprising that all official efforts in the past year involve not dialogue with their Turkish Cypriot compatriots but the use of legal mechanisms gained by their new position as members of the EU. For those who believe that the only “just” solution is a full restitution of everything lost, taking the problem to a court of law seems the natural next step.

The Spoils of War

In the past few years, the north has sprouted a real estate agency on every corner, many foreign or with foreign ties. Indeed, since the introduction of the Annan Plan, northern Cyprus has experienced a property boom. Because the plan would have provided everyone who has invested in property with compensation, foreigners no longer afraid of losing their investments in the event of a settlement have begun to snatch up property in the highly desirable, heretofore undeveloped north. Turkish Cypriots appalled by the construction’s effects on the environment nevertheless shrug that as long as they are under embargo, they do not have many choices. If they cannot export goods, they can at least import buyers.

This development boom has created an even greater property tangle than the one that previously existed, when the essential problem was that of Turkish Cypriots and Turkish settlers living in former Greek Cypriot property, with a smaller number of Greek Cypriots living in Turkish Cypriot property left in the south. Now not only are foreigners being issued unrecognized titles to land in an unrecognized state, but Greek Cypriots are finding their dreams of return cluttered with bulldozers and bungalow complexes.

Much of the tangle of the current state of affairs is reflected in what has come to be known as “the Orams case,” after an English couple by that name. When Meletis Apostolides returned to his village of Lapithos, now in Turkish northern Cyprus, and found that the Orams had built a villa in what used to be his garden, he decided to take the couple to court in the Greek Cypriot south. Not surprisingly, he won the case, which demanded that the villa be demolished and compensation paid. The case is currently under appeal, but many are waiting to see what the EU will do about the unanimous decision of the parliament of the Republic of Cyprus demanding that the EU extradite EU citizens such as the Orams. Of course, many frightened foreigners now await the final results of the Orams case and others like it.

Moreover, since the opening of the checkpoints and the Republic’s entry into the EU, the south has come into possession of much more information about northern Cyprus and Turkish Cypriots than it previously could access. The Republic, in its claim to be the single government of the entire island, has always recognized Turkish Cypriots as its citizens. So when the checkpoints opened, large numbers of Turkish Cypriots, desperate for easier ways to travel, immediately crossed to receive their identity cards and passports from the Republic. Former Turkish Cypriot president Denktaş called those acquiring Republic of Cyprus identity cards traitors, though he later took a more pragmatic view of the issue when his own grandson became a Republic of Cyprus passport-holder.

At the end of April, the first lawsuit against a Turkish Cypriot for use of Greek Cypriot property was brought against a restauranteur in Famagusta, using information obtained when he applied for an identity card in the south. Because of the open checkpoints, Greek Cypriot officials were able to bring the summons to the restauranteur’s front door. In a move that appears to encourage such suits, the Republic recently passed a law giving a two-year prison sentence to anyone who occupies the property of a citizen of the Republic without the legal owner’s permission. With its two-year prison sentence, the law was intended to meet the EU criteria for extradition. Although the law’s author, Androulla Vassiliou, claims that the law was not addressed to Turkish Cypriots,[5] the first four arrest warrants, issued in early May, included three Turkish Cypriots.[6] Now, hundreds of lawsuits to be brought by Greek Cypriots against their Turkish compatriots are reportedly queued in the courts of the Republic, with others pending in the European Court of Human Rights. Because Greek Cypriots cannot sue a government that they do not recognize, they have resorted to suing individuals.

In the north, those individuals able to be sued constitute about 80 percent of the population. Many Turkish Cypriots originally from the north had their property destroyed when they fled their villages in 1963­1964; when they returned more than a decade later, they settled in Greek Cypriot houses. Many other Turkish Cypriots came from villages in the south, and the government in the north issued them Greek Cypriot housing. Most Turkish Cypriots at the time were too war-weary to think much about the legal consequences. As one woman put it, “I had three children and a baby in my arms. We had lived in a tent for eleven years. All I could think about was having a roof over my head.”

Many Turkish Cypriots visiting their former homes in the south report that the homes are now either rubble or have been flooded by dams or made into shopping malls, hotels and parking lots. If the Republic succeeds in implementing the extradition plan, Turkish Cypriots convicted in the Republic’s courts will no longer be able either to cross to the south or to set foot on European soil without risk of arrest. For some there are ominous reminders in all this of the period between 1963 and 1974, when Turkish Cypriots were forced into enclaves but encouraged to emigrate by the then Greek-controlled Republic, which many report offered them plane tickets and passports. Much of the construction boom in the north, and especially its sales to foreigners, bears an unfortunate resemblance to stripping bare a sinking ship.

There is now some talk of Turkish Cypriots initiating their own lawsuits, but some reports say that the Republic is blocking information for Turkish Cypriots wishing to sue for compensation for their own property in the south. The disappointment for many is that the Annan Plan had promised to rescue Turkish Cypriots from a life built on spoils and from the tenuousness of an existence in which all aspects of life are “so-called” and dubiously legal. Now they are faced with the possible creation of a legal, de facto “solution” that would stand in the way of a true political one.

“We just have too many lawyers,” commented one Greek Cypriot activist, “and we’ve all been trained to think of the legal side of things. We have to start thinking of the human side.” But that human side may also be changing. One Turkish Cypriot mukhtar recently put it rather simply: “We gave lives in the name of all of this. For them [Greek Cypriots], it was more a matter of losing property.” While the mukhtar’s comment in no way reflects the reality of Greek Cypriot losses, it certainly reflects a perception that seems to be growing in momentum among Turkish Cypriots today: namely, that Greek Cypriots want it all, and they will sell their compatriots up the river to get it.

In this atmosphere, it is not surprising that even Turkish Cypriots who a year ago voted in favor of a plan that would have brought Greek Cypriots into their communities now say that they do not want them there. We want a solution, they say, but not one that brings them back. For Greek Cypriots now asking what they lost in voting against the Annan Plan, this should be an important answer.

The Pieces of Peace

When Papadopoulos declared in his pre-referendum speech that “I took over an internationally recognized state. I am not going to hand over ‘a community,’” it was difficult at the time to imagine the resonance that that statement would have among Greek Cypriots.[7] In fact, it may have surprised some Greek Cypriots to realize that they had developed a loyalty to the republic that they had never wanted. The Greek Cypriot anti-colonial fight had been the only one in the world aimed not at independence but at annexation to another country. “The flag of the Republic of Cyprus is the best in the world,” former President Glafcos Clerides once remarked, “because it’s the only one that no one would die for.” Yet many Greek Cypriots apparently discovered a loyalty to the Republic when they felt under threat of losing it. What the Republic now guarantees them is a political voice of their own and a legal weapon with which to fight for the justice that they believe the Annan Plan denied them. Giving up their status as the only recognized government of the island would mean giving up their chances of getting anything more.

Overwhelming rejection of the Annan Plan and the belief in the impending success of legal mechanisms appears to be emboldening individuals in a trend that many see can only lead to conflict. During the Easter holiday, many Greek Cypriots crossed to the north to visit their former homes and villages. Among them was a group of refugees from the village of Karmi, formerly an entirely Greek village and now a quaint community of foreigners who have restored the village houses on long-term leases. Foreign residents in the north have borne the brunt of Greek Cypriot ire since the checkpoints opened, and Karmi, as a foreign enclave, has reportedly experienced more than most. When a Greek Cypriot woman entered the garden of her father’s coffee shop to pick flowers, she was stopped by policemen called in by the current resident. She and her companions were arrested for trespassing, detained overnight and released with a fine.

On both sides, it seems, good will is wearing thin. Indeed, the specter of Greek Cypriot officials turning up at one’s door with summons or eviction notices has led many people openly to declare that they will not go out without a fight. In the wake of these new and dangerous developments, Turkish Cypriot parties and newspapers that were a year ago in the forefront of the peace movement and support of the Annan Plan now openly say that Turkish Cypriots are under no obligation to unite with the south. Certainly, if matters continue to move in this direction, the reclosing of the ceasefire line that divides the island seems to be only a matter of time.