This article appeared in the Jerusalem Post on-line on 8 June 2021
The UN’s enthusiastic support for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian dispute is well attested, but there is a certain two-state solution that the UN resolutely refuses to endorse. Cyprus has been split apart politically ever since 1974, when Turkey invaded from the north, seized nearly 40 percent of the land, and set up a self-styled Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Its legitimacy has never been accepted by the UN, nor any international organization or country other than Turkey itself, nor has its demand that Cyprus be split into two states.
Turkey’s invasion of Cyprus and its illegal annexation of territory has a direct parallel with the unhappy history of the West Bank and East Jerusalem – indeed, Turkey’s action might have been based on it. In 1948 Jordanian forces attacked the newly-born Jewish state and seized the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In 1950 Jordan annexed them – a move not recognized by the UN or the Arab League, nor by any countries except the UK and Pakistan. When in 1967 Israel succeeded in regaining control of them, it would have been logical for the UN to applaud Israel for liberating illegally acquired territories. They did not seem to see it that way.
As for Cyprus, when the EU
decided in 1996 to admit the whole of the country, with or without a resolution
of its enforced partition, Turkey tried for a while to demand a two-state
solution. When that failed, it finally agreed to participate in UN-sponsored
talks focused on reuniting the people of Cyprus into a single, if bicommunal,
nation. This idea was the basis of a
plan proposed in 2004 by then UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan. Put to the people of Cyprus in a referendum, though,
it signally failed to gain the support of Greek Cypriots since it would have
involved a tacit recognition of Turkish aggression. Some two-thirds of Greek voters rejected the
plan. The same percentage of Turkish
voters supported it.
Cyprus is an issue that
the UN cannot leave alone. Another
international attempt to resolve the partition dilemma was made toward the end
of April 2021. At the initiative of UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres, the
two principals and the three guarantor powers – Britain, Turkey and Greece –
met in Geneva with reunification very much in mind. Ersin Tatar, recently elected president of
Turkish Cyprus, pretty much doomed this round of talks from the start.
“We are negotiating for a two-state solution," he announced, as the talks began. But a two-state deal would have to involve recognizing the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus – something the UN and the Greek Cypriots had resolutely refused to do for nearly 50 years.
So the talks ended in
failure. In his closing statement Guterres
said: “"Unfortunately today we are not able to reach the agreements that
we would wish to reach. But we are not
going to give up." The United
Nations, he said, would make a fresh attempt in "probably two or three
months".
“Cypriotism” is a
vibrant aspect of Cypriot political life. It envisions a freestanding Cypriot
nation independent of the motherlands Greece and Turkey. The idea of reunifying the divided country
is expressed in the slogan: “Cyprus is neither Greek nor Turkish; it belongs to
the Cypriots.” That concept is
increasingly popular among the young, and especially so in the Turkish
north. Many resent the overwhelming
influence that Turkey exercises over their lives. They see it as a threat to their unique
secular culture.
Over the years Turkish
Cypriots have blown hot and cold over reunification. On two occasions attempts to achieve it were actually
promoted by Turkish leaders: by Mehmet Ali Talat, elected northern president in
2005, and by Mustafa Akinci elected in 2015. Although both efforts came to
nothing, in 2016 success seemed only a hand’s breadth away.
Akincı’s counterpart,
Nicolis Anastasiades, president of the Cyprus Republic, was the only Greek
Cypriot leader who supported the Annan Plan. He, like Akinci, was born in the
southern city of Limassol. “Mr
Anastasiades and I are of the same generation,” said Akinci after his election.
“If we can’t solve this now, then the next generations, who lack memories of
living together with the other community, could be tempted to explore other
options and permanent divorce could be on the table.”
Akıncı and
Anastasiades immediately started intercommunal talks under UN patronage,
building upon their close personal relationship. The talks progressed rapidly, and
Cypriots saw the two leaders having coffee either side of the buffer zone that
separates the two communities. They appeared on TV together to send a holiday
message in Turkish and Greek.
In June 2016, Akıncı
said negotiations leading to reunification were almost completed and might be
finalized at the next meeting. He was too optimistic. Time had run out. New elections were looming, and Anastasiades
had to pull back from his identification with his Turkish counterpart. This became clear during a summit on Cypriot
reunification held in Switzerland that July under the patronage of the UN and
the EU. The talks collapsed, and were never
resumed. The pendulum had swung.
In October 2020 Turkish
Cypriots elected as president Ersin Tatar, whose campaign message had been
that the concept of a unified Cyprus in the shape of a bicommunal federation
had had its day. Instead, said Tatar, two states was the solution; Cyprus should
be permanently partitioned.
His position accords
with the geopolitical aspirations of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The discovery in 2010 of the Leviathan gas field off Israel, and of Cyprus’s
gas field in 2015, has fostered an agreement between Israel, Greece and Cyprus to
build a 1,900-km pipeline distributing natural gas to Europe, bypassing
Turkey. Erdogan wants to develop a Trans-Anatolian pipeline to deliver
natural gas from Azerbaijan to Europe. However, Azerbaijani gas reserves
are not sufficient – which explains Erdogan’s claims on those of Cyprus, a
position only sustainable if Turkey retains control of its self-declared
republic.
In the face of Erdogan’s ambitions, Guterres’s continued efforts to achieve the reunification of Cyprus seem unlikely to succeed.
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