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Tassos gets first-hand account of Anastassiades visit to Ankara

By Menelaos Hadjicostis

President Tassos Papadopoulos heard first hand from the Disy leadership of Turkey’s reluctance to make any peace overtures for fear that they are perceived as giving in to Nicosia’s tough stance as Ankara’s European Union “gatekeeper.”

Fresh from his five-day trip to Istanbul and Ankara last week, Disy Chief Nicos Anastassiades briefed Papadopoulos on his contacts with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his top lieutenant, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, and the leadership of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Little was divulged of what was said in the hour-long tete-a-tete and the Presidential Palace’s post-meeting statement was laconic.

But the significance of the statement lay not in the word count, but rather in its  circumspect, if not positive tone, especially when juxtaposed with withering party criticism levelled against Disy for “cosying up” to Turkey’s political masters.

“According to Mr Anastassiades’s briefing, the Disy delegation expressed during its contacts the positions of the majority of National Council parties, as well as the determination and readiness of the Greek Cypriot side for reaching a settlement.

 “The President of the Republic thanked Mr Anastassiades for the briefing and expressed the view that contacts between parties, groups and organisations can contribute to the creation of a climate of trust and a better understanding of either side’s positions,” the statement said.

Anastassiades presented Papadopoulos with the minutes of the Disy delegation’s talks with Gul, Erdogan and AKP chiefs in writing.

Exactly what the document said remains tightly under wraps, but informed sources close to Disy said that the gist of what Papadopoulos heard was Ankara’s “doubts” over what a fresh round of settlement talks would produce.

“The Turks have doubts whether we mean business or not,” the source told The Cyprus Weekly.

Behind the rhetoric that the historic trip - the first by a Greek Cypriot party chief in 42 years at the behest of European People’s Party hopeful AKP - was a solid step forward to building bridges of understanding, the visit’s underlying purpose was to gauge Ankara’s willingness to make tangible confidence-building gestures on the ground.

Disy’s charm offensive intended to melt through Ankara’s self-satisfied front of having earned, in its eyes, some kind of political absolution for doing what it was asked for by embracing the Annan plan.

But the search for insight into whether Ankara was ready to re-engage seemed, on the surface of it, to produce marginal results with Gul insisting that it’s up to the two communities to reach a mutually acceptable agreement that Ankara would underwrite and Erdogan offering coffee talk in the occupied north.

Nonetheless, there’s a positive buzz in Nicosia that the visit was at least an opening to establishing a direct channel of communications with Ankara - even through opposition Disy - given that Erdogan reportedly spurned Nicosia’s overtures for contacts at least five times since last summer.

Papadopoulos made it perfectly clear before the trip that Disy would not officially speak for Nicosia, but the party did take along a wish list of steps - ostensibly with tacit approval from the Presidential Palace - that Ankara could take as a sign of good faith.

Those included the lifting of all restrictions on the movement of people and goods across the ceasefire line (such as showing ID at crossing points) and the restoration and opening of Orthodox churches in the occupied north.

But the most important of these were a partial withdrawal of Turkish occupation  troops from the north, the return of Famagusta and a face-to-face meeting between Erdogan and Papadopoulos to pave the way of fulfilling Nicosia’s strong wish to normalise its relations with Ankara.

The troop pull-out idea wasn’t formally pitched to the more hawkish Gul who took exception when Anastassiades hinted at it in an interview with daily Cumhurriyet early in the visit.

Cumhurriyet reported that Gul had for the most part remained silent as Anastassiades read off the wish list, but spoke up when a reference to an eventual Turkish army pull-out as part of the post-settlement demilitarisation of the island cropped up.

Gul said the deployment of Turkish troops on the island is governed by “government decisions and international agreements” and warned that future generations would continue to live under the shadow of division if peace efforts remain dormant.

Troop withdrawal also got Turkish Cypriot ‘prime minister’ Mehmet Ali Talat seeing red who doesn’t want his bargaining hand weakened if Nicosia earned concessions before negotiations begin.

Talat said only a final settlement would clinch Turkish troop withdrawal and the return of Famagusta.

However, Anastassiades did sound Erdogan out on a possible troop withdrawal.  Reports said that Erdogan didn’t bite, saying instead that it’s an idea - as with the others - that can be discussed at the negotiating table.

The Turkish PM said he expects a renewed settlement drive to kick into gear after Turkish Cypriot ‘parliamentary and presidential polls’ wrap up in April.

On a face-to-face meeting, Erdogan said he’s ready for a sit-down, but tempered that by suggesting that it be held in the occupied north to underscore - as Gul had earlier insisted to the Disy delegation - that the issue be settled between the two communities, with Ankara cast in a supporting role.

“I heard that (Papadopoulos) wants to meet me. I’m ready to meet him. Let him come and sit in north Cyprus to drink our coffee, to talk and to solve this problem. If he accepts, then I would come right away this week,” daily Hurriyet quoted Erdogan as telling Anastasiades.

The implication would be that Erdogan takes the coffee orders, as Papadopoulos and Talat would be sitting opposite each other in an overt bid to portray them as political equals.

Government Spokesman Kypros Chrysostomides rebuffed a coffee session in the given the fact that Turkey continues to occupy Cyprus territory.

But he didn’t rule out a meeting at the Ledra Palace hotel inside the UN-controlled buffer zone.

 “If something like this does come up, it will be discussed, but I’m not in a position to give a precise answer at this time. It would be premature on my part to make any statement on the matter...A meeting with Mr. Erdogan has been sought many times before to discuss the international aspects of the Cyprus problem,” said Chrysostomides.

The senior partner in the ruling coalition Akel also threw its support behind a Papadopoulos-Erdogan meeting. But it also backed a conditional meeting between the President and Talat.

Akel Spokesman Andros Kyprianou said a Papadopoulos-Talat chat would also be useful “provided that the ground is prepared to ensure a positive outcome”.

Criticism from Disy’s political opponents was expectedly scathing so as to devalue the political significance of the trip and to appeal to a domestic audience by portraying Disy as kowtowing to Turkish might.

Ruling coalition partners Diko and Edek and Disy splinter European Democracy said that the visit dubbed a “public relations ploy”  backfired because it played into Ankara’s hands.

In a statement, Diko said the Anastasiades’s olive branch offer gave Ankara “a certificate of good conduct” with regard to its Cyprus policy.

The party said that in a controversial speech following a Sunday liturgy at the Patriarchate in Istanbul officiated by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, Anastassiadesalso absolved Turkey of its sins over the mass uprooting of Istanbul Greeks in the pogroms of the 1950s.

Anastassiadesapparently suggested that Istanbul Greeks paid the price for the misguided and overzealous Greek Cypriot patriotism.

Edek said Anastasiades’s “hunt for political treasure” only earned him “lumps of coal” because it furnished Ankara with a perfect opportunity to promote its “outrageous” views on Cyprus.

The socialist party said Abdullah Gul claimed with “insufferable hypocrisy” that Turkey has washed its hands clean of the Cyprus problem which he demoted as strictly a dispute between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities.

Edek also blasted the Turkish FM for “audaciously” reverting to well-worn line that there are no occupation soldiers on the island and that troop deployment is forced on Ankara under its Treaty of Guarantee obligations.

“Mr. Gul defers a Cyprus solution to the two communities as if there aren’t 45,000 fully-armed Turkish troops stationed here,” Edek leader Yiannakis Omirou told reporters.

“Not only were the visit’s results meagre if not non-existent, they were negative in the sense that they furnished the Turkish government with a platform to promote its outrageous views on the Cyprus issue before a Cypriot party,” he added.

In a written statement, European Democracy Chief Prodromos Prodromou questioned the wisdom of Anastasiades’s visit to a country that doesn’t recognise the Cyprus Republic, continues to occupy the island’s northern third and denies the rights of its citizens.

“We’re afraid that Mr. Anastasiades, to the extent of his position, provides the Turkish side with the alibi that some of its powerful patrons try to give it...Nicos Anastassiadesacts in a way that goes against the national cause of the Greek Cypriot people,” said Prodromou.

Only the fringe Movement for the Reunification of Cyprus dared to formally praise Disy for its “brave initiative” to meet Erdogan.

“Such initiatives and vision are immediately needed to draw Cyprus out of the international isolation in now finds itself in and to set in motion a process for achieving the much-desired solution of the Cyprus problem,” the group said in a statement.

But Anastasiades’s words didn’t seem to sit well with some of the Turkish Cypriot press.

Daily Halkin Sesi reported that Anastassiades “shockingly spoke like Tassos Papadopoulos” when he warned EU Ambassadors in Ankara that moves to lift Turkish Cypriots out of their economic and political isolation would forestall a settlement.