HE PROPERTY ISSUE is perhaps the most complex and contentious aspect of the Cyprus problem, owing to numerous and diverse legal, economic and social complexities. Most important, however, is the political significance the two Cypriot sides attach to it. This is manifested in the way in which the issue is vitally linked with two basic parameters for any prospective settlement, namely, ‘bizonality’ in the case of Turkish Cypriots and ‘respect for human rights’ in the case of Greek Cypriots. Bizonality and respect for human rights are principles ostensibly agreed by both sides. However, as shown in this report, a common interpretation of these principles is seriously lacking, an important factor that makes the property issue very difficult to solve. T
This report is an attempt to understand the deeper political and normative concerns that inform as well as help to sustain the two sides’ official positions regarding the property issue. To this end, we examine Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot perspectives on the issue and the opinions of the two communities on how it should be resolved.
At the outset, some facts and figures are provided. These reveal the extent of the difficulties connected with the property issue, including the considerable difference between the two sides’ figures for Greek Cypriot- and Turkish Cypriot-owned land. For example, while the Greek Cypriot side estimates the 1974 figure for Greek Cypriot-owned land in the present Turkish Cypriot-controlled north at 78.5% of all privately owned land in that area, the Turkish Cypriot side estimates this at 63.8%. Similarly, the Turkish Cypriot estimates for Turkish Cypriot-owned private land in 1974 on both sides of the island (which are 33% of all private land in the north and 22% in the south) are considerably higher than those provided by the Greek Cypriot side (which are 21.1% in the north and 13.9% in the south).
The Greek Cypriots maintain that the property issue is essentially a matter of human rights violation, and therefore can only be resolved by implementing ‘the fundamental principle of respect for human rights’. They interpret this to mean giving all displaced persons unrestricted rights to repossess and return to their former homes and properties, irrespective, in particular, of any bizonal arrangements. The Turkish Cypriots, on the other hand, insist that this contradicts ‘the fundamental principle of bizonality’. While accepting the principle of respect for human rights, they demand restrictions on the exercise of rights to property and return by displaced persons insofar as is necessary to preserve and protect bizonality. This, in their view, entails
viii The Politics of Property in Cyprus
preserving as much as possible the present pattern of settlement. Hence, the Turkish Cypriot preference for a ‘global exchange and compensation’ formula for settlement of property claims.
This report studies the link between the two sides’ divergent positions on property and their perspectives on the nature of the Cyprus problem. A particularly useful lead here is the contrast between Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot views on how the 1974 Turkish military operation and the ensuing state of affairs should be perceived.
The Turkish Cypriots generally see the events of July 1974 as marking a turning point in the Cyprus problem and particularly in their struggle – from 1963 onwards – against being reduced to second-class citizens in a Greek-dominated state. They regard the present de facto situation as bizonality virtually realized. All that is needed is the return of some territory to the Greek Cypriot side. This division of the island is considered by the Turkish Cypriots as the only solution that guarantees their security – including economic security – and freedom in the face of an apparently unremitting Greek Cypriot determination to dominate the island. One factor has played a crucial role in justifying and strengthening the Turkish Cypriot conviction of what the established principle of bizonality stands for and how this principle affects the property issue: this is the Turkish Cypriot interpretation of the 1975 Vienna Agreement as an agreement for the population exchange of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots between the north and the south of the dividing line. We argue, in this report, that the Turkish Cypriot side’s reading of the agreement has been one-sided and misguided.
The Greek Cypriots, however, generally consider the events of 1974 as marking the beginning of the Cyprus problem, which they see as a problem of ‘invasion and occupation by Turkey of one-third of our country’. The Greek Cypriot side objects to the Turkish Cypriot understanding of bizonality, the key feature of which is the creation of a Turkish Cypriot zone in the northern part of the island. Most Greek Cypriots find this painful, because, among other things, they see it as the eradication in the north of all that is historically ‘Greek’ and believe it to be part of what they regard as Turkey’s ‘expansionist designs’ aimed ultimately at changing the primordially Greek character of Cyprus into a Turkish one. Therefore, the goal is a solution that will essentially reverse the faits accomplis resulting from this assumed Turkish strategy. This is the context in which Greek Cypriots demand absolute restoration of the fundamental principle of respect for human rights as the only possible way to settle the issue of displaced persons’ property claims and their return to ‘the ancestral lands’. This is a demand that goes beyond individual rights: it also crucially concerns collective rights, especially ‘the right of Cypriot Hellenism to the ancestral lands’. This has led many on the Greek Cypriot side inaccurately to perceive the European Court of Human Rights’ judgments on Cypriot property-related cases against Turkey as effective recognition of such a collective right.
Included in the final part of the report is a brief review of the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot reactions to the Annan Plan property proposals.
Summary ix
The report’s conclusion is that the two sides’ views on the property issue diverge primarily because of their incompatible preoccupations with the principles of bizonality and respect for human rights – an incompatibility that itself is rooted in their irreconcilable, indeed mutually exclusive, perspectives on the Cyprus problem.
The political implication of this conclusion is to be found within the larger argument that the only possible mutually agreed solution to the problem is a compromise between the two positions. So far, each side’s approach to the principles of bizonality and respect for human rights has been one-sided and categorical, being primarily informed by that side’s very different experience of the island’s recent traumatic past. To achieve a compromise, what seems to be most needed is a fresh, more flexible and forward-looking reconsideration by both sides of how to understand these two basic principles.
http://www.internal-displacement.org/80 ... pDocuments)/EF6541C01C87AC8EC125729C003130C9/$file/PRIO+Cyprus+Property+Report.pdf
