insan wrote:." Political Equality. On the political equality of the two communities, Clerides said he supported the concept as outlined by the U.N. Secretary-General, which refers to "not equal numerical participation, but effective participation of both communities in the federal government . . .
G. Clerides
http://kypros.org/Embassy/feb.htmlAlexandros, can you elaborate what did Clerides mean?
Yes, it is the precise principle on which the Annan Plan Presidential Council was based: Not numerical equality (4 GCs and 2 TCs), but effective participation (at least 1 TC member of the council must agree with each decision). Similarly in the legislature, not numerical equality (since the House of Deputies will be proportional), but effective participation (since at least a quarter of TC senators must agree with each decision).
This was the Clerides philosophy on political equality, and it was imported wholesale into the Annan Plan.
I am afraid Tassos is not too happy about these provisions however, he sees the matter differently from Clerides. For Tassos, the TCs should be content (political equality - wise) with the standard safeguards which a Federation provides, i.e. to control one of the two constituent states, and have numerical equality in some Federal organs (Senate, Supreme Court) while accepting majority rule in other organs (House of Deputies, Presidential Council). The Clerides idea of "positive participation" is repugnant to Tassos - and I predict this is going to be a very hard point in negotiations.
For me personally, "positive participation" plus "cross voting" is the best solution to this matter.
Going back to our previous posts, I will avoid inflaming the situation further. My first post was retaliatory, to your own original post concerning "the GC solution thesis", and I don't think it will be constructive to take the issue any further. It somewhat angered me that you identified the GC "No" to the Annan Plan with an "extreme and unrealistic solution thesis", and this is what tempted me to retaliate, but let's put all these sentiments aside for now.
It is true that there is an "extreme thesis" floating in the air somewhere, but it has taken a severe beating since the Annan Plan. Nowadays, most people tend to recognise the complexities involved, and understand for instance that some sort of property exchange will have to take place, or that some settlers might have to stay.
You are wondering why it was that the GC leadership did not make demands on the issue of security. Don't forget that the two most unacceptable elements of the security aspect, i.e. permanent presence of Turkish troops and right of Turkey to intervene in the GC state as well, were only introduced in Annan 5, in the last 2 days of a five-year negotiation process, by Annan himself, after the request of Turkey. If it wasn't for these two last-minute changes, the GCs could just about have swallowed the security aspect.
On property and residence, I believe that GCs will be willing to tolerate some necessary curtailments of their property rights, so long as they are not arbitrary and so long as some form of "right of return" will be retained by each refugee. I think TCs will also be willing to tolerate provisions that are slightly more generous to original owners than the Annan Plan was.
The settlers issue, however, will be very difficult to solve in a mutually acceptable way. Very difficult indeed. How can all the settlers be relocated out of GC land? And yet, the moment one settler remains in a GC property, the solution becomes intolerably insulting to the GCs ...
