Cyprus-Forum.com

[Kikapu]

Published: June 26, 2009

Turkey Restates Determination to Join the European Union

By STEPHEN CASTLE

Turkey restated its determination to join the European Union on Friday despite signs of growing opposition to its membership from some key European countries.

In his second visit to Brussels in five months, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey tried to underscore his country’s potential strategic value to the bloc, saying he hopes to sign a deal next month to bring Turkey into the E.U.’s planned Nabucco gas pipeline project.

But E.U. membership talks are almost at a standstill, and Turkey’s ambitions to join the Union will face a new obstacle in the autumn because of an impasse over the divided Mediterranean island of Cyprus.

In the meantime, the results of the European elections earlier this month strengthened the position of political parties that oppose Turkey’s candidacy. Center-right parties in France and Germany — which favor a more informal pact with Turkey rather than full membership — prospered, and more strident critics of Turkish membership made gains in the Netherlands and Austria.

But Mr. Erdogan confronted the opposition to Turkey in blunt terms. “Some narrow-minded politicians have used Turkey as election material, and we believe this to be very wrong and very populist,” Mr. Erdogan said.

“We cannot accept the positions France and Germany have taken,” Mr. Erdogan said, according to Reuters. “Our goal is full membership.”

Heather Grabbe, director of the Open Society Institute in Brussels, said that the political context was complicating Turkish accession talks.

“There is a vicious circle,” she said, “between the negative statements of some E.U. leaders and a go-slow of reform in Turkey.”

She was referring to the fact that negative signals from the E.U. strengthen the position of those in Turkey who argue that there is no point in making E.U.-related reforms. That attitude, in turn, affirms the argument within the E.U. that Turkey has “no real will to join,” she continued.

Sinan Ulgen, chairman of EDAM research institute in Istanbul, said the pace of change in Turkey had slowed and “what pro-European Turks need to see from the government is a seal for reform.”

“I think that the prime minister needs to decide how genuinely interested he is in advancing the negotiations and Turkey’s full membership,” Mr. Ulgen added.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/27/world ... ref=europe

"But E.U. membership talks are almost at a standstill, and Turkey’s ambitions to join the Union will face a new obstacle in the autumn because of an impasse over the divided Mediterranean island of Cyprus."

[Kikapu]

The Wall Street Journal's "Editorials & Opinion"
OCTOBER 19, 2009

Time Runs Out For Cypriot Solution
"After April, the next phase of the dispute could be hostile partition."

By HUGH POPE

Is it not a paradox, Greek Cypriot President Demetris Christofias asked in full rhetorical flight before the United Nations General Assembly last month, that Turkey should now have a seat on the U.N. Security Council? The apparent contradiction, of course, being that Turkish troops have occupied one third of Mr. Christofias's Mediterranean island country—a European Union member no less—for 35 years, despite U.N. resolutions demanding their withdrawal.

This is indeed an anomaly. But so is the fact that it was the Greek Cypriots in 2004 who opposed, and the Turkish side that supported, the U.N. plan that would have seen almost all those troops withdraw.

The paradoxes of Cyprus don't end there. Right now is the best chance in years to break through the half-century-old Cyprus deadlock. The current talks on a settlement between the Cypriot leaders are doing much better than is generally realized, but the time left to resolve these paradoxes is short. In April 2010, the pro-solution Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat faces an election. Absent the success on Cyprus that he promised to achieve, all the signs are that he will lose to a hardline candidate. If that were to happen, three decades of efforts to reunite the island on the basis of a bicommunal, bizonal federation would end. Indeed, for many, the old status quo ended in 2004, when Cyprus and the EU missed a big opportunity and Cyprus entered the Union as a divided island.

If by April the talks fail to achieve a collaborative settlement to deal with the island's problems, this new phase of the Cyprus dispute will be a sharp swerve toward hostile partition. If the two current like-minded leaders cannot achieve a settlement in the currently near-ideal regional climate, even the U.N. will not be willing to invest time, people and money on a fifth major round of negotiations on the same basis.

But cynicism and complacency mean that almost nobody takes the current negotiations seriously, even on the island. Both Turkish and Cypriot leaders want a realistic solution; but because Ankara and the Greek Cypriots have not talked directly for 40 years, neither believes the other side is genuine and neither has fully committed to compromise.



A failure to solve Cyprus would also doom deeper EU-NATO ties: Cyprus is a member of one organization and Turkey a member of the other; yet most EU countries have shown no support whatsoever for solving the dispute. Greek Cypriots are actually having to restrain some EU member-state leaders, who see in the Cyprus dispute a new way to close down Turkey's EU accession process. Worse, while the world has been worrying about big-power missile grandstanding around Iran and Russia, it is Athens and Ankara who have been actually stocking up on missiles in case growing frictions turn into frustrated anger. Watch this space: Gunboats and seismic survey ships have already been sparring over oil prospecting rights, with Turkey disputing territorial claims made by Greece and Greek Cypriots in the Mediterranean.

All sides will lose if the talks collapse. Greek Cypriots will suffer from greater insecurity, Turkish troops indefinitely on their doorstep, and a much-reduced chance of compensation for or restitution of property. Turkish Cypriots will see their community scatter or be driven into integration with Turkey. Ankara will lose the regional charisma and economic boon of having a real EU accession process. The EU will forego commercial opportunities in Turkey, sacrifice strategic depth in regional disputes and see a withering in the soft power that results from having Turkey anchored in an EU process and thus a convincing advocate when it speaks up for European values in meetings with Middle Eastern leaders.

It's therefore in the EU's interest to support the process, both by pressuring the two Cypriot leaders, and by reassuring Turkey that its accession perspective remains open if and when it meets all the objective criteria of European Union membership. And it is in Turkey's interest to live up to its reputation as a peace-making regional power, and reach out to the Greek Cypriots to make them believe that any settlement will be implemented with a speedy troop withdrawal, and that the resulting normalization will be beneficial and safe for all.

After more than three decades, all parties to this dispute have good reasons to believe that they are absolutely in the right. The real paradox is that so many rights have so far only added up to one big wrong.

Mr. Pope is Turkey/Cyprus project director of the International Crisis Group and author of "Turkey Unveiled: A History of Modern Turkey" (Overlook Press, 2004).
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 94652.html

[james_mav]

Hugh Pope is a renowned as cheerleader-in-chief for the new ottoman empire. Poor guy is delirious from lack of oxygen having been on his knees with his mouth full for so long.

http://www.amazon.com/Sons-Conquerors-Rise-Turkic-World/dp/158567804X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256135957&sr=8-1

[cymart]

Everyone will benefit from a solution,except nationalists and those who think they have economic interests in maintaining the status quo!
Any Cyprus never was a Hellenic or Turkish republic and no sensible person here believes it should be either!

[YFred]

Everyone will benefit from a solution,except nationalists and those who think they have economic interests in maintaining the status quo!
Any Cyprus never was a Hellenic or Turkish republic and no sensible person here believes it should be either!

Putting these sheep in a mandra is not going to be easy, but mandra is where they are heading for after the solution to the cyprus problem, one way or another as blondie said.

[Get Real!]

Everyone will benefit from a solution,

I don’t know how anyone can make such a sweeping statement over something so relative!

[Kikapu]

[Gasman]

Oh are we all posting links? Here's one I was reading earlier:

Click the Windows Live link down the page a bit:

http://www.propertycommunity.com/forum/cyprus-property/17048-abag-assist-usa-cyprus-legal-case.html

The US Law Firm who are taking out a class action against Turkey and the TRNC have invited ABAG to join them.

[Gasman]

More here in the Cyprus Mail.

http://www.cyprus-mail.com/cyprus/buyers-property-north-join-us-lawsuit/20100115

I knew about the crooked builder, Robb (apt name) but didn't know he had been 'deported' from the TRNC. How does that work if they take no notice of anything from outside the TRNC?

[Kikapu]

Published: October 20, 2009

Cyprus and 'Chosen Trauma'

By H. D. S. GREENWAY

“Chosen trauma,” were the words the political psychiatrist Vamik Volkan used to described the way nations, as well as individuals, can seize upon a wrong done to them to the exclusion of any wrongs committed by themselves.

I was reminded of that the other day when the International Crisis Group, which monitors impending troubles around the globe, reported that “negotiating Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders must join forces and embrace a collaborative, federal reunification of the island in the next few months, or see their efforts overtaken by the unstoppable dynamic of a hostile partition.”

Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders may be trying, but a glance at the official propaganda of the two sides reveals how immersed they are in their respective chosen traumas.

As Volkan, a Turkish Cypriot himself, wrote, all the Greek majority ever wants to talk about are the sins of the Turkish occupation, while the Turkish minority is obsessed with how their people were rounded up and put to death by the Greeks before Turkey intervened.

Cyprus emerged as an independent nation in 1960, with minority rights to be guaranteed by Britain, Greece and Turkey, to the disappointment of many Greek Cypriots who fought under the banner of “enosis,” or union with Greece.

Communal strife ensued, with the Turkish minority getting the worst of it. A U.N. peacekeeping force was sent to the island in 1964, but Greek Cypriot nationalists launched a coup instigated by army officers from mainland Greece in July 1974. Five days later, Turkey invaded and took over 37 percent of the island in the name of protecting the Turkish minority.

The island has been partitioned ever since. The Turkish minority voted to set up the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which is recognized by no country except Turkey.

Recently, before Cyprus joined the European Union, the Turkish minority voted for reunification under a plan put forth by Kofi Annan, but the Greek majority rejected it.

Even those bare facts are open to interpretation through the lenses of trauma. If you read the literature put forth by the Cypriot Embassy in Washington you will learn all about the “continued illegal military occupation of Cyprus, how Turkey has ignored a series of U.N. resolutions condemning the invasion, and how Turkey has yet to abide by judgments of the European Court of Human Rights for violating the fundamental rights of the Cypriots such as the right to life, liberty, security and the right to the protection of property and the prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment ...”

You will also learn about the 43,000 Turkish occupation troops in northern Cyprus, and how Greeks were pushed out of their homes.

You will learn how Turkey has brought in 160,000 settlers from rural Anatolia, in violation of Geneva Conventions concerning occupied territories.

There is no mention of why Turkey thought it necessary to intervene to protect Turkish Cypriots from being massacred, or of the coup that overthrew the existing order.

Turn to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus Web site, and you will learn how Greek Cypriots were unhappy with the equality given the Turkish minority upon independence, and how Greek Cypriots worked to undermine those rights from the beginning.

You will learn how “the Greeks decided to take matters into their own hands and settle their arguments by force.” You will learn how a “decade of violence” ensued, with “25,000 Turkish Cypriots having to flee their homes.”

You will learn how 20,000 troops from Greece entered Cyprus illegally, and how, with enosis right around the corner, Turkey was forced to intervene. You will learn of the unfairness of the world not accepting Northern Cyprus.

I could find nothing about Turkish settlers being brought in to alter the demographic balance, or anything about U.N. resolutions, or courts of human rights.

Yet there is hope in the lure of the European Union for both Northern Cyprus and Turkey itself. If Armenia, with its own chosen trauma of Armenian massacres, can patch it up with Turkey, can a solution for Cyprus be far behind?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/21/opini ... .html?_r=1