Cyprus-Forum.com

[cymart]

Christophias even admitted before that it would be impossible to remove all the settlers on humanitarian grounds after more than 30 years,especially if they were born in Cyprus or are married to Turkish Cypriots and the U.N. and E.U. etc. will back this viewpoint.A figure of around 45000 was mentioned in early 2004 which is still far less than the over 100.000 we now have without a solution and which will keep increasing if we don't find one urgently!!This figure could be absorbed by the north without causing major problems and the rest will return to Turkey with some financial incentive from the E.U.Before you start shouting,how many people are there working in the south both illegally and illegally from non-E.U. countries,plus a large number of asylum seekers?If the Greek-Cypriot leaders wanted to avoid having to accept any settlers,they should have sat down and told their people the truth back in the late 70's and agreed to a solution then which would have been better than any which they will ever get now,and before all the settlers came here in the first place!Instead they were hoping for pie in the sky and fooling themselves as well as everyone else!But try arguing that with supporters of people like Kyprianou and Papad!
There is no option to 'stay as you are' simply because things are not staying that way but thank God,it seems that the majority of G.C's have woken up to the bitter truth at last,which Christophias now has to help them swallow!

[Nikitas]

Bitter truth being what exactly Cymart? That we have occupation of the north now as we did in 1974? The BBF solution was accepted way back in 1976 and Denktash refused to nogotiate on it till 2003 when he finally retired.

Now if you mean accepting partition, well that is a different story. As for the settlers no one is advocating kicking them out by force. They get compensated and go back to their place of origin with a nice sum of money to invest.

It is insulting to refuse me the return of my land because some dude from Anatolia had children there. If that happens then I will take my case to court, asking for a simple remedy, to be treated equally with the settlers, to be given a free piece of land and help in settling in Cyprus. Chances are the case will stand in any court all the way to the ECHR.

There are thousands of Cypriots who have not been able to settle in Cyprus because of the occupation. If your settlement is to refuse them any chance to return then it is not a settlement.

[humanist]

Andros

This is what I predict of what will happen, in no specific order:

I believe that President Christofias and TC leader Talat will meet and talk with open arms for a short while as they are both Socialists!

After the romance, they will both start to express their dissatisfaction about their respective community's demands - Like Talat will say that we MUST have guarantorship, their must be Turkish Soldiers on the island and the federal structure must be based on TWO CONSTITUENT states, with a loose federal government with hardly no power and he'll want the Turkish Cypriots to have a substantial amount of land allocation - like 33% or so.

While President Christofias will naturally say that most of these are unacceptable, and would prefer a unified government with no constituent states, no foreign soldiers and definitely NO Guarantorship! Where a Cyprus government and its voting structure must be based on democracy - like the rest of the world!

Then, as we've always had, there will be stalemate, and that is when the EU, UN, US and UK will intervene and force our people into a referendum on what will probably be similar to the Annan Plan.

It is the outcome of such a referendum that I am most interested in hearing in what everyone else ha

Andros I believe you have captured it very well.

[humanist]

Nikitas

Bitter truth being what exactly Cymart? That we have occupation of the north now as we did in 1974? The BBF solution was accepted way back in 1976 and Denktash refused to nogotiate on it till 2003 when he finally retired.

Now if you mean accepting partition, well that is a different story. As for the settlers no one is advocating kicking them out by force. They get compensated and go back to their place of origin with a nice sum of money to invest.

It is insulting to refuse me the return of my land because some dude from Anatolia had children there. If that happens then I will take my case to court, asking for a simple remedy, to be treated equally with the settlers, to be given a free piece of land and help in settling in Cyprus. Chances are the case will stand in any court all the way to the ECHR.

There are thousands of Cypriots who have not been able to settle in Cyprus because of the occupation. If your settlement is to refuse them any chance to return then it is not a settlement.

Dear Nikitas which of the Cypro is not insulting my friend. I am finding the TC arguments quite thin in essence most of the time.

[DT.]

Even if the present republic is dissolved,provided both parts of the new one are in the E.U. I cannot see why it matters so much.The main thing is the security aspect with the withdrawal of the Turkish Army to a token number which will be confined to a base somewhere in the north and any future disputes be considered as internal matters for the E.U. to sort out. If things finally don't work out, rememeber thatCzechoslovakia split into two E.U. states without any problems so far and get along fine.
Of course there has to be a reduction in the territory held by the north to a level which the south can accept.Most important,there have to be effective international guarantees that the agreement will be implemented by all parties without anyone having the right of unilateral intervention...

Will people please stop using Czechslovakia as an example? It has nothing to do with cyprus. Czechs were predominantly in the Czech republic and the slovakians in the Slovakian republic. There was never an ethnically segragated area of cyprus where one could say that this could be the turkish state and this the greek state.

WHat you are proposing above is partition basically. To assume that 2 EU states side by side can function as a country just because they both belong to the EU is as strange as expecting Portugal and Spain to do the same.

There would be 2 separate govts. If partition is your preference then thats fine, but don't camouflage it as a minor setback that might occur if the virgin birth state does not work out.

[DT.]

Andros

This is what I predict of what will happen, in no specific order:

I believe that President Christofias and TC leader Talat will meet and talk with open arms for a short while as they are both Socialists!

After the romance, they will both start to express their dissatisfaction about their respective community's demands - Like Talat will say that we MUST have guarantorship, their must be Turkish Soldiers on the island and the federal structure must be based on TWO CONSTITUENT states, with a loose federal government with hardly no power and he'll want the Turkish Cypriots to have a substantial amount of land allocation - like 33% or so.

While President Christofias will naturally say that most of these are unacceptable, and would prefer a unified government with no constituent states, no foreign soldiers and definitely NO Guarantorship! Where a Cyprus government and its voting structure must be based on democracy - like the rest of the world!

Then, as we've always had, there will be stalemate, and that is when the EU, UN, US and UK will intervene and force our people into a referendum on what will probably be similar to the Annan Plan.

It is the outcome of such a referendum that I am most interested in hearing in what everyone else ha

Andros I believe you have captured it very well.

A referendum forced on us without an agreement by the negotiators first is just a clever way of calling the whole thing off with recognition to the north. We'll be forced to vote no and the US will push for recognition.

[Nikitas]

We have a perennial problem in Cyprus and we refuse to realise we have it. The problem is simple: foreigners must be given a short version of our demands which they can understand and which can stand the "soundbite" test.

Foreigners in question being Anglosaxon, and imbued with a sports culture, the presentation must be in sports terms, so they can comprehend it. American diplomats are educated but do not have the time or desire to understand our complex take on the Cyprus problem. So let us leave the complex stuff for ourselves.

Foreigners must be told simple things they can understand, ie, territory distribution according to population percentage which goes 18-82 or 20-80 at the most. Federal structure etc as in the USA, and no one dares say they are not democratic! Equal rights to ALL communities. Illegal migrants out ("settlers" they do not undersrand because they too are settlers in the US, Canada, Australia) . ALl the above can be repeated by a CNN or Fox News guy in one sentence and that is what counts in the end.

[cymart]

Turkey has never stopped being an essential lynch-pin to western interests and it also plays-off with Russia,which has billions of vital mutual business interests with it!Erdogan has convinced the military that it is in their interests to agree to a solution in Cyprus,but with certain'perimeters' which will maintain their interests here:(see todays article by Makarios Droushitis in Politis).This will include five basic demands such as a return to the 1960 treaty which guarantees their intervention rights, a token force here(650 was mentioned in the Annan Plan) amongst other things which they know they may have to compromise on,such as the demand for an 'ethnically Turkish area' in the north-the Greek-Cypriots would ask for a larger area of territory to be returned if they insist on this.The E.U. will also be closely monitoring the negotiations to make sure that there are no major permananent deviations from its acquis in the final agreement.
I think that Christophias,DISY and the majority of Greek-Cypriots will realise that it is better to go for a compromise which accepts some of the Turkish demands,rather than turn it down and be faced with the upgrading of the north and the presence of 40.000 Turkish troops and the settlers here ad infinitum,knowing that it also suits Turkey and will be the worse for the Greek-Cypriots.This is the stark choice they will be facing and as the weaker side,there is no real option other than to compromise.

[GorillaGal]

i predict fanos will still not pay the money he "stole" from Miltiades for the Tulip Cancer Foundation, and he will remain a loser!

[Andros]

humanist,

Thank you for your agreement. I am only trying to display a realistic point of view, an honest one, and one that will hold a true basis for which we can all move forward on this Cyprus mess - as that's exactly what it all is.

P.S - Please watch out for my new Topic Posting call: "Pitfall of the UN Process".