Cyprus-Forum.com

[Piratis]

Yes, I have seen this. You are now a supporter of partition, as long as we get our 78%. Denktash has been calling for this for the last 45 or so years but he will probably not settle for only 18%. Perhaps you will settle for splitting the difference, a typical Middle East practice.

Give them 25% and a state, build a wall and let them view the EU through binoculars. You would be surprised to know how many of our fellow citizens aspire to this solution at the moment.

This has been the greatest achievement of Papadopoulos in his 5 years as President.

Last time I checked you were willing to give to them 29% of land AND the ability to silence the international voice of Cyprus and leave us totally defenseless.

Bananiot, if it was you negotiating with talat right now instead of christofias what would your red lines be?

Bananiot doesn't have red lines. For him what is an "option" is whatever the other side would accept. So if the other side would say that the only option is to unite Cyprus under an Ottoman style rule, then he would accept it.

Any sensible person would, at the very least, have human rights and democracy as the red lines, since any result that is achieved with the absence of the above can not possibly be labeled a "solution".

[Piratis]

As long as we do not have a clear explanation of the details, and the devil is in the details, it is impossible to make sense of this BBF thing.

If, as is the indication, Turkey will have a strong say in what happens in the TC part of the BBF, the Turkish embassy will be the real seat of power. From there it is easy to predict the developments in the north and the attempts to undermine the BBF. One for instance, a settler is elected as President of the TC state and by virtue of the rotating presidency presides over the whole of Cyprus for some part of the presidential term.

Another instance: by virtue of "political equality" the TC state nixes plans to implement a compulsory EU programme on the island. By virtue of "one legal personality" the EU regards the whole of Cyprus as non compliant and imposes one of those fines (has done against Greece and other states often in the past). Then the federal government is caught between the EU, the TCs and the GCs and is efectively paralysed. It will not be able to seek separate consideration for each "component state" since that would be tantamount to asking for partition.

Adopting a cynical approach it is easy to see many scanarios in which Turkey undermines the BBF until partition seems like the most logical "next step". Having the past as a guide the cynical approach is not one that can be discounted. The invasion of 1974 was based on the treaty of establishment which Turkey says is not valid anymore. The operation was meant to restore the 1960 constitution which Turkey refuses to recognise, but invokes when it comes to having troops permanently on Cyprus and the list goes on.

Nikitas, the main objective of the Turkish side is to silence the international voice of Cyprus, somehting that became very important to them since they realized that we would enter the EU and our voice would have more power than before. Why do you think they rushed not only to close the Cyprus problem, but to close it in such a way that took away our voice, just before we entered the EU?

What you say is perfectly logical, but we don't even need to go that far. Once the voice of Cypriots was silenced, the Turks would get what they wanted and they would give nothing in return. Not even those little lands they where supposed to give back, apart maybe from Famagustga. What is today an illegal occupation of a sovereign country with UN resolutions calling for the respect of the sovereignty of Republic of Cyprus, would became a mere delay in the implementation of some agreement, and Cypriots would not even have the voice to complain about it. We would not have a country, all our complaints would be equivalent to the complaints of the Kurds and nothing more.


There is absolutely no doubt that TCs will continue to be the puppets of Ankara even after some so called "solution". The reason for this is not the settlers. The reason is that TCs would know very well that without the support of Ankara they would not be able to maintain all those unfair gains they got on our loss by brute force. Therefore they will continue to collaborate with Turkey so they and Turkey can continue to have gains on the expense of the Cypriot people.