Cyprus-Forum.com

[halil]

Last chance to create a unified economy
By Kerin Hope

Published: October 29 2008 02:00 | Last updated: October 29 2008 02:00

Hopes were high on April 3 that the opening of a new city centre crossing-point to link the Greek and Turkish Cypriot halves of Nicosia, the island's capital, would speed a reconciliation.

The symbolism was clear. The re-unification of Ledra Street, once the commercial thoroughfare, stood for faster growth of trade across the Green Line, the United Nations-monitored "de facto" border, and, in due course, a political deal to stitch Cyprus back together as a prosperous federal state.

One reason for optimism was that, for the first time since the island was violently divided in 1974, the leaders of both communities are willing to negotiate a settlement.

Demetris Christofias, leader of the Greek Cypriot communist party, won last February's presidential election on a platform of re-unifying Cyprus as a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation with a loose central government.

It was the first time that the communists - the largest political group with the strongest grassroots support for a solution - had put forward their own candidate.

For his part, Mehmet Ali Talat, president of the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of North Cyprus (TRNC), which is recognised only by Turkey, has consistently backed a peace settlement since his leftwing Republican Turkish Party came to power in 2003.

Yet after the first wave of enthusiasm, the crowds of Greek and Turkish Cypriots passing through the Ledra Street checkpoint to drink coffee and eat ice-cream in each other's favourite haunts have dwindled to a trickle, consisting mostly of foreign tourists.

Similarly, the UN-backed negotiations between Mr Christofias and Mr Talat, launched last September after six months of careful preparation, have been making slower progress than expected.

Alexander Downer, former Australian foreign minister and the UN special adviser to the talks, earlier this month warned the process could be drawn-out: "This is an enormous issue . . . and it's going to be a difficult negotiation. But the political will is very good."

The talks started with what was expected to be the easy part: finalising an agreement on power-sharing before moving on to trickier issues of security, including a timetable for the departure of the 30,000-strong Turkish garrison in north Cyprus, and the return of territory and property.

Each community would run its own affairs, including raising taxes, while a lean central government under a rotating presidency and with a joint central bank, would handle foreign relations and European Union affairs.

But the two leaders found themselves re-negotiating some points from the start. Under UN auspices, procedures have since been restructured to accelerate decision-making.

Markos Kyprianou, the Cyprus foreign minister, says: "The UN are important as a facilitator to make sure people stay at the table to discuss the issues."

Mr Talat still says the outlines of a deal could be agreed by December. A more realistic deadline, perhaps, would be June 2009, in time for Turkish Cypriots to vote for the first time at the European parliamentary elections, according to people close to the talks.

But the two communities would still have to approve a settlement through separate referendums.

With a parliamentary election in the north coming up early in 2010, followed by a presidential vote later in the year, Mr Talat is under pressure to deliver.

His party's approval ratings have shrunk as the Turkish Cypriot economy slides further into recession, amid disappointment in the north over the perceived reluctance of Greek Cypriots to re-build relationships.

Mr Talat is also constrained by the Ankara government which links the Cyprus issue with its own aspirations for EU membership, and by the Turkish military, a powerful influence in the north. When it comes to opening a new Green Line crossing-point, for example, military authorities must be persuaded to agree.

In the south, Mr Christofias has to fend off a nationalist faction in the centrist Democratic Party, the junior partner in his coalition.

The Greek Cypriots' overwhelming rejection at a referendum in 2004 of the previous UN-sponsored peace plan also reduces the communists' room for manoeuvre, as Mr Christofias cannot be seen to make one-sided concessions.

"It's not yet clear to everyone that this could be the last chance to achieve re-unification under a federal structure. So there is a tremendous burden on the two leaders to build the consensus to make it happen," says Philippos Savvides, an Athens-based analyst.

However, trade across the Green Line under an EU regulation intended to give Turkish Cypriot companies access to markets in the south and elsewhere, is accelerating - an indication that business people on both sides are becoming more willing to co-operate.

Sales by Turkish Cypriot businesses in the south jumped 65 per cent in the first half of this year to €3.1m. Greek Cypriot trade with the north increased by 150 per cent in the first eight months to €1.1m.

Yet as the leaders' weekly meetings settle into a routine, expectations are becoming more moderate. "At the moment, it's hard to give the talks more than a 50-50 chance of success," says Loukas Charalambous, a Nicosia-based analyst.

In a deteriorating economic environment, the costs of re-unification will loom larger to Greek Cypriots. As the bigger and wealthier community they would be expected to contribute a larger share of a federal budget.

On the other hand, a deal would enable Greek Cypriots to regain access to land and property worth billions of euros in the Turkish Cypriot-controlled north or receive compensation.

But after more than 34 years without a settlement, time is against the federalists, according to a study by Charis Psaltis, a professor of social psychology at the University of Cyprus.

He says: "Our results showed that younger Greek Cypriots are reluctant to consider living with the Turkish Cypriots and are less likely to accept the idea of a federal solution."

If the negotiations fail to bring results over the next year, the outcome could be a partition of the island into separate Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot states.

Both communities would lose a one-off opportunity to create a significantly larger island-wide economy based on tourism, higher education and financial services.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f8729f8a-a559 ... 07658.html

[Nikitas]

Kerin Hope was working in Greece for many years, now she surfaces in Cyprus. Funny this world of the international journalist.

[Get Real!]

Last chance to create a unified economy

What unified economy?

Where's the "TRNC" economy???

[Kifeas]

Kerin Hope was working in Greece for many years, now she surfaces in Cyprus. Funny this world of the international journalist.

I do not know if Kerin Hope is a journalist, but what I know for sure is that she is an idiot of 10 megatons! She happens to have managed to write most of among the stupidest articles I have read so far on Cyprus, and she is even afraid to publish her e-mail so that even Oracle would have been able to reach and explain to her the nonsense she is talking! The fact she is quoting another idiot, of 100 megatons this time, Loukas Charalambous, ...speaks, leaps and bounds.

[Oracle]

Reading between the lines, I think Kifeas has missed me

I should go away more often .....

[T_C]

I should go away more often .....

[humanist]

welcome back Oracles

[Bananiot]

Funny, but Loucas Charalampous thinks you, Kifeas, is a 100 megatons idiot. For a start, Charalampous is not a journalist. He is an economist, and a darn good one too. Secondly, he writes a weekly column in "Politis" and "Cyprus Mail" which he signs with his name. Can you, Kifeas, do the same and make yourself available to wider ctiticism?

[Bananiot]

Here is a typical article of this "10 megaton" idiot that gets the pavement patriots of this 100 megaton banana plantation, begin to see stars in the sky at noon.

This is what we have been reduced to
By Loucas Charalambous

THE VISIT by Britain’s Foreign Secretary Jack Straw gave our politicians yet another opportunity to give an exhibition of their irresponsibility and inadequacy. The fact that Straw is British contributed to the venom of their outbursts, as the United Kingdom still remains their most popular target. Anti-British rhetoric continues to sell in Cyprus, much better than any other perverse syndrome.

In this peculiar country, pouring abuse on the British and their country has developed into the national sport. Someone just has to publicly pillory Britain in order to be considered a great politician and a great patriot by the people and the media. After 50 years of political madness, which have resulted in the partition of our country, we have still not understood that baiting the lion is far from the wisest policy we can follow.

Britain is also the easiest target when our politicians are looking for someone onto whom to shift their political responsibility. Have you ever heard any of them accepting responsibility for wrong decisions they have taken? Start from the late Archbishop Makarios and carry on to today. For all the ills that had befallen us, there was one guilty party – Britain. Our bloody-mindedness is never to blame for anything. Everything is the fault of our ‘evil demon’ as Demetris Christofias never tires of reminding us.

For 50 years now, the English do nothing else than hatch conspiracies against Cyprus. They have no other interest or problem to deal with. Every night before they go to sleep, British politicians ask themselves, “What harm can we cause the Greek Cypriots tomorrow?” This is the only matter that occupies them on a daily basis. I wonder, as they are so conspiracy-minded, why had it never occurred to them to do one simple thing: for one year, stop British holidaymakers, who make up 60 per cent of our tourist arrivals, from coming to Cyprus. We would die of hunger and they would never have to worry about us again.

The public statements by our political wizards about the Straw visit were almost exactly the same. Had the Presidential Palace prepared the script and distributed it? It went like this: “Britain is conspiring to help Turkey not to honour its commitments to the EU.” All the party leaders repeated this tune like tape recorders. AKEL spokesman Andros Kyprianou went a step further, including the US and the UN Secretariat among the ‘anti-Cyprus conspirators’. A little later another ‘conspirator’ was uncovered – the EU, which, through its Enlargement Commissioner Ollie Rehn, expressed support for Turkey’s proposal for a quadripartite meeting.

And what are the commitments Turkey undertook, over which the entire world is conspiring against us? To open its ports and airport to the Cyprus Republic. This is what the Cyprus problem has been reduced to by Tassos Papadopoulos and his allies – the right of Cyprus Airways planes to land in Ankara. Yes. All these super-patriots, who a few years ago considered it national treason for a Greek Cypriot to set foot in Turkey, ‘the country of Attila’, today would consider it a triumph for our planes to land in the ‘capital of the occupier’, to use the phraseology of the Dias media group – our country’s most productive hatchery of patriots.

This is our problem – not the presence of two Turkish army divisions in north Cyprus, not that one third of Greek Cypriots have lost their properties for good, not the daily cementing of partition, not the loss of Famagusta and Morphou, not the permanence of partition. When our planes can land at Attila’s airport, everything will be fine. The Cyprus problem will have been solved once Cyprus Airways planes land in Ankara and Turkey’s path to EU membership is clear. Christofias and his fellow vigilantes will be able to take a long rest as they will no longer have to be on the look-out for British conspiracies against Cyprus.

I will repeat it, yet again. With these men determining our future, we must thank the Lord that we still have control of half of Cyprus.

[Oracle]

Cyprus is not alone in mistrusting the British. Only the most foolish GCs would give the benefit of the doubt ad infinitum to this clan of warmongers ...

As James Callaghan, when he was Foreign Secretary, used to say to Dr Henry Kissinger during the Cyprus crisis (largely fomented, as it happened, by the United States itself): "You supply the muscle, Henry, and we'll supply the brains." There was, however, one exception among prime ministers. That was Edward Heath. Indeed, according to the historian Kenneth Morgan, Dr Kissinger described Sir Edward's attitude towards the United States as "horrible".

Perhaps there is more good in the old Kentish curmudgeon than I had hitherto realised. And yet, he was being not so much good as clear-headed. He, for one, would at least have remembered Charles de Gaulle's stated - and perfectly genuine - reason for keeping us out of the Common Market in 1963: that, in any conflict between the United States and Europe, the Anglo-Saxons would unfailingly support the United States. Ten years later, Sir Edward duly took us into Europe and was realistic about what that entailed.

Wilson, Callaghan and, most of all, Margaret Thatcher did not really want us to be there at all. Mr Blair, like Roy Jenkins before him, vainly believes he can ride two horses: but Mr Blair is wrong. His achievement is to have turned the United Kingdom into the third most hated country in the world: the first being the United States, and the second, Israel. Nor is he dealing with the relatively civilised America of most of the post-war era but, rather, with a new state which, like Hitler's Reich, believes that might is right and that it can do precisely as it chooses...