Cyprus: Post-Election Tensions and Turkey's Position
Summary
The election of a new prime minister for Turkish Cyprus will complicate reunification talks between the island’s Greek and Turkish sides. That complication could in turn cause a snag in Turkey’s plans to join the European Union and claim its status as a regional power.
Analysis
Greek Cypriot President Demetris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot President Mehmet Ali Talat met April 21 and pledged their commitment to continuing with reunification negotiations. The two leaders have met 26 times thus far in the negotiation process, which began in September 2008 and is meant to lead to the reunification of the Turkish and Greek sides of the eastern Mediterranean island. The April 21 meeting was the first the two presidents have held since Talat’s Republican Turkish Party lost to the right-wing National Unity Party, led by former Prime Minister Dervis Eroglu, in parliamentary elections April 19.
Eroglu’s election victory complicates the reunification talks. The small island with a population of just over 1 million people is divided along the 1974 armistice “Green Line” that runs straight through the capital of Nicosia. The impoverished Turkish political entity is in the north, and the financially well-off (due to tourism and banking) Greek side — which is also an EU member — is in the south. For the Turkish north, the main concern has thus far been retaining a separate political identity from the Greek south, while the Greek Cypriots demand nothing short of a complete unification that would afford their more populous entity firm political control over the country.
The two sides were slowly working toward an agreement following July 2008 concessions by Talat to the Greek Cypriot demands of single citizenship and a single political entity for the entire island. Eroglu’s election as prime minister is now calling those concessions into question; the right-wing politician stated April 20 that his position on the question of sovereignty has not changed: “There are two peoples, two states and two democracies on the island of Cyprus. We support any settlement … within this framework.” While Talat remains in charge of the negotiation process, the incoming prime minister has said he wants to send his own envoy to the negotiations from now on.
Meanwhile Ankara, the traditional ally of the Turkish Cypriot side, is concerned that any snag in the reunification process in Cyprus could throw a wrench into its accession talks with the EU and into its plan to rise as a regional power. Cyprus is simply an issue Turkey would rather see disappear. It might have been a key piece of the rivalry between Ankara and Athens in the 1970s and 1980s, but the increasingly powerful and active Turkey sees it as a nuisance and a vestige of a less ambitious foreign policy.
Turkey intervened militarily in 1974 on behalf of the Turkish north in order to prevent a coup d’etat by the Greek Cypriots, whom Ankara feared would seek to unify the island with mainland Greece, thus giving the rival Athens a substantial piece of real estate in the eastern Mediterranean. Since then, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (recognized only by Ankara) has survived on handouts and military protection from mainland Turkey. Invading Cyprus was an important countermove to a potential Greek challenge in 1974 but, 35 years later — as Turkey’s ambitions are much greater than mere competition with Athens — Turkey would rather forget the island exists.
Ankara is in the middle of complicated geopolitical maneuvering. It is resurging, becoming a more dominant regional player in the Middle East — where the United States seeks its support to resolve various regional conflagrations — and in the Caucasus. In the Caucasus, Ankara has been looking to normalize its relationship with Armenia in order to become more involved in the entire region, but has to tread carefully in order not to go too far and irk Russia. Meanwhile, Ankara is also looking to continue negotiations with Europe but is taking a much more firm stance on the EU accession process. With U.S. backing, Turkey is making a case that Europe needs it more than it needs Europe and that the negotiations for EU accession need to reflect that Turkey is not a second-rate power, but an equal partner in the negotiation process. This is complicated by the fact that Europeans are wary of Turkish membership, particularly the EU powerhouses Germany and France.
However, if the Cypriot negotiations stall, much of the blame (whether deservedly or not) will fall on Anakara’s shoulders. European powers like Germany and France can use a Turkish “failure” to resolve the Cypriot issue as proof that Ankara is not ready for the EU club. For much of his previous stints as prime minister, Eroglu was seen as a strong Turkish ally, which means that Ankara will be again expected to force him to fall in line. However, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) do not have the same close ties to Eroglu that previous Turkish governments (and the Turkish military in particular) had. In fact Erdogan and Eroglu see eye to eye on very few things. Erdogan has already given Eroglu a warning, stating, “It would be very wrong for the new government to end the negotiations or to continue the negotiations on a basis different then the one that has been followed so far. … The process must continue exactly as before.”
But words may not be enough to force the new Turkish Cypriot prime minister to change his stance, particularly if he finds support in the opposition to Erdogan and the AKP in Turkey proper — especially among the ultra-secularists. Particularly damning will be a perception that Erdogan is hanging fellow Turks out to dry in exchange for membership in the EU, where Turkey is not welcome anyway.
(emphasis mine)
http://www.stratfor.com/memberships/136409/analysis/20090421_cyprus_post_election_tensions_and_turkeys_position
