Cyprus-Forum.com

[Alexandros Lordos]

In the revised security section, couldnt it be easier, in terms of not having the 'last resort' option, if neither greek nor turkish troops, either as seperate or part of a european force, be part of any 'peacekeeping'.

At least then there will be 'impartiality' on the side of the forces.

The idea was that there wouldn't be any Greek or Turkish soldiers included in the security force.

On voting rights, couldnt you have a small, capped number of GC representatives in the TC 'const. state', and vis-versa for TCs in the GC 'const. state'?

So it would be the same number of representatives, for both sides (e.g. 10% of the deputies) regardless of their proportion in the population? Please clarify for me what you are thinking.

I dont understand the Revised Decision Making Mechanisms. Could you expalin the weighting thing...i dont understand it.

Well, all GCs would also vote for the TC senators, but their vote will be "compressed", as it were, so that ALL the GC votes (say 500,000) will in the end count as 25% of the total TC vote (say 50,000). An equivalent process will take place with the TCs, only difference being that in their case it probably won't be necessary to compress their vote, since they are no more than 20-25% of the population anyway. The idea behind this is that politicians live on votes. Whether they will be co-operative or not will depend on whether they have an electoral gain from being co-operative.

[demetriou_74]

a state system where each state governs its self.

[Alexandros Lordos]

a state system where each state governs its self.

Care to elaborate?

[turkcyp]

deleted by the author...

[Alexandros Lordos]

And but you should seriously think about the 2002 date if you want to present this proposal to political leaders. There has been so much construction done in north since 2002 putting this deadline is a recipe for getting a "No" vote in north.

Well, the idea behind 2002 is that it is the date when the Annan Plan came out. Any construction that happened after that date is "suspect", as trying to abuse provisions of the Annan Plan. That is why the Plan itself gave a watershed date of 31st December 2002, so that people wouldn't abuse its provisions in later months.

I suppose the issue will eventually be bargained by the two leaders, and a date sometime between 2002 and today will be chosen as the watershed - perhaps the date of the last referendum, in April 2004.

[-mikkie2-]

Alexandre,

How many times do you have to come up with proposals for a solution? I admire what you have done. I wish I had the patience and the time to do what you have done. However, no matter how much you try to come up with a balanced view of a solution the TC's jump in and skew it towards what they want and in the end your plans end up being fallow.

What is the point? What is the point of trying to reason with people that have such an ingrained and narrow minded mentality?

Its simple. The only solution is a la Turka for them irrespective of what the GC's may think. I'd rather have half of Cyprus and be free than live under a sham of a supposed unified state.

[metecyp]

What is the point? What is the point of trying to reason with people that have such an ingrained and narrow minded mentality?

Mikkie2, after all these discussions, if this is how you view TCs, I'm sorry to say but you wasted a whole lot of time...

[Alexandros Lordos]

I'd rather have half of Cyprus and be free than live under a sham of a supposed unified state.

I understand the sentiment - so, how do you view the proposed plan? Is it a sham of a supposed unified state, or a true unified state? If it is a sham, what makes it so?

[Alexandros Lordos]

i voted no becasue of the bit about major developments. are you saying that if i stole your phone put a new case on it and changed all the sim cards its ok. its the sentimental value of land. my dad gave it to me and i will give it to you and ..............

The case of houses built by TCs on GC land is complex ... the owner of the land is definitely the GC, whereas the owner of the house (bricks etc.) is definitely the TC. The problem is, the two (land + house) have become inseperable, unless of course you choose to destroy the house - an unwise proposal, since economies are based on investments already made.

The way such situations are handled internationally (because Cyprus is not the only place in the world with such disputes), is that the owner of the bigger value has first option to buy out the owner of the smaller value. If he doesn't exercise that option, then the owner of the smaller value has the right to buy out the owner of the larger value. If your land is worth 200,000 and the house is worth 50,000 then you have first right to buy the house. If however the land is worth 100,000 and the building (say, a block of flats) is worth 1,000,000 then the owner of the building has first right to buy the land.

I am aware that this is inadequate on an emotional level. But such problems are difficult to solve, and there are no totally satisfactory answers.

[Yiannis]

Well done Alexandre, its another good proposal.
I voted Yes because it satisfies my 2 main concerns:
1)Freedom to live wherever you like.
2)An overall good settlement for the properties (personally not a refugee though).