halil wrote:here is the Yusuf Kanli article for Cyprus package
Monday, January 11, 2010
YUSUF KANLI
A day after the Greek Cypriot National Council – composed of the president and leaders of all political parties represented in the House of Representatives – flatly rejected a set of proposals regarding the “Governance and power sharing” chapter, Turkish Cypriot President Mehmet Ali Talat and his Greek Cypriot counterpart Dimitris Christofias launched the first round of three-day intensified talks yesterday. The second round will be held between Jan. 25-27. In this first round, the leaders will be focusing on power-sharing under a future federal structure, the economy and European Union matters.
What were the fundamental elements of the plan? First of all, like the entire process, the set of offers was built on a “nothing is agreed unless everything is agreed” principle “with an integrated whole approach,” yet negotiable as long as “the internal balance” of the package was not compromised. That was, naturally a constructive approach aimed at triggering a meaningful give-and-take.
Of the 10 offers included in the package, nine of them might have been endorsed by all Turkish Cypriots irrespective of political standing. But, as regards the first proposal – that contained a cross-voting scheme for the election of the president and the vice president (each coming from different communities) of the future federal republic as well as a five-year presidential term on the basis of rotation between a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot in a ratio of three years to two years, the creation of an 12-member Cabinet [as opposed to earlier Greek Cypriot demands for a nine-member Cabinet, three Turkish Cypriots and six Greek Cypriots], five members coming from Turkish Cypriot community and on the condition that the foreign minister and the EU affairs minister; the finance minister and the interior minister; and the natural resources minister and the transportation minister shall never come from the same constituent state – there was a marked deviation from the established parameters of the Turkish Cypriot approach to a settlement on the island. With this offer, the Turkish Cypriot side gave a strong signal to the Greek Cypriot side that it may compromise from its established position that the new partnership state on the island would be the common state of the existing two communities, two democracies, two cultures and two religions on the basis of political equality.
As this offer was nothing further than a revised version of an earlier suggestion by Greek Cypriot President Christofias, I would assume that this was not the reason why Greek Cypriot National Council decided Sunday to reject the package. Yet, the last paragraph of this proposal was stressing that the “concurrent favorable vote of both the president and the vice president shall be required” for the Cabinet to adopt a decision. That, effectively, was introducing a veto mechanism, like the 1960 system. This, indeed, was the sole sentence that the Eroğlu government was happy with in this proposal regarding the “executive” in Talat’s latest set of proposals, but since Greek Cypriots collapsed the 1960 republic among some other reasons because of the veto power of the Turkish Cypriot vice president, probably this was one of the main reasons of the Greek Cypriot “Oxi” to the package.
The second item in the Turkish Cypriot set of proposals was regarding the legislature of the future federation. The proposal underlined that while representation in the senate will be on a communal basis, at the House of Representatives representation will be on the basis of “internal citizenship status.” Thus, a Greek Cypriot who might reside in the Turkish Cypriot constituent state will not be able to be elected either to the Senate or the House from the Turkish Cypriot contingencies. Furthermore, the proposal underlines that there will always be at least one-fourth representation of each of the two constituent states in the House where decisions will be made with simple majority, provided a minimum of one-fourth of the representatives from each of the two states vote affirmatively. At the Senate, however a qualified vote [two-fifths of sitting Senators from each constituent state, in addition to a simple majority of deputies present and voting including one-fourth of the representatives from each of the two federated states] will be required in legislating laws in certain areas [such as internal security, federal finance, taxation and foreign relations] to be specified in the federal constitution.
If the 1960 agreement was an “effective federation” because of similar qualified vote arrangements in favor of Turkish Cypriots, naturally Greek Cypriots were right in complaining that the arrangements explained above were describing a confederation not a federation or elements that will add a federation some confederal components.
I will continue tomorrow with other elements in the Turkish Cypriot package.
Halil, wake up and read your posts. Next time you see DOwner I want you to complain that your side is negotiating outside of the agreed framework of a BBF.
