Cyprus-Forum.com

[Acikgoz]

Well, end of another week - could we say there was more reconcilliation or more bitterness from the contributions?

If "overarching loyalty" (to quote earlier posts) is necessary for Cypriots to be able to move forward under the same sovereign entity, would we say we have reached a step closer by all the dialogue or a step apart?

Who are the ones that push it closer and who are the ones that push it further away?

For all the energy expended it is probably worth taking a moment to consider.

[Viewpoint]

Cyprus will be freed again and it will be an independent nation with one people one citizenship and one international identity, where all citizens are free and are not discriminated based on their ethnicity. The UN and EU cannot and do not have any other option but to advocate for free and truly free nations and if that means the TC's walk away with a percentage of Cyprus because that's what they want and someone is prepared to give it to them then so be it.

Thank god you have seen the light.

[Kikapu]

One second, Kikapu, do you know anything about the AP?

You said: "Also, as a Confederate "founding state" the north state could have given as many citizenship's to the future settlers from Turkey and made them EU citizens in short time, which then would have been spread all over the island at will."

These were the responsibilities of the Federal body:
Article 14 Competences and functions of the federal government
1. The federal government shall, in accordance with this Constitution, sovereignly exercise legislative and executive competences in the following matters:
a. External relations, including conclusion of international treaties and defence policy;8
b. Relations with the European Union;9
c. Central Bank functions, including issuance of currency, monetary policy and banking regulations;
d. federal finances, including budget and all indirect taxation (including customs and excise), and federal economic and trade policy;
e. Natural resources, including water resources;
f. Meteorology, aviation,10 international navigation and the continental shelf and territorial waters11 of the United Cyprus Republic;
g. Communications (including postal, electronic and telecommunications);
h. Cypriot citizenship (including issuance of passports) and immigration (including asylum, deportation and extradition of aliens);
i. Combating terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering and organised crime;
j. Pardons and amnesties (other than for crimes concerning only one constituent state12);
k. Intellectual property and weights and measures; and
l. Antiquities

Note point h. and your false arguement;



Also, note how the AP would deal with immigrants:
Law 1: Federal Law on Aliens and Immigration
Section 2 Entry and residency rights of Greek and Turkish nationals
1. The United Cyprus Republic shall grant equal treatment to Greek and Turkish nationals with respect to entry and residency rights to the extent permissible under European Union law and the Treaty of Accession of Cyprus to the European Union.
2. Upon entry into force of the Foundation Agreement, the Aliens Board shall authorise the constituent states to grant permanent residence to nationals of Greece up to a level of 10% of the number of resident Cypriot citizens who hold the internal constituent state citizenship status of the Greek Cypriot State and to nationals of Turkey up to a level of 10% of the number of resident Cypriot citizens who hold the internal constituent state citizenship status of the Turkish Cypriot State. Such
nationals who do not so receive permanent residence may apply for financial assistance to relocate to their country of origin if they have lived in Cyprus for no less than five years.

You wanted to deal with the immigrant issue and this dealt with it. Please read the dead and buried AP Kikapu before you continue to talk as though you have. You are making huge mis-representations that surely is not what you want.

You wanted to deal with the immigrant issue and this dealt with it. Please read the dead and buried AP Kikapu before you continue to talk as though you have. You are making huge mis-representations that surely is not what you want.

Note point h. and your false arguement;

It is not a false argument at all. Of course the Federal Government will write up the rules and laws as to who, how and when a foreign person may become eligible to become a Cypriot Citizen equalling to European Citizen, but it would have been the local governments/states who would have issued citizenships and passports under a Confederation States New United Cyprus. It is those details that you do not have, which would be buried in the 9,000+ pages. It was made very clear by Kofi Annan that the AP was based on the Swiss model, so let me tell you how it works in Switzerland which is a Confederation states but it is a Federation system of government. The Federal Government has rules as to who, how and when a foreigner can become a citizen of Switzerland, but it is the individual Cantons "states" that issue the passports and citizenship. If I meet all the described conditions by the Federal government, all I need to do is to apply for my Swiss citizenship or passport at my local village "Gemeinde" (town/city hall, local council), which incidentally, is the same place where all the local, state and Federal taxes go to from those living in the that village, to be distributed by the "Gemeinde" to relevant agencies later on, once they have taken the lions share of the taxes paid by the locals..

My approval/disapproval of my application is determined first by my local government and then it is sent to the Canton Police to verify all my details. Once all the details are verified, then my local council in the location I live in I live in will then inform the locals of my pending citizenship. If there isn't any objection by the locals questioning my character and ones good standing as a model "citizen", then one then receives their citizenships. Naturally, if an applicant perceives to be unfairly treated by the local if citizenship is denied, then it can be taken to a higher authority within the Canton. Therefore, it is the Cantons one lives in who determines who gets citizenship and not the3 Federal Government. All the Federal Government does is to provide the guidelines, that's all.

So getting back to post AP, the north state would have determined who became a citizen and who did not. But my point was much more than that, when I stated that the north state can give as many citizenships to the future settlers as possible, based on the fact, that once the AP became unworkable just because it was worse than the 1960 constitution, if one of the "founding states" decided to secede from the union, chances are, they would have been able to do do so and become an independent sovereign state and more than likely retain their EU status as a EU member state. Don't forget what CopperLine stated 3 years ago, that if the "trnc" applied for a recognition today rather than in 1974, they would have gotten it, and that they were ahead of their time. I think CopperLine has a point. Knowing that, why wouldn't the north go for secession from the Union, and as being one of the "founding Confederation states", the rest would have been very easy to make. With a veto power in the EU, Turkey would have been able to do as she pleased through the north states membership, while in the meantime retain her presence on the island as a guarantor power for all of Cyprus. In te meantime, the new north EU state would have produced as many EU citizens as it liked which they would have been able to move to the south state at will. Overtime, the south would have been flooded with new EU citizens from Turkey. All you have to do is to look at the big picture to see where I'm coming from.

The immigration issues would have fallen under the same guidance as I've described above. Don't you find if peculiar that the above talks about percentages of the number of Greek national and Turkish nationals being allowed to settle in Cyprus, when Cyprus as a EU members state along with Greece, there would be no need for the Greek nationals who are already EU citizens to be compared with the non EU citizens from Turkey as to how many should be allowed to settle in percentages..!!

[Kikapu]

Look at this map and regret.

Had the vote for the AP been positive then much of what everyone on this forum is haggling over would have been resolved. The whole island would be within the EU, GCs and TCs woiuld have had property-losses addressed, Turkish settlement would have come to an end, the Turkish military would have left, and the territorial 'division' would have been completed (i.e, as of today, Varosha would have been returned over two and a half years ago).

No, the AP was by no means perfect and was open to all sorts of criticism, but better to be vaguely right than precisely wrong.

Any other solution is going to be a variety of AP (or worse). If only we had made the Cyprus problem history.

CopperLine,

The AP being a Confederation Plan as well as both north and south being the "founding states" of the New United Cyprus, what makes you think that the north would not have separated to become an independent sovereign state and remain a EU member at the same time, which would have served Turkey's interest in order to have influence in the EU through the north state with their EU veto power in the EU. Also, as a Confederate "founding state" the north state could have given as many citizenship's to the future settlers from Turkey and made them EU citizens in short time, which then would have been spread all over the island at will. How long do you think it would have taken for the new Turkish EU citizens to take ove the whole island in your view.?? In the meantime, Turkey would have retain her guarantorship over the whole island, including the south state. Everything in the AP could have been turned upside down by the slightest ethnic altercations for Turkey to remain in Cyprus with her troops citing her garantourship rights, and don't think for a moment, there wouldn't have been ethnic violence cooked up sooner or later to justify for Turkey to remain in Cyprus. AP had 9,000 + pages to deal with and not the one or two soundbites you have introduced above on what ifs. What you have pointed out had the AP passed could be easily be categorized as being "Penny wise and a Pound foolish" for the GCs, hence the strong 76% rejection by them. What more do you need to know about what the AP was all about..??..!

CopperLine, can you also tell me who made this quote below, please.!

"TRNC could be recognised at the drop of a hat, just as Slovenia, Croatia, and other former federal Yugoslav states were even though the FR of Yugoslavia in the form of the core state of Serbia Montenegro violently opposed their secession and international recognition. The irony is that if the 1974 separation and the 1983 TRNC declaration had occurred respectively one decade later the chances are that TRNC wouuld have been recognised immediately by the international community because of the developments in 'international humanitarian law' and the 'laws of war' following the end of the Cold War. You could say that TCs were just too far ahead of their time."

In politics anything is possible, so Kikapu, yes what you fear may have come about, but I don't think so. That's the point of a negtotiated settlement : you attend to the possibilities and one tries to limit the negative possibilities by putting in procedures and practices which minimise the chances of those negatives arising. As I've said many times here, the AP was by no means perfect, but I challenge anyone to propose anything which has anything like as strong a chance of agreement and approval. (If this forum were any reflections of reality then the "best" most likely proposals would gather no more than say 10% of a popular vote, in my estimate).

Yes of course everything is possible in politics, CopperLine and I have given my version of it, based on purely on what was suppose to be a "peace plan settlement" that was Racist, Undemocratic, Anti EU Principles, Human Rights violation, International Law violations, an Apartheid system to name a few, a totally unworkable plan which was a "perfect storm" for disaster that would have made the 1960 constitution a child's play. The whole AP required everyone to accept the "goodwill" of everyone involved that this plan could work, but anytime the "goodwill" was taken away, it would have fallen down like a house of cards. And who were we suppose to expect the "goodwill" from.?? Well, no other than all the same ones who had not lived up to their responsibilities in the past, but in fact continue to violate their responsibilities even today. Call be a pessimist if you want, but just like I wouldn't get on a plane when one of it's engines is held by a duct tape and has missing fan blades, few missing tyres on it's landing gear, few missing windows in the fuselage, and the captain is drunk in the front passed out, no matter how much the flight attendant may want to assure me that we will have a smooth flight and that we will reach our destination intact.!

OK so AP had problems but we all know that current and future negotiations have taken AP as a basic default from which new (and not so new) variations have been discussed. The UN and the EU are publicly committed to some variant (albeit under different names) and RoC, TRNC and RoT negotiators have all publicly stated, repeatedly, their commitment to a UN-EU backed process. There is only one game in town, it is AP version 2.0 or X.whatever.

Yes, the AP did have problems, major problems, but just because a better one is not being produced when it can be, you are asking everyone to get aboard that "sick plane" as I've described above, since it's the only plane available. Errr, no thanks.! I don't care what the next plan is called, that is not the point nor is it important. Call it AP whatever. It is not the name that is disliked, just it's content. Keep the name, but change it's contents.!

Of course states can renege on an agreement, but this is not peculiar to Turkey. In fact regarding the Cyprus question, the RoC has more to be embarassed about reneging on agreements, not least regarding EU accession. But let's not bicker about that. Any agreement is as strong as the reasons for compliance and the costs of 'defection'. In my view there were huge interests for Turkey to honour AP commitments. To use a contrary aphorism "Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves."

There is a difference between reneging on issues by outfoxing your opponents who intend on harming you, as the case was to get into the EU first no matter and reneging on all of one's responsibilities to keep the peace for all one supposed to protect island-wide. The main actors we were asked to rely on had failed Cyprus big time. Asking them to be our future "Guardian Angels" would have been like asking "Jack the Ripper" to become our chief surgeon.! Errr, no thanks.!

I simply don't buy your nightmare scenario on Turkish immigration and citizenship claims post Annan. There is absolutely no evidence from the rest of the EU enlargement process that 'fortress Europe' has been weakened in the way you alarm.

Can you show me a place in the EU member states where Turkey has a control/influence of a EU member state like she would have had on the "TC state" whether it was part of the Union in Cyprus, or worse, as an independent sovereign state and a EU member. The answer is a NO. Therefore you cannot make a comparison, CopperLine.

On the last point, I stand by every word of it. (Although you should note that that was a comment about recognition and declaration of independence. The ICJ case was solely about the declaration of independence in international law, not recognition. Recognition is a national political question and not a matter of international law).

I'm glad that you stand by your above statement you made over 3 years ago, CopperLine, because there is a lot of truth to it, which is also why I base my concerns on when we have a damaged and corrupted plan like the AP of 2004. The conversation when you made those statements were not about the ICJ however, but more about the ECHR. Here is the link if you want to look back.
http://www.cyprus-forum.com/viewtopic.p ... c&start=10


Copperline, you may be asking the question as to why "Kikapu" as a TC, doesn't like the AP as 65% of those in the north did in 2004. The answer is, if I was interested in another crises as in 1963 which I lived through, I would be all for it, and with the Turkish Army in Cyprus, the TCs would be in a winning side to partition the island permanently. The only problem is, the war in Cyprus would not be over and will once again re-appear. Time Does Not Stand Still. Secondly, it will be the beginning of the end of the TCs as we know them. The TCs will disappear by Turkey and the Turks. Osmosis would take place without the chance of ever reversing it. I know we have few mindless idiot who wouldn't mind seeing that happen, claiming that they have their roots in Turkey and that they are "Turkish" even after 450 years living on the island of Cyprus. I cannot take part in the cultural genocide of my own people. What the GCs couldn't /wouldn't do to us in the last 450 years, we TCs are now a willing participants of our own extinction of the TC culture and heritage. It doesn't have to be that way. We can all get what we want with the GCs, and in the 21st century as a EU member, we are now not were we were in the middle of the last century. Times have changes, and so must the Cypriots. A good compromise as I see it from a Unitary state of the past is to have a BBF based on True Democracy, True Federation, Human Rights, EU Principles and International Laws. Anything less, would be like getting on that "sick plane".!

[Nikitas]

Copperline,

Seeing those convoluted lines separating the two "founding states" do you not see a policing and adminstrating nightmare?

Do you not ask yourself why every single map ever presented by anyone always shows the British Dekhelia base stretching from the coast to abut the TC "state"? Why it is necessary to divide the GC state into two distinct pieces?

And above all, if the territory was marked for return, why not accept an interim UN administration? Why insist on the presence of the Turkish army, which according to the military disengagement annexes was guaranteed a crushing firepower advantage until the final withdrawal? With the Turkish airforce two minutes away, the navy encircling Cyprus in less than four hours, why was such an advantage needed and included with such detail in the Annan plan?

That map was the main reason why I opposed the plan. Unlike Kikapu, I harbor no hopes of BBF being anything more than a palatable name for partition and fully expect that soon after any settlement an excuse will be found for the northern state to secede. My preoccupation is that such a move will not lead to a repeat of 1963, or 1974 or worse.

[CopperLine]

Kikapu,
I take your objections to the AP seriously. However I do not accept at all the analogue with climbing aboard an unairworthy aircraft. That is a superficially attractive but actually quite misleading and inappropriate metaphor.

Your opening comments about having to trust people and powers that had directly contributed to the mess in the first place is exactly what virtually all peace settlements are about. That is to say, the f**ckers who were screwing you over yesterday are the ones you have to negotiate with today and who'll be your partners tomorrow. And the point of any negotiations is to make arrangements which will furnish the best chances and mechanisms of post-settlement problem solving. Your assessment is that AP just didn't provide the necessary means; my assessment is that it did. In the end our differences of assessment are irrelevant because the AP was rejected, but that just leaves us both with the same question : is there another game in town that we can both address ?

Nikitas
I just do not buy the argument that Turkey would have retained the degree of influence and control that you allege. Neither do I think that the question of "firepower" is relevant because under no conceivable circumstances would Turkey resort to a military resolution of a political problem in a post-settlement scenario. (If you don't agree with that assessment - I suspect that you won't - then I cannot ever see any circumstances in which a negotiated settlement was possible. If your argument is no more than to say once Turkey demonstrated its malign intent regarding Cyprus (74, or before or since) then Turkey will always be like that, then we might as well all pack our bags and give up. That would be a "leopard never changes its' spots" argument.The Turkey of July 1974 is not the Turkey of September 1980 of December 1999 or of July 2010 any more than Cyprus of 2010 is the Cyprus of 1974 or 1960.

I think that you have to decide what it is that you want and which matter are of priority. If, for example, you want the restoration of Varosha and restitution of Famagusta - I seem to recall that you've often posted on these matters - then (again for example) the timetable for the withdrawal of the Turkish army might be slower (that doesn't mean that you want the Turkish army to stay or that you're indifferent to its occupation, but it does mean that a comprehensive plan such as AP is going to have contain those kinds of priorities and trades-off. If you don't work these things out then you get nothing. My assessment for what it is worth is that with the lengthening of years since AP the chances of getting nothing are increasing, not decreasing, and that the demographic, political, international situation is moving towards the marginalisation of Cypriots (Turkish) in northern Cyprus, the increasing dependency of the north on Turkey and the consolidation of an anti-democratic, thuggish nationalist politics in the north. There is nothing that the GCs have been able to do to halt that trend and whether by design or accident have directly contributed to that trend.

Without a shadow of doubt I would sincerely wish to be wrong in this assessment.

[Get Real!]

Here's something for the Annan Plan enthusiasts to enjoy...

http://unannanplan.agrino.org/

[CopperLine]

Now if you replaced the consuming crescent mouth with the encircling EU 'stars', the flag would be more accurate.

Why does the argument of securing and protecting Cyprus from Turkey through EU accession suddenly collapse when it comes to incorporating the whole of the island into the EU through AP ? For those who thought Cyprus' EU accession was a good thing have to explain why it is suddenly a bad thing if part of an AP-type settlement.

[Piratis]

This is how 2010 would have been if we had accepted the Annan plan:

Cyprus would be officially partitioned with the north part of our island being officially Turkish. "United Cyprus"? We are more united with Lithuania, where we can move and settle without any restrictions, than we would be with what would now be officially recognized as "Turkish Cyprus".

Democracy would be replaced with some racist apartheid system that would allow Turkey to control the whole Cyprus via her well known puppets. The Cypriots today democratically rule 2/3rds of their country. If we had accepted the Annan plan we would be able to democratically rule 0%. No important decision could be taken by us democratically without it being approved by Turkey. The whole Cyprus would be a banana republic of Turkey, in the same way that the "trnc" is today. Our aim is to liberate the 1/3rd of Cyprus which is under Turkish occupation, not to allow the Turks to enslave our whole island. Cyprus was united under Ottoman rule, but we'd rather have 2/3rds of our island free, instead of being "united" under Turkish rule.


10s of thousands of Settlers would be recognized as Cypriot citizens and be free to roam over the whole island.

The obstacle of Cyprus in the EU accession of Turkey would be removed.

Turkish Cypriots would get everything from day one. An end to the "embargoes", direct flights, EU, recognition etc. Greek Cypriots would get nothing from day one, apart from a promise that in the future 7% of our land would be returned to us and some Turkish troops would leave. Would the Turks keep their promise? I highly doubt. Today the Turks refuse to obey UN resolutions. In the past they violated all agreements they had with Greece regarding the Greek populations in Asia Minor and the Imbros and Tenedos islands. It would be extremely easy for them to create another incident, like they did in 1958, initiate some conflict, and use that as an excuse for not returning even that 7% of territory. But in that case it will not be an issue of illegal occupation of Cyprus by Turkey. It would just be a territorial dispute between "Turkish Cyprus" and "Greek Cyprus". And since we would be downgraded from a country to a community, we will not even have the little powers that we have today as Republic of Cyprus.

The list about the negatives of Annan plan is endless, but I will stop here. Annan plan was nothing more than a partition plan that served the Turks. It did NOT liberate Cyprus from the Turks, on the contrary it made the north part of our homeland officially Turkish. It did NOT restore our human rights, on the contrary it legalized the violations of our human and democratic rights and made us second category EU citizens.

[Viewpoint]

This is how 2010 would have been if we had accepted the Annan plan:

Cyprus would be officially partitioned with the north part of our island being officially Turkish. "United Cyprus"? We are more united with Lithuania, where we can move and settle without any restrictions, than we would be with what would now be officially recognized as "Turkish Cyprus".

Democracy would be replaced with some racist apartheid system that would allow Turkey to control the whole Cyprus via her well known puppets. The Cypriots today democratically rule 2/3rds of their country. If we had accepted the Annan plan we would be able to democratically rule 0%. No important decision could be taken by us democratically without it being approved by Turkey. The whole Cyprus would be a banana republic of Turkey, in the same way that the "trnc" is today. Our aim is to liberate the 1/3rd of Cyprus which is under Turkish occupation, not to allow the Turks to enslave our whole island. Cyprus was united under Ottoman rule, but we'd rather have 2/3rds of our island free, instead of being "united" under Turkish rule.


10s of thousands of Settlers would be recognized as Cypriot citizens and be free to roam over the whole island.

The obstacle of Cyprus in the EU accession of Turkey would be removed.

Turkish Cypriots would get everything from day one. An end to the "embargoes", direct flights, EU, recognition etc. Greek Cypriots would get nothing from day one, apart from a promise that in the future 7% of our land would be returned to us and some Turkish troops would leave. Would the Turks keep their promise? I highly doubt. Today the Turks refuse to obey UN resolutions. In the past they violated all agreements they had with Greece regarding the Greek populations in Asia Minor and the Imbros and Tenedos islands. It would be extremely easy for them to create another incident, like they did in 1958, initiate some conflict, and use that as an excuse for not returning even that 7% of territory. But in that case it will not be an issue of illegal occupation of Cyprus by Turkey. It would just be a territorial dispute between "Turkish Cyprus" and "Greek Cyprus". And since we would be downgraded from a country to a community, we will not even have the little powers that we have today as Republic of Cyprus.

The list about the negatives of Annan plan is endless, but I will stop here. Annan plan was nothing more than a partition plan that served the Turks. It did NOT liberate Cyprus from the Turks, on the contrary it made the north part of our homeland officially Turkish. It did NOT restore our human rights, on the contrary it legalized the violations of our human and democratic rights and made us second category EU citizens.

This pure PARANOIA.