Cyprus-Forum.com

[paliometoxo]

IT IS time for the UK government to “consider the formal partition of Cyprus” if the current round of UN-backed reunification talks fail, former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw wrote in The Times yesterday.
His statements came ahead of next week’s meeting between President Demetris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in New York, and a visit by the Turkish President Abdullah Gul to the UK yesterday to collect this year’s Chatham House Prize from the Queen.
Speaking of the New York meeting, which comes after more than two years of negotiations between Christofias and the Turkish Cypriot leader, Straw said, “We should pray for success,” but added that “the chances of a settlement would be greatly enhanced if the international community broke a taboo, and started publicly to recognise that if political equality cannot be achieved within one state, then it could with two states - north and south”.
Straw’s comments, he said, stem not from a belief that Cyprus would be better off divided, but from his frustration at the EU’s, and in particular Cyprus and France’s, opposition to Turkey’s long-awaited accession to the bloc. Turkey applied for membership in 1963, but was not awarded candidacy until 1999. Today, 18 out of the 35 chapters that must be completed before entry are blocked - a situation, that if it were to continue, would prevent Turkey from ever joining.
While France and Cyprus share the burden of blocking Turkey’s accession hopes, Straw says France has been able to use the “convenient excuse of Cyprus” to hide the “naked truth” that it opposed Turkish accession because it is a predominantly Muslim country. The UK, on the other hand, has always supported Turkish accession to the EU.
Returning to the forthcoming meeting in New York, Straw urged the international community to see both sides of the story surrounding the Cyprus dispute.
“There are two stories: one of the ‘unjustifiable’ Turkish invasion; the other of such ‘violent oppression’ by the Greek majority of the minority that Turkish protection was (and is) vital. Both sets of stories have truths, but because Greek Cyprus was admitted to the EU before any settlement of the island’s future it is their truths which dominate EU decisions on Turkey,” he wrote.
Speaking to the BBC’s Radio Four Today Programme yesterday morning Straw said that if next week’s talks failed, a “default position” was needed to prevent Turkey’s accession process from being totally scuppered.
“Greek Cypriot Cyprus is using what is a relatively tiny dispute to try to stop Turkey coming into the EU,” and warned: “If we carry on locking Turkey’s accession negotiations we will push Turkey towards Iran and the [Arab] south.”
Alternatively, Straw said, Europe should “embrace the advance” of a Turkey that was “becoming an advanced industrialised country”.
“If we reject it, we will pay the price.”
Straw sparked controversy in 2006 when during an official visit to Cyprus he met with then Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat at his office in north Nicosia. President Tassos Papadopoulos refused to see the British foreign secretary while protests were held outside the foreign ministry during Straw’s meeting with Giorgos Iacovou.