Cyprus-Forum.com

[zan]

Property issue cannot be solved without compromise’
By Jean Christou

THE property issue will be nearly impossible to resolve without compromise because it is itself rooted in irreconcilable and mutually exclusive perspectives on the Cyprus problem, a new report published yesterday has concluded.

The report, which was compiled by Ayla G?rel and Kudret ?zersay under the auspices of the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO), examines the official Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot approaches to the property issue, as well as the reactions of the two sides to proposals for resolving the issue through a compromise solution.

“It is inevitable that in any study dealing with one of the hottest issues in the Cyprus problem, the formulations and perspectives of the authors may appear controversial,” said PRIO Director Stein Tonnesson, “Our intention is to ensure that the report leads to further inquiry and debate within several scholarly disciplines, as well as in the media. Our hope is to avoid sterile quarrels”.

The report reveals the extent of the difficulties connected with the property issue, including the considerable difference between the two sides’ figures for Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot-owned land.

While the Greek Cypriot side estimates the 1974 figure for Greek Cypriot-owned land in the present Turkish Cypriot-controlled north at 78.5 per cent of all privately owned land in that area, the Turkish Cypriot side estimates this at 63.8 per cent.

Similarly, the Turkish Cypriot estimates for Turkish Cypriot-owned private land in 1974 on both sides of the island stand at 33 per cent of all private land in the north and 22 per cent in the south. “These are considerably higher than those provided by the Greek Cypriot side, which are 21.1 per cent in the north and 13.9 per cent in the south,” the report said.

The authors work on the assumption that the Greek Cypriots maintain that the property issue is essentially a matter of human rights violation, and therefore can only be resolved by implementing ‘the fundamental principle of respect for human rights’.

“They interpret this to mean giving all displaced persons unrestricted rights to repossess and return to their former homes and properties, irrespective, in particular, of any bizonal arrangements,” the report said.

“The Turkish Cypriots, on the other hand, insist that this contradicts ‘the fundamental principle of bizonality’. While accepting the principle of respect for human rights, they demand restrictions on the exercise of rights to property and return by displaced persons insofar as is necessary to preserve and protect bizonality.”

The report studies the link between the two sides’ divergent positions on property and their perspectives on the nature of the Cyprus problem, citing the fact that for Turkish Cypriots the Cyprus problems started in 1963 and for the Greek Cypriots it started in 1974.

“The political implication of this conclusion is to be found within the larger argument that the only possible mutually agreed solution to the problem is a compromise between the two positions,” said the report.

“So far, each side’s approach to the principles of bizonality and respect for human rights has been one-sided and categorical, being primarily informed by that side’s very different experience of the island’s recent traumatic past.

To achieve a compromise, what seems to be most needed is a fresh, more flexible and forward-looking reconsideration by both sides of how to understand these two basic principles.”



Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2007