Where did it all go wrong?
By Jean Christou

In March 2003, Rauf Denktash was dragged kicking and screaming to The Hague, but, like many a horse brought to water, they could not make him swallow the Annan plan.

Fast forward one year from then: Denktash was no where to be seen when that last initiative on Cyprus ended on a snowy mountaintop in Switzerland. He was already gone. In fashionspeak he was well… so last year.

But suddenly and in the months that followed, the international community found itself with a new and unanticipated problem. The Greek Cypriots, by then led by President Tassos Papadopoulos, were not falling into line as expected.

Following one tearful presidential speech, a failed referendum and numerous run-ins with the powers that be, the perception now is that it is the Greek Cypriots who are intransigent. It took less than two years to accomplish the transformation after 30 years on the moral high ground of the international arena.

Whoever said that politics was nothing more than a popularity contest was probably right. It seems that being seen to be doing something, even if that something is meaningless, is better than being seen to be doing nothing at all.

The visit of British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to the region during the week left no doubt that the Turkish side was winning the public relations war. With Straw leading the way, the UN, the EU and the US jumped to welcome Ankara’s initiative, which the government has rightly described as “reheated food”.

“I don’t know that everyone is ganging up on Greek Cypriots because they have done anything particularly wrong,” said Intercollege Assistant Professor of International Law and Human Rights, Dr Tim Potier. “I think the accusation is perhaps more that they haven’t been doing anything, or publicly they haven’t been doing anything. I know that privately there is a lot of work being undertaken by people within the government.”

Potier said the mistake the Greek Cypriot side has been making through its “European solution” strategy, is thinking they have time.

“Symptomatic of this problem is expecting that in the meantime everyone else is going to sit on their hands and do nothing and not take an initiative. The strategy may well fail simply because other parties to this problem such as Turkey, or others, will inevitably attempt to seize initiatives and attempt to take the moral high ground,” he added.

A senior government insider said he did not agree that Turkey was winning the PR war. “It is getting a measure of sorts,” he said, adding that the Ankara initiative was being welcomed, not for its content but for the gesture of making an initiative.

The insider said the government was well aware of how the Turkish side had managed to extract the kind of comments that it did from Jack Straw, who backed the initiative in order to create a good climate. He said it was all about impressions, just a “communications trick” that would work for a while but then fade.

“Things are not as bad as they look,” the insider said. “This is obviously a concerted action. It has been attempted before, but we are seasoned fighters and we are not going to be intimidated by these ploys.”

The insider was not specific, but was hinting that the announcement was co-authored by the US and Turkey and that Britain and the UN had fallen into line.

“None of this has anything to do with Cyprus,” said the insider. “It has to do with the new architecture of the Middle East. It’s about the Turkish role model for the Islamic state. This is the point. Personally I think it’s an absolute disgrace, but this is unfortunately the bad luck of small states.”

Potier agreed there was more at stake than just the Cyprus issue, and said it was very probable the Greek Cypriot side was the least important in the equation.

He said in some way the Greek Cypriots had rendered themselves the least important. “Perhaps they have always been,” he said. “If others decide there will be talks then there will be talks. Who decides on the commencement of talks? The UN takes its instructions from Washington, London and Ankara. It’s like three sets of traffic lights. If those three lights are turning from amber to green all at the same time, talks will proceed without a doubt.”

Potier admitted that since the referendum the Greek Cypriot side had to a varying extent offended various international mediators. He also said the EU was “fed up to the back teeth” with how much time was taken up on the Cyprus issue in Brussels.

“The Greek Cypriots must realise people are not going to wait for ever for them to say whether they are ready. The UN will start negotiations as and when the other leading actors say they are ready to start, not when the Greek Cypriots say.”

For one diplomatic source who did not wish to be identified, the matter was simpler. Asked when things had started to go wrong, he said: “It was the moment that the Greek Cypriots could no longer hide behind Denktash’s obduracy and had to step out of the shadows and indicate what their real feelings were.

“Denktash cast a big shadow and when he stepped out of the way the sun shone into a lot of dark corners.”

Cyprus Mail 29.01.2006

An initiative, an envoy: just what is going on?
By Elias Hazou

OUT of the blue, it was confirmed last week that the UN Secretary-general would be sending an envoy to the island in May to broker a new drive for peace talks.

The envoy has since been identified as Under-Secretary-general for Political Affairs Ibrahim Gambari. Meanwhile, it transpired that Secretary-general Kofi Annan had sent a letter to President Papadopoulos as far back as December 29, informing him of a new United Nations initiative.

The announcement caught unawares not just the wider public, but apparently also a number of politicians. Normally, a UN-sponsored initiative is big news.

But many other elements didn’t add up. For one thing, House Speaker Demetris Christofias was completely in the dark on Friday when asked about Annan’s letter. Also not clued in were the United Democrats and DISY, whose leader Nicos Anastassiades had met with the President just a day earlier to discuss developments in the Cyprus problem. Papadopoulos failed to mention the letter during the meeting, prompting an angry response from the main opposition party.

In recent months, the prevailing impression was that progress on Cyprus was deadlocked. But all of a sudden, there was a burst of activity. First there came the Turkish government’s proposal on Tuesday to lift the ban on Greek Cypriot air and sea traffic within its territory if the Greek Cypriots allowed a lifting of the economic isolation of the north.

At the time, Foreign Minister George Iacovou dismissed the proposal as “reheated food” and a ploy. However, the international community – Britain, the EU and finally the US – seemed to take the initiative on board as an issue worth discussing.

On Friday – after the revelation of Kofi Annan’s letter – President Papadopoulos categorically stated the Turkish offer was not linked to the Secretary-general’s initiative in any way. But commentators were sceptical: if the two were unconnected, then why did Annan agree to study Erdogan’s proposal and get back to him? The Secretary-general and the Turkish Prime Minister met this week at Davos, Switzerland, and are planning a second contact sometime soon.

Moreover, unconnected or not, critics wonder what the government has been doing to influence the course of developments. After all, there are only three months to go to the advent of the UN envoy. Yet the government’s nonchalant and indifferent attitude suggests that nothing is afoot.
Then there was the whole debacle over the visit of British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. The change of protocol took everyone aback, given that just weeks earlier the EU Enlargement Commissioner had met with Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat in his office without the government making a fuss.

Matters were further complicated during the week when the Secretary-general appeared to endorse Straw as an envoy, which incidentally was tantamount to adding insult to injury for the government. Some say that Turkey had achieved a diplomatic and PR masterstroke: not only had the Greek Cypriots refused to see Straw, they had refused to see a UN emissary.

Others venture that had it not been for the Turkish “action plan” and the idea of a quadripartite conference in the first place, no one would have known of Kofi Annan’s letter. So, they say, was the government misinformed, uninformed, or was it disinforming? Was the change in protocol (Straw’s visit) introduced precisely to buy time, in the hopes of preventing all these behind-the-scenes developments from surfacing?

Cyprus Mail 29.01.2006

US: ball in the Greek Cypriot court
By Jean Christou

US ambassador to Ankara Ross Wilson said yesterday that Turkey's new Cyprus initiative was important, Turkish mainland media reported.
According to NTV, Wilson said that Turkey had taken important steps in the peace process. "The next developments will depend on the Greek Cypriot side," he said.

Wilson added that the success of the Turkish action plan was dependent on the steps to be taken by the Greek Cypriot side.

However, the Greek Cypriot side has rejected the Turkish initiative as “reheated food” although it has been widely welcomed by the international community, including the UN, which says it will be sending an envoy to the region after the parliamentary elections in May.

But President Tassos Papadopoulos said on Sunday that appointing an envoy for Cyprus need not wait until the elections are over. “These elections do not affect the handling of the Cyprus problem, which is not conducted by the House of Representatives but the executive authority,” he said.

Papadopoulos revealed that he had spoken to UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan for 35 minutes on Friday, but that Annan had not yet revealed his thoughts on the Turkish initiative.

Annan told him that once he had spoken with those he deems to have an interest in the Cyprus problem and the Turkish proposals, he would decide whether or not to undertake a role in the matter.

“I reiterated that I had written very recently about our request for him to appoint a permanent representative, who will work to prepare the talks,” Papadopoulos said. “The Secretary-general agrees that preparation is necessary before becoming involved in a round of talks,” he said.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who paid a controversial visit to the island last week, also spoke at the weekend about Ankara’s initiative, which proposes lifting the Turkish ban on Greek Cypriot air and sea traffic in return for lifting the isolation of the Turkish Cypriots.

However, lifting the ban is already obligatory for Ankara under the EU’s customs union protocol with the 10 new member states.

But Straw said in an interview with Athens newspaper To Vima that the Turkish proposal pleased him. “Cyprus is already a European issue and a difficult one. However, if we do not solve all those differences in views and the open confrontation the difficulties will increase more and more and this is in no one’s interest.”

Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, who announced the proposal a week ago, also spoke with Greek media over the weekend. In an interview with Elefterotipia newspaper he said: "We will not get anywhere with the 'rejection politics’.”

Gul stressed how important the proposals were. "Everyone should understand that stability, trust, and co-operation will not occur only with Turkey's efforts. There have to be joint efforts on both countries' parts,” he added. "We are ready to open our ports. But in parallel procedure to this, the isolationary measures and embargos currently in effect against Northern Cyprus must also be lifted."

Cyprus Mail 31/012006