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Azernews
is pleased to present an article on the status of
the Cyprus issue by the President of the Turkish
Republic of Northern Cyprus, His Excellency Rauf R.
DENKTAS.
On
15 October 2001 British PM Tony Blair stated after
talking to Arafat: “A viable Palestinian state as
part of a negotiated and agreed settlement which
guarantees peace and security for Israel is the
objective. The end we desire therefore is a just
peace in which Israelis and Palestinians live side
by side each in their own state, secure and able to
prosper and develop. That is the only sensible
outcome and we must seize this moment to make
progress towards that end… And what is, Israelis
and Palestinians putting behind them the bitterness
of the past and on the basis of mutual recognition
and respect, reaching out to a better, more peaceful,
more prosperous future for all. That is an objective
we can achieve if we find the will and determination
to achieve it.”
In
Cyprus, the situation is no different. Two peoples
who had agreed to cooperate in a partnership state
called the Republic of Cyprus have fallen since
December 1963 because the Greek Cypriot partner
rejected the partnership concept and tried to take
over the island through use of force. Since December
1963 there has not been a common government for
Cyprus, the constitutions of the land having been
declared “dead and buried” by “the President
of Cyprus”, Archbishop Makarios. Attempts to
impose Greek Cypriot political will on the Turkish
Cypriot partner continued relentlessly until 1974
leaving behind hundreds of dead and wounded and
hundreds of missing Turkish Cypriots who were
abducted and killed by so-called government forces
with the assistance of soldiers clandestinely
imported from Greece. The false pretence that the
Greek Cypriot administration, which occupied the
seat of joint government by force in December 1963,
is the legitimate government of Cyprus,
unfortunately continues to this day.
As
in the Israel-Palestinian dispute, Turkish Cypriots
refuse to accept the Greek Cypriot usurpers of power
as the government of Cyprus. If the Cyprus problem
has not been settled during the new partnership or
joint state with the ousted Turkish Cypriots as long
as they are treated as the legitimate government of
the whole island – a title which they failed to
gain as a result of Turkish Cypriot resistance to
this imposition, but instead “gifted” to them by
the outside world. Ever since, the Greek Cypriot
side has been adamant about settling the problem on
the basis of Greek Cypriot legitimacy.
The
UN Secretary-General’s latest attempt to settle
the problem on the basis of “a new partnership
between two equals” foundered on the Greek Cypriot
claim of legitimacy. This claim denies 40 years of
reality and forgets that the Greek Cypriot side
destroyed the Partnership Republic of Cyprus in
order to make it its own and thus have the right as
“the People of Cyprus” to hand it over to Greece.
Here is Glafkos Clerides’s (ex-president of the
Greek-Cypriot Administration of South Cyprus) frank
admission in his memoirs. My Deposition. Vol 3 Page
105.
“Just
as the Greek Cypriot preoccupation was that Cyprus
should be a Greek Cypriot state, with a protected
Turkish Cypriot minority, the Turkish preoccupation
was to defeat any such effort and to maintain the
partnership concept, which in their opinion the
Zurich Agreement had created between the two
communities. The conflict, therefore, was a conflict
of principle and for that principle both sides were
prepared to go on arguing and even, if need be, to
fight, rather than compromise.
The
same principle is still in conflict, even today,
though a federal solution has been accepted – and
though a federation is nothing more than a
constitutional partnership of the component states,
provinces or cantons which make up the federation”.
Experts
on International Law and on Cyprus have repeatedly
supported the view that Cyprus can only be united on
the basis of two states if a permanent and just
solution is desired. Some excerpts from these views
may be helpful.
Professor
Peter Pernthaler of the University of Innsbruck,
Austria, in his presentation to the prestigious
International Association of Centres for Federal
Studies Conference in 1998 (Jerusalem, October
19-22, 1988), pointed out that:
“The
two populations of Cyprus are two clearly distinct
ethnic groups, which means that there is no
homogenous “nation” or people” of Cyprus that
could exercise a “national” right of self-determination
in Cyprus. Neither of the two ethnic groups (people)
possesses the de jure or the de facto power to deny
or overrule the right of self-determination of the
group… the illegal: Turkish population during the
early sixties therefore surpassed the legal scope of
Cyprus’ sovereignty (ultra vires acts). These acts
immediately caused a civil war between the two
populations. The constitutional amendments certainly
cannot be considered to have created “one Cypriot
nation” because they could not be accepted by the
Turkish population. Nor could these acts create a
new type of unitary states dominated by the Greek
because this was not within the de facto power of
the Greek authorities. The “new state” was,
therefore, a de facto Greek national regime. The
foundation of the TRNC however, was not secession
from a unified Cyprus, but rather a reaction to the
national Greek de facto regime, leading to 10 years
of civil war. The UN Security Council’s
resolutions 543/1983 and 550/1984 not to recognize
the TRNC as a state are merely political advice and
are not legally binding. Moreover, they are legally
self-contradictory, because they do not consider the
illegal acts that were first performed by the Greek
Cypriots the main reason for the establishment of a
separate Turkish state…”
9p 1-2).
Nathalie
Tocci, author of “The Cyprus Question: Reshaping
Community Identities and Elite Interests within a
Wider European Framework” has expressed the
opinion that an unitary sovereign state would be
likely to fail, and a confederal arrangement would
offer benefits for both sides.
In
the article “Cyprus. Which Way? – In Pursuit of
a Confederal Solution in Europe”. Professor
Nanette Neuwahl states “the option of a confederal
state within the European Union would seem an
attractive option. Combined with the supranational
framework of the EC it may just about appeal enough
to make it attractive for all sides”.
Professor
David Milne, another Canadian specialist on
federation (University of Prince Edward Island) in
an article he wrote in the Round table (2003), 368
(145-162) concluded;
“In
my view, there may be neither the will, nor common
vision nor even the mutual trust for working shared
institutions in Cyprus. Yet this is the sine qua non
for federalism and federation to operate. Certainly,
there is no island-wide Cypriot national identity
needed to make a federation feasible. For that
reason alone, Greek Cypriot proposals for federation
as a solution to the Cyprus question (now the
international default option) may lack credibility.
In fact, it would be a tragedy if in pursuit of
unification of the island. Cypriots were to be
forced into federal arrangements when the
preconditions for their successful operation are not
present…”
The
UN Secretary-General’s vision for a Cyprus
settlement was clearly expressed at meetings with
President Denktash in May and again in December
2002:
“…if
you engage, you can achieve an entirely new state
structure and a solid foundation – of which the
Turkish Cypriots are equal co-founders and partners
– for an indissoluble, bi-zonal Cyprus; with a new
name, a new constitution, a new flag, and a new
anthem; with a Turkish Cypriot component state that
clearly enshrines Turkish Cypriot identity and is
acknowledged as such by the international community;
that has all the attributes necessary to make its
rights unassailable; with a mechanism to ensure the
validity of its laws and acts consistent with
comprehensive settlement; with Turkey’s guarantee
to protect its territorial integrity, security, and
constitutional order; and with an greed number of
Turkish troops stationed in the Turkish Cypriot
component state indefinitely.”
“The
Greek Cypriot side will not be able to claim
sovereignty over the other or the state as a whole.
In the unlikely event of a future attempt to
disregard your people’s rights, it will be
dismissed as an internal matter and Turkish troops
will be there”.
The
reluctance of big powers to recognize the fact that
the simple and just way of settling the problem is
recognition of the realities in Cyprus and equal
treatment of the two peoples. It should then be left
to them to agree on the terms of re-establishing a
joint enterprise for presenting one Cyprus to the
international world – if they so desire and they
are ready for it! The unification of Cyprus will
need an evolutionary process after 40 years of
separation. Outsiders’ attempts to impose a
solution with complete disregard for the realities
of Cyprus and without a diagnosis of the problem
have reinforced the doubts and suspicions of Turkish
Cypriots regarding the intentions of such outsiders.
Recognition of the Greek Cypriot side as the
government of Cyprus immediately blurs outsiders’
image as impartial, as they are seen to be siding
with what they regard as the legitimate government
of Cyprus. A world which prefers the Turkish Cypriot
people to live under a rule of domination and
eventual subjugation to recognition of their state
cannot boast of justice and fair play. For
Palestinian statehood to be accepted as a fair and
just outcome of the conflict blood has been shed for
so many decades. Turkish Cypriots went through that
phase from 1963-1974: Turkish Cypriot self-rule
began in 1963; TRNC was established in 1983 after
waiting and working for a new partnership for 20
years and after seeing that Greek Cypriot side was
not interested in a settlement as it regarded its
treatment by outsiders as the government of Cyprus
as the settlement itself. That is why they forgot
the 1963-1974 period and argued that the problem was
one of occupation which occurred in 1974. If this
concept, this vision, is not changed how can anyone
expect to settle the problem on the basis of
equality? That’s why we should ask Mr. Tony Blair
and all world statesmen to diagnose the problem of
Cyprus and repeat Mr. Blair’s formula for
Palestine for Cyprus by repeating the same words but
changing words like “Palestine”,
“Palestinian” into “North Cyprus” and
Turkish Cypriots:
“A
viable Turkish Cypriot state as part of a negotiated
and agreed settlement which guarantees peace and
security for the whole island and for the region is
the objective. The end we desire therefore is a just
peace in which Turkish and Greek Cypriots live side
by side each in their own state, secure and able to
prosper and develop. That is the only sensible
outcome and we must seize this moment to make
progress towards that end… and that is, Turkish
and Greek Cypriots putting behind them the
bitterness of the past and on the basis of mutual
recognition and respect reaching out to a better,
more peaceful, more prosperous future for all. That
is an objective we can achieve if we find the will
and determination to achieve it.”
Two
more years passed after 2001, before the big world
powers finally said that the Palestinian problem
must be settled on the basis of two states, and this
only after international terrorism struck the heart
of the United States. Why make Cyprus wait for a
just and fair solution on the basis of two peoples,
two states able to unite once the fear of domination
by one over the is eliminated?
Rauf R. Denktaþ
Cyprus: The
Road Map to a Permanent Solution
“Turkish Cypriots are equal co-founders and
partners – for an indissoluble, bi-zonal Cyprus;
with a new name, a new constitution, a new flag, and
a new anthem; with a new Turkish Cypriot component
state that clearly enshrines Turkish Cypriot
identity and is acknowledged as such by the
international community.”
Kofi Annan
UN Secretary General
“The two populations of Cyprus are two clearly
distinct ethnic groups, which means that there is no
homogeneous ‘nation’ or ‘people’ of Cyprus
that could exercise a ‘national’ right of self-determination
for the entire island.”
Prof. Peter Pernthaler
University of Innsbruck, Australia
Profile of President Denktaþ: He was born in Cyprus and trained first as a teacher
and then as a barister at Lincoln’s Inn in London.
He returned home to practice as a lawyer and worked
as a crown prosecutor before Cyprus won independence
from Britain in 1960.
He began representing the Turkish community at international
conferences in 1963.
He helped form TMT, a Turkish Cypriot paramilitary group
opposed to union with Greece, against which the EOKA
Greek Cupriot guerillas were fighting.
In 1973, Mr. Denktaþ was elected vice-president of the
Republic of Cyprus . He formed the National Unity
Party and in the following year he was elected
President of the Turkish Federated State of Cyprus
as the island was split into two sections.
He declared independence a decade later and became president
of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus which is
recognised only by Turkey, in 1983.
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