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Article written by Andrew Borowiec, published in The  Washington Times at US on April 27, 2004

Failed Cyprus vote victory for Turkish side

Nicosia, Cyprus – The isolated Turkish state in the north of Cyprus is emerging from the fog of international neglect and ostracism after Greek Cypriot rejection of a U.N. reunification plan.

Even before the ink dried on banner headlines announcing a massive Greek Cypriot “no” vote on Saturday, the European Union in Brussels was sending signals of thanks and economic support for the Turkish Cypriots, 65 percent of whom approved the proposed confederation.

More than three-quarters of Greek Cypriots voted against the plan, but by rejecting it have unintentionally given a new lease on life to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), which until now has been recognized only by Turkey.

EU foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg announced plans yesterday for economic cooperation with the Turkish Cypriots, bringing an end to decades of isolation.

Rauf Denktash, the 80-year-old Turkish Cypriot president, beamed yesterday with unconcealed satisfaction.

“Our plan has succeeded in destroying the Annan plan,” he said of the blueprint named for U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. “The road to recognition of the TRNC has opened. Forty years of isolation has come to an end.”

Mr. Denktash had campaigned against the plan.            While almost two-third of Turkish Cypriot voters rejected his advice, the outcome on the Greek side of the island appears to have confirmed his off-repeated theory that the Greeks opposed any form of partnership with the Turkish Cypriot minority.

On the Greek side of the Cypriot barricades, the English language daily Cyprus Mail lamented: “We handed (Mr. Denktash) on a plate everything he had been holding out for since 1974 and could not get.”

Greek Cypriot voters appear to have believed that if they rejected the UN plan, the international community would come back with a more favorable proposal. Instead, the European Union said it would act “immediately” to end the isolation of the Turkish Cypriots by promoting TRNC development.

So far the European Union, which is to admit Cyprus as a new member on Saturday along with several Eastern European countries, has not discussed diplomatic recognition for the state of 200,000 inhabitants.

The Luxembourg decision will likely mean a lifting of an international embargo on trade and other economic contacts with the TRNC, which would include direct airline flights to the two airports built by the Turkish Cypriots.

The embargo existed largely because of relentless Greek Cypriot pressure to punish the Turkish Cypriots, who had been scattered throughout the island but regrouped in the north after the 1974.

The result of the referendum prompted Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul to announce that “with the Greek Cypriot ‘no’, the partition of the island has been made permanent.”

Mr. Denktash created the TRNC on Nov. 15, 1983, with the backing of a 40-member Turkish parliament “believing that all human beings are born free and equal and should live in freedom and equality”.

Thus was born one of the loneliest states in the world covering a strip of about 1,200 square miles along the northern coast of Cyprus.

Throughout its existence, the TRNC has been pounded by a systematic and successful Greek propaganda barrage denigrating all institutions of the struggling state and its abortive efforts to obtain recognition.

To this day, when referring to the Turkish side, the Greek press puts such terms as police Courts and minister in quotation marks.