May I first of all congratulate the Ankara and Antalya Bar Associations for organising this conference.

Those of us who are international lawyers know that the boundary between law and politics is often obscure, and although I am an English Barrister I am also a politician, and I will comment if I may upon both legal and political issues.

The Eastern Mediterranean is perhaps the most strategic area in the world at the present time, and Turkey’s location in relation to the Middle East, Iran Syria and Iraq, the huge oil and gas reserves which are being developed in the Caspian Basin, the Baku Ceyan pipeline, and the control of the Turkish Straits, all make Turkey of prime importance to the United States, the European Union, and to others as well. Most recently, Turkey’s cooperation in the war against terror has become vital, and Turkey is now leading the international force helping to bring peace and stability to the people of Afghanistan.

I believe that the competition between the Soviets and the West, with which we were so familiar during the Cold War, has gradually been replaced in this part of the world by competition between the United States and the European Union. Turkey is well placed to benefit from this competition if it can summon the courage and has the political skill to do so.

Whatever the US has in mind for Saddaam Hussein, it could not be done without Turkey’s cooperation. If Turkey decides to give this support it will incur costs, and Turkey must negotiate now a proper political and financial return for its help. Turkey has in the past given its help and received nothing but trouble in return. Turkey should not make the same mistake again, and should not in future allow itself to be taken for granted by the Western powers.

There is perhaps something in the Turkish culture which makes Turkey reluctant to ask for anything in return for its help, but if terms are not agreed before the event they will never be agreed.

Many years ago, my grandfather fought the Turks at Gelibolu, and he told me how much he respected them. "They stood up against the military might of the British Empire in defence of their homeland" he said "and they beat us." I will tell you something about the British (which also applies to the Americans). You can earn their respect by being tough with them – not by being nice to them.

In recent years, Turkey has been most successful when it has been bold and resolute. If Turkey had not taken decisive action in 1974 Cyprus would today be a Greek military base with no Turkish Cypriots left alive in the island. If Turkey had not taken decisive action to arrest and bring to trial the leader of the PKK terrorists, and to make clear to Syria that its support for terrorists would have to stop, hundreds more innocent people would have died.

Turkey will not be defeated on the battlefield, but you have been losing the war of words for 30 years or more. For the money you spend on a few tanks or military aircraft you could have a much more effective voice in the world, and this is particularly important in the European Union. It was a major foreign policy disaster for Turkey when Greece joined the European Union, and I am not convinced that Turkey did everything it could to prevent it. Nor I think did Turkey do enough to prevent the gradual acceptance in the world of the Greek Cypriot Administration as the Government of Cyprus.

The Greeks are very good indeed at law and public relations, and they have spared no effort and money to put Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots at a serious disadvantage, particularly in the European Parliament. This is important because Turkey could not join the EU without the approval of the Parliament. The very effective Greek and Greek Cypriot lobbies have also damaged, and are continuing to damage, Turkey’s relations with Britain and the United States.

Turkey is a great country, with a well educated and well motivated population, but Turkey needs to get its own act together. Turkey’s economy is weak, but the problems will not be solved by borrowing money. That in the long run will make Turkey weaker, and more susceptible to the control of other countries, who act in their own national interests, not yours. I do not think there is anything wrong with Turkey which Turks themselves cannot put right.

Some people think that joining the EU will solve all Turkey’s problems. I think they are mistaken. There will be no massive subsidies like those which Spain Portugal and Ireland received, and Turkey’s balance of trade with the EU countries, already in deficit, could get worse. There are also serious concerns that the EU economic system itself can survive.

In exchange for membership, Turkey would have to remove the military from the special position in Turkish life which Attaturk ordained, and you would eventually have to hand over to Brussels control of your foreign and defence policy, as well as your economic policy, transport policy, and almost everything else. You would also have to allow Kurdish and other separatists more freedom to operate, and you would be required to conform to all the EU’s ideas as to what constitutes a human right.

The EU claims the moral high ground, but I am not so sure about that. Many of us living in the EU are increasingly concerned about the breakdown of family life, the breakdown of respect for authority and the escalating rate of serious crime, the very low standards of personal behaviour portrayed on television, and the widespread use of narcotic drugs, sometimes even officially condoned.

Yes, if you joined you would have a role in EU decision-making, but you would be only one of many, and may not have much influence.

Some people also think that Cyprus is the main obstacle to Turkey’s entry into the EU, and that if only Turkey would abandon the Turkish Cypriots all would be well. Again, I think they could not be more mistaken. I believe that this is a pretext, encouraged of course by the Greeks in the EU institutions. I have a sense when I am in Brussels that people do not really want Turkey to join, but are too embarrassed to say so. Some of them will say privately that they do not want a Moslem country to join.

So I do not believe that it is in Turkey’s national interest to be obsessed by the European Union. Turkey should continue to pursue better relations with European countries, but should at the same time develop its relations with the United States and its other friends, and yes, even with Russia, China, and Iran.

Although I have given you some impressions about Turkey’s role in the world I was brought here from London because I am thought to have some legal and political expertise on the subject of Cyprus. This one of the two most serious and most urgent problems which currently exist in the Eastern Mediterranean, and the one with which Turkey has the most immediate concern.

As lawyers, we would all agree that both sides of every case must be given a fair hearing, but for 38 years the Turkish Cypriots have been excluded from all channels of normal international communication. All too often they have had to sit at back of the meeting room (or even outside) watching a Greek Cypriot occupying the Cyprus chair and giving the Greek Cypriot point of view.

It is rare to hear both points of view in any debate on Cyprus in the British Parliament or the US Congress, or to see the Turkish Cypriot point of view in the international press. The imbalance is particularly noticeable in the European Parliament, where the key committees are packed with Greek members and their supporters. There are of course no Turkish members.

In Washington, London, and Brussels the Greek Cypriot representative has official access to everyone, but the Turkish Cypriot representative has access to hardly anyone. This really has to change. It is not therefore surprising that the world has a rather one-sided perception of Cyprus which I hope this conference will go some small way to redress.

Cyprus is of course important not just to the people who live there. It is of great strategic importance to the United States and to Europe. There are two British military bases in the island, with important associated electronic facilities. Legally they are British but they are also used by the US, and it is these bases which have conditioned British and US policy toward Cyprus. Paradoxically they will be at greater risk after a settlement, because the implied threat to recognise the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus deters the Greek Cypriots from interfering with them.

It is in all our interests that the two peoples of Cyprus should settle their differences if they can, and if not that they should at least live in peace. So why have they not settled their differences?

One important reason is that the UN has disabled itself as an impartial interlocutor by taking the side of the Greek Cypriots on the fundamental question which divides the two peoples – namely whether the Greek Cypriot Administration is entitled to be treated as the Government of Cyprus.

Second, because of the one-sided international perception of Cyprus, Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots are always seen as being in the wrong, and pressure is constantly applied to them to make accommodations to Greek Cypriot wishes, which they will not do and cannot reasonably be expected to do by anyone who understands how the present situation in Cyprus has arisen.

The European Union has made matters worse by telling the Greek Cypriots that they could still get into the EU without a settlement with the Turkish Cypriots. The EU has not however committed itself to accept the Greek Cypriots, and there are many in Europe who know that to do so would wreck Europe’s relations with Turkey - a country of 70 million people of enormous strategic and commercial importance. They see no reason to run those risks for Cyprus, whose membership would bring little or no benefit to EU.

There is a lot of talk about the Greek threat to veto enlargement if the Greek Cypriots do not get in, but the EU and the Applicant-States could make a Greek veto impossible by making it clear that they would recognise the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in that event. I simply cannot believe that the other Member States would allow Greece to obstruct progress on a matter of such importance. They did not allow Denmark to wreck the Treaty of Maastricht nor Ireland to wreck the Treaty of Nice.

It would in any event be illegal, as Prof. Mendelson has explained, for Cyprus to join the EU without the consent of all parties to the Cyprus Treaty of Guarantee (including Turkey). I have read his Opinions carefully and I agree with them. I would not however agree that the Opinions to the contrary of the three professors engaged by the Greek Cypriots, are seriously arguable. If for example a law says it is illegal to burgle a house, none of us would seriously submit to a court that it is OK if you burgle 15 houses at the same time.

I would add two points to Prof. Mendelson’s arguments. Whether or not there is a time limit within which the Turkish Cypriots must cast their veto under the 1960 Constitution, this does not affect Turkey’s rights under the Treaty of Guarantee. Also, although the Constitution is of evidential value in showing that membership of international organisations was included in the prohibitions of Article 1 of the Treaty of Guarantee, Cyprus could not lawfully join the EU even if Turkey were an EU member, unless Turkey Greece and the UK all consented.

The British government and the EU have simply brushed aside the detailed arguments of Prof. Mendelson, who is one of Britain’s most distinguished international lawyers. I am sorry, as a former Member of the British Parliament, to have to say that Britain and the EU are ready enough to lecture Turkey on the law, but are reluctant to acknowledge legal obligations when it does not suit them.

It is not good enough to say "well, Cyprus is a political matter." If solemn legal obligations are so easily ignored this strikes at the very heart of international law. And if they are so easily ignored, what point is there in the Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots making a new agreement, which could also be ignored?

Quite apart from the legalities of the matter, Cyprus is the home of the Turkish Cypriots as well as the Greek Cypriots and for one of them to take the island into the EU without the consent of the other would be fundamentally wrong. Contrary therefore to the conventional wisdom, both Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots do in a very real sense have a veto on Cyprus’ entry into the EU.

Despite the rhetoric sometimes heard from Ankara, I do not believe that Turkey has any wish to annex Northern Cyprus, but if the Greek Cypriots are allowed to unite with Greece, within the EU, the Turkish Cypriots may decide by referendum to unite with Turkey. If they do so decide, the Turkish Parliament may find their request hard to refuse.

The two peoples of Cyprus have negotiated for many years under the auspices of the UN, and as long ago as March 1986 the Turkish Cypriots accepted the UN plan for a settlement in its entirety. However, the Turkish Cypriots eventually realised that the UN talks were going nowhere, and that the UN could not be relied upon as an impartial interlocutor. The Turkish Cypriot President, Rauf Denktaţ, therefore invited the Greek Cypriot President, Glafcos Clerides, to direct talks with him, and these talks are still continuing.

There are three main sticking points in these talks. Security, property, and the powers of any new federal or confederal authority which might be created.

However, in order to understand these sticking points we need to understand what has happened in Cyprus. We all wish to look to the future and to talk of peace, but we need first to understand clearly the terrible things which have happened in that island within our own lifetimes. Unless we understand them we cannot fairly evaluate the positions of Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots.

Cyprus was a British colony until 1960, and immediately before that it was a Turkish island. The two peoples of Cyprus have no common language except English and no common religion; nor have they any common culture. According to a Greek Cypriot journalist writing recently in the London Guardian "The famous Cypriot nation was invented and encouraged by the British.

Cyprus was decolonised by Britain in 1960 on the basis of a constitution negotiated between the two peoples of the island, which created a kind of partnership state. The UN Secretary-General made it clear in 1992 that sovereignty "emanates equally from both peoples. One of them cannot claim sovereignty over the other."

However, it soon became apparent that the new Republic was heading for disaster. According to Clerides own memoirs "Makarios had decided to proceed to the unilateral abrogation of the rights granted to the Turkish Cypriots by the 1960 Agreements and to reduce their political status to a minority, using the excuse of the unworkability of certain provisions of the constitution………when unworkability could not be established."

Let me give you four quotations about the events of that time from distinguished British and American observers and newspaper reports.

The British Prime Minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, said in his memoirs that if the Greek Cypriot leadership "could not treat the Turkish Cypriots as human beings they were inviting the invasion and partition of the island."

The American Under-Secretary of State, George Ball, said that the Greek Cypriot leader’s "central interest was to block off Turkish intervention so that he and his Greek Cypriots could go on massacring Turkish Cypriots. Obviously we would never permit that." The fact is however that neither the US, the UK, the UN, nor anyone, other than Turkey eleven years later, took effective action to prevent it.

On 28th December 1963 the London Daily Express carried the following report from Cyprus: "We went tonight into the sealed-off Turkish Cypriot Quarter of Nicosia in which 200 to 300 men women and children had been slaughtered in the last five days. We were the first Western reporters there and we have seen sights too frightful to be described in print. Horror so extreme that the people seemed stunned beyond tears."

British Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Graydon recalled "No one who lived as I did in Cyprus in the 1960's will forget what was happening then. It was an attempt at the systematic elimination of one part of the community. It was ethnic cleansing before that phrase came into vogue in the Western media."

I believe that the root of the problem in Cyprus is and has always been the virulently Hellenist and anti-Turkish attitude of the Greek Orthodox Church. It is a case of Christian fundamentalism, which is at least as bad as Islamic fundamentalism, and it is a case of institutionalised racism.

Many commentators do not seem to understand the scale of the horror and the depth of the racial hatred through which the Turkish Cypriots had to live and which, to the Turkish Cypriots and to any reasonable observer, justifies their decision to establish their own state, and their assertion that the Greek Cypriots have no right to international acceptance as the Government of Cyprus.

The British Government accepted in 1964 (but has since conveniently forgotten) that "Cyprus Government" could mean only a government which acts with the concurrence of its Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot members. There has been no concurrence since 1963, and there is no "doctrine of necessity" known to the law which entitles one partner to assault and terrorise the other and then claim the right to run the state alone.

When the Turkish Cypriots declared their own state in 1983 The UN Security Council (which is not a court), purported to declare the Declaration "legally invalid," and called upon states not to recognise the TRNC.

However, in the view of the distinguished jurist, Eli Lauterpacht QC "If the Security Council had assessed the situation as a whole, it could not possibly have concluded that the conduct of the Turkish Cypriots violated the controlling legal instruments while the conduct of the Greek Cypriots did not. Nor could it have reached any other conclusion than that the action of the Greek Cypriots justified the conduct of the Turkish Cypriots."

SECURITY

Following the attacks upon them in 1963 the Turkish Cypriots withdrew into defended enclaves, where they remained for eleven years until rescued by Turkish soldiers who intervened in 1974 in response to the civil war which had broken out among the Greek Cypriots, in which one side had the backing of Greece. Some Greek Cypriots were of course killed in combat with Turkish forces, and some by Turkish Cypriot villagers, but most were killed by their own people in the five days before Turkey intervened.

There were further massacres of Turkish Cypriots in 1967 and 1974. The German newspaper Die Zeit wrote on 30 August 1974 "the massacre of Turkish Cypriots in Paphos and Famagusta is the proof of how justified Turkey was to intervene".

It is important to remember that all this happened despite solemn international treaty guarantees, and despite the actual presence of UN troops in Cyprus since March 1964. I am sorry to have to say that when the Turkish Cypriots begged Britain to save them under the Treaty of Guarantee Britain looked the other way – saying that they placed a different interpretation on the Treaty. Britain did this three times - in 1963, 1967, and 1974 even though we had troops in our bases in Cyprus.

Turkish Cypriots have therefore concluded that the safety of their families can be entrusted only to Turkish soldiers, and it is no use talking to them about international peacekeeping forces and solemn guarantees. If the Turkish Cypriots needed any reminder, they saw the Dutch cabinet resign earlier this year over the failure of Dutch troops to protect the Moslem people of Srebrenica.

Turkish soldiers had a right and duty to intervene in 1974 under the Treaty of Guarantee, and whatever the legal arguments about the limits of those Treaty rights, they have at least as much humanitarian justification for being there today as NATO troops in the former Yugoslavia. They are in no sense an occupying force, and the UN Security Council has never accused them of invasion or occupation. The "state of affairs established by the basic articles of the 1960 Constitution" was one in which the Turkish Cypriots had at the very least the right to life, and this can be guaranteed today only by the presence of Turkish troops.

Turkish Cypriots are asked to believe that the Greek Cypriots have changed, but they see no evidence of that. Even today the Greek Cypriots maintain an international embargo on Turkish Cypriot trade and communications in an attempt to strangle their economy. This creates tension and animosity, and to my mind is clear evidence that the Greek Cypriots have no genuine wish for reconciliation with the Turkish Cypriots. Moreover, their embargo has no authority under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. Even during the current talks the Greek Cypriots have ordered attack helicopters from Russia.

Those in the EU and the US who express concern for the living standards of the Turkish Cypriots should start by refusing any longer to participate in the embargo. Turkish Cypriots do not want handouts but they do want a fair chance to earn their own living in the world.

The Greek newspaper Eleftherotipia published an interview with Nicos Sampson on 26th February 1981 in which he said "Had Turkey not intervened I would not only have proclaimed ENOSIS - I would have annihilated the Turks in Cyprus." He would have done so in accordance with the second ethnic cleansing plan "The Iphestos Plan" copies of which fell into the hands of the Turkish Cypriots in 1974.

The Turkish Cypriots and Turkey have nevertheless offered troop reductions, as part of an overall settlement.

It is extraordinary that Turkey’s compliance with its humanitarian and Treaty obligations in Cyprus has been converted by skilful Greek diplomacy into an obstacle to Turkey’s own application for EU membership.

THE SECOND STICKING POINT in the talks is Property.

For the time being Turkish Cypriot properties in the South are occupied by Greek Cypriots and vice versa.

It is essential, if an overall settlement is to have the best chance of success, to keep to a minimum opportunities for disagreement, and litigation in the local courts or in the European Courts. It is also essential that forced evictions and relocation of families is kept to the minimum. People in Cyprus have suffered so much disruption to their lives over the years that they are entitled to security and stability for their future. Moreover, the Turkish Cypriots who would be evicted would be unlikely to vote in a referendum for any settlement which would lead to that result for them and their families.

The right way to approach the property issue is to accept that people left their old homes twenty-eight and more years ago, and have re-adjusted to their present circumstances. Many have already been compensated in cash or property out of local resources or international aid. An agreement in 1975 between the two peoples formalised this exchange of populations, and so much has happened in the intervening period that it is unrealistic and inhuman to attempt to unravel these events and restore people to the status quo ante.

The principle of "bi-zonality," accepted by the United Nations, and by the Greek Cypriots themselves in 1977, means that each of the two peoples will live in its own area, but any substantial return of Greek Cypriots to the North would empty this principle of all meaning, and would unravel the 1975 Agreement.

Justice can however be achieved by the payment of compensation. It may be that in an ideal world some people would genuinely prefer to return to their old homes, but Makarios said as long ago as 1977 that he doubted that even 10% would wish to return, and many have died since then. People would however be induced to return by the Church if they were permitted to return.

There is nothing inherently wrong or unjust in compulsory purchase of property. Most countries do it every day, and dispossession of property for the public good is accepted. How much more important than a new road or airport is the preservation of peace and public order?

In the case of Cyprus it is very much for the public good that people remain where they are, and any attempt to relocate Greek Cypriots in the north or vice-versa would cause stress and tension at a time when it could least be afforded. Relocation of persons would also cause serious security problems. Allegations of espionage, sabotage, or terrorism real or imagined would be inevitable, and would cause serious tension and even a renewal of violence.

Turkish Cypriots do not expect to have their old homes in the South restored to them.

Compensation is a fair and reasonable way of dealing with property claims on both sides. It should be accepted, but the Greek Cypriot leadership will not accept it because they wish eventually to Hellenise the North.

The Turkish Cypriots have also offered territorial adjustments, but they do expect to be left with a viable territory in which they can support their population.

THE THIRD STICKING POINT IN THE TALKS is the powers to be given to the new federal or confederal institutions if a settlement is agreed

The Turkish Cypriots accept that the new Cyprus should be a state with international personality, and are willing to look at a variety of ways in which the fundamentally different interests of its two peoples could be accommodated. They have looked in particular at the Belgian model in which the two peoples of Belgium have their own separate internal administration and a degree of external representation in the institutions of the EU and outside the EU.

Cyprus is however a very special case, and there is no constitutional model which could simply be imported in its entirety.

The Turkish Cypriots are very happy to co-operate with the Greek Cypriots, but their bottom line, born of bitter experience, is that whatever new constitution may be agreed, neither of the two peoples should have the legal power or the practical potential to dominate the other. The Greek Cypriots on the other hand want strong federal institutions in which their superior numbers and their superior wealth would give them a decisive advantage.

I do not believe that the Greek Cypriot desire to join the EU has anything to do with economics, as they are one of the richest countries already. Their policy is to become a member because they believe they can use EU political and perhaps even military pressure to push Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots out of Cyprus.

However, I believe that if the United States were to indicate to the Greek Cypriots that they would stand aside if the Greek Cypriots entered the EU, and allow recognition of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, then the Greek Cypriots would immediately withdraw their application, as recognition would exclude forever their ambition to dominate the whole island.