Fatma Yilmaz Elmas USAK Center for EU Studies printable version send your friend

Saturday, 27 February 2010


The President of the Turkish Republic of Cyprus, Mehmet Ali Talat, and leader of the Greek Cypriot Administration, Dimitris Christofias, came together once again on February 24 and restarted direct talks, aimed at finding a comprehensive settlement to the division of the island after a 23-day interval. The leaders dealt with the economy during the talks and representatives and technical delegations will keep discussing the economy in the following days. The next meeting will also be held on March 4.

In a statement after the meeting, the President of the Turkish Cyprus, Talat, said that "they have experienced a well-rounded negotiation and they have found a chance of vital discussion and evaluation". It is beyond dispute that since 2008,the ongoing direct talks have created an important chance to form a ground for the parties of the island to display their own positions reciprocally. However, it is controversial how far the parties turn this process into a good account and whether the talks go on in sincerity or not. It seems that the negotiations are far from finding ways for a common denominator through discussions. In contrast, in order to consolidate their positions, the parties take some kinds of decisions on their own after leaving the negotiation table and they therefore create a dilemma detrimental to the process. A few days before the last meeting of the leaders, the decision against any ’guarantorship’­ taken by the Greek Cypriot Assembly and the counter-decision of the TRNC Parliament are the evident examples of such a situation.

The House of Representatives of Greek Cyprus agreed upon unacceptability and ineffectiveness of the Guarantee and Alliance Agreements dated from 1960 on February 19.Thus, they clearly bring up their unilateral rejection of guarantorship rights of Turkey, Greece and the UK provided by the 1960 Agreements.As a counter decision to this move, the Parliamentof Turkish Cyprus unanimously accepted that Turkey’­s active and effective guarantorship is indispensable for the solution process in Cyprus in an extraordinary meeting. Also, regarding Greek Cypriot’­s ruling as lacking good intention and tarnishing the meaning of solution talks, the decision also said it is not possible for Turkish Cypriots to tolerate this situation for years.

It is quite the on-site determination of the Turkish Cypriot Parliament that the declaration against guarantorship of the Greek Cypriot Administration is an attempt lacking good intention. While the negotiations for a comprehensive settlement continue, such a declaration will highly affect the negotiation effort negatively.Concerning the fact that the negotiation process is already in question, such rigid decisions in contradiction with flexibility as a vital element of the meaning of the negotiations will result in a decrease of trust and conviction about the negotiations less and less. Indicating "it is meaningless to keep the negotiations continuing after the Greek Cypriot declaration," the statement of the Democrat Party leader, Serdar Denktas,is an example of how people giving no chance for successful negotiations in the end have acquired a reasonable base in favor of their claims.

Both the Greek Cypriot decision and the counter-decision of Turkish Cyprus are actually the pre-declaration of the fact that the next meetings to be held on March 4, 16 and 30 will not go far beyond the statements of the leaders just like "we are discussing vital issues and we are in progress’–"This is mainly because the decisions on guarantorship, which is one of the vital issues of negotiations, will leave no room for the leaders to retreat from this stance. This will naturally mean that there is always a blocked part of the process, no matter what the consensus over the other issues will be.

The main issues casting a shadow on the Cyprus talks have already included a lack of trust-building steps and sincerity in terms of political will or the mind to speed up the talks. Oblique or broad hints in the speeches of the leaders after each meeting have already shook confidence enough. Upon this, the decisions in contradiction about guarantorship has hardened the situation and deepened the vital problems in the negotiation process. As a consequence, it can be said that the negotiation process has already been axed by the inconsistency of ’rhetoric’­ and is now axed once more bythe inconsistency in’actions’­.


February 27, 2010

Fatma Yilmaz-Elmas
USAK Center for EU Studies