Who wants a deal on Cyprus?
Who is pro-settlement regarding Cyprus and who is not? To put it frankly, aside from Turkish Cypriots, there appear to be no subscribers to a Cyprus resolution.
There is often a claim that Britain has always supported a Cyprus deal. An outrageous lie. There are claims that the United States wants a Cyprus resolution. Just fiction. The European Union is often claimed to be very much interested in a negotiated resolution. If so, why has it accepted the Greek Cypriot-administered Cyprus Republic as a member representing the entire territory and people of the island, further devastating the already dim prospects of a compromise resolution?
No one should mention Greece as a supporter of the Cyprus deal either.
Turkey has its own problems and perceptional shortcomings regarding Cyprus and the eastern Mediterranean. Why would it abandon Northern Cyprus even if there were no Turkish Cypriot living there if the island is so close to Turkey’s Mediterranean coast? Britain is there. Russia has special agreements with the Greek Cypriot administration and can “sovereignly” use naval and airbases in Greek Cyprus. Likewise, France is in special accord with the Greek Cypriots. The U.S. is using British bases through bilateral deals, as well as through NATO. But Turkey is asked to abandon the island.
Similarly, if not for anything else, to avoid repeating the 1963-1974 Greek Cypriot genocidal campaigns against them indiscriminately, almost the entire Turkish Cypriot people will never agree to Turkey totally withdrawing its military and terminating its guarantor status, including the right to unilateral intervention. Thus, if there ever will be a settlement, the Greek Cypriot side must abandon its adamancy on “zero troops” and “zero guarantees.”
At a time when Jane Holl Lute, the tentative special Cyprus envoy of the United Nations Secretary-General, is expected to visit the island to listen to the two sides and probably explore if there was ground to kick the Cyprus negotiations ball once again, it is disappointing to hear Greek Cypriot leader Nikos Anastasiades repeating the “zero troops” and “zero guarantees” adamancy. It might be claimed that Anastasiades had spoken at a nationalist ceremony and his remarks were for domestic consumption but was it not because of such double tongue practices the Greek Cypriot people were never acquainted with the idea of a bitter compromise settlement?
As long as the Greek Cypriot people continue maintaining the utopia of kicking Turkey out of Cyprus, getting back Güzelyurt (Morphou), Kyrenia, and other towns in Northern Cyprus, and patching Turkish Cypriots to a Greek Cypriot-administered Cyprus Republic, there will never be a Cyprus settlement. Greek Cypriots must call on Nikos Rolandis, a wise Greek Cypriot veteran politician, a former foreign minister, and try to understand why he continues to write almost two dozen golden peace opportunities have been lost because of the Greek Cypriots since the start of the Cyprus intercommunal talks process in 1968.
Demanding a settlement and asking for a lasting deal have become a national position for Turkish Cypriots who have been cut-off from the rest of the world, excluding Turkey, since they were expelled at gunpoint from the partnership republic.
