A Temporary or Terminal Failure of the UN Plans for Cyprus

Abstract

In April 2004, the Turkish and Greek Cypriots voted separately in the north and south of Cyprus on the plan put forward by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan for the reunification of Cyprus. The Greek Cypriots rejected the proposal with a majority of 76 %, while 65 % of Turkish Cypriots voted in favour. Thus, contrary to the expectations of the UN and EU, the plan has failed for the time being. They had omitted to bind the entry by Cyprus into the EU 1 week later to Greek Cypriot agreement to the 5th version of the Annan plan, which was discussed by all sides. As a result, although the island has since then formally belonged to the EU, it has not been possible to assert the validity either of the legislation of the Republic of Cyprus or that of the EU in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which is recognised internationally only by Turkey. Thus, Northern Cyprus remains largely excluded from EU economic assistance programmes.

According to the Annan plan, the United Republic of Cyprus was to consist of two largely self-reliant states. By following a new political path, the majority of Turkish Cypriots wished to break out of their economic isolation and crisis through the entry of an ethnonationally bizonal Cyprus into the EU. Their cause was supported by efforts by the Justice and Development Party government in Turkey to improve the conditions for the accession of its own country into the EU. Accordingly, the era of the uncompromising Rauf R. Denktaş came to an end in April 2005, when a new politician who was open to compromise, Mehmet Ali Talȃt of the Republican Turkish Party, was elected President of Northern Cyprus. However, for the Greeks, the concessions made by the UN towards Turkey went too far. Even so, in southern Cyprus, too, a more conciliatory, flexible political agenda ultimately won the day with the election in February 2008 of Dimitris Christofias of AKEL, the former communist party of Cyprus. Symbolic steps were already made by opening the ceasefire line of 1974 to small-scale border traffic. However, in May 2011, in parliamentary elections in Northern Cyprus and in the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, there were sensitive setbacks for unification. Despite this, the fundamental support for a bizonal Cyprus is no longer in doubt, even if many complex individual issues still remain to be resolved. In particular, the resolution of the Cyprus problem continues to be bound to a positive outcome of the accession negotiations between the EU and Turkey. This notwithstanding, the EU and the UN should continue to prepare specific recommendations on how to settle the issues that remain unresolved between Turkish and Greek Cypriots. Civil society organisations could promote support among the population for a peaceful reunification of the country. Such an outcome could have a positive effect on many other countries which are either divided or threatened with division.