Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders to hold talks on resuming peace process
Leaders from either side of Cyprus’s ethnic divide have flown to Geneva for a UN-led summit aimed at exploring whether the time is ripe to resume the peace process four years after the collapse of talks to reunify the island.
The foreign ministers of Greece, Turkey and Britain – Cyprus’s three guarantor powers – will join Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot teams in the hope of re-energising efforts to end the west’s longest-running dispute.
The Cypriot president, Nicos
Anastasiades, said on Monday that the Greek Cypriot side would be attending the keenly anticipated meeting “with determination and political will” in order to pick up negotiations where they had left off.
“Hopefully, the other side will also attend with the same will, the same consideration, because a divergence will not just be against Greek Cypriots but also against Turkish Cypriots,” he said.
Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when Ankara invaded and seized its northern third in the name of protecting the island’s Turkish Cypriot minority after an Athens-backed coup aimed at union with Greece.
The three-day summit beginning on Tuesday follows prolonged tensions over offshore gas reserves in the eastern Mediterranean that have further highlighted the need for reconciliation in Europe’s only war-partitioned state.
Friction over exploration rights accelerated by Ankara’s dispatch of drill ships and naval vessels to the area pushed Greece and Turkey to the brink of war last year.
“The unresolved Cyprus problem is no longer comfortable for the international community because it affects stability and security in the eastern Mediterranean,” said Fiona Mullen, the director of Sapienta Economics, a consultancy in the island’s south. “It’s become part of a broader dispute.”
But optimism is in short supply. The UN convened the informal talks in the hope of finding enough “common ground” to formally restart a peace process that in 2017 foundered over the issue of Ankara withdrawing forces from the breakaway Turkishheld north. Prior to the collapse, the contours of a settlement deal had essentially been agreed.
This time the two sides appear more at odds. While previously talks had focused on reuniting the two communities in a bizonal, bicommunal federation – with a moderate Turkish Cypriot leader, Mustafa Akıncı, at the helm – Turkey has since altered its stance, championing the option of a two-state solution that would ultimately legitimise Cyprus’s division.
It is a policy loudly echoed by Ersin Tatar, the Cambridge-educated hardliner elected president of the selfdeclared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus with the support of the Tur
kish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, last October. In a statement before the talks, Tatar insisted that after “11 major plans and initiatives” to settle the Cyprus problem since 1964 when intercommunal violence first erupted, it was time for a “reality check”.
“We are going to Geneva with a new vision for Cyprus, one based on the realities on the island,” he said adding that it was time to end the northern territory’s isolation. “We’ve had decades of failed federation talks. This is adequate proof that federalism is not an appropriate settlement model for Cyprus.”
Indicative of the new approach, Turkey moved last year to reopen the seaside resort of Varosha, a ghost town since the invasion, despite international condemnation.
With such divergent views, analysts say it will be a miracle if the estranged communities agree to continue the talks at all. But against a backdrop of geopolitical brinkmanship, other factors have also emerged that could help bridge a divide that has seemingly become ever more intractable with the passage of time.
At the weekend thousands took to the streets on both sides of warsplit Nicosia, the island’s capital, demanding peace and reunification. The unexpected turnout is being seen as grounds for optimism despite the messaging of politicians and, in the case of the south, the rise of a far-right party that is fiercely opposed to reunification.
“There is a new social mobility at grassroots level from both communities,” the Turkish Cypriot MEP Niyazi Kızılyürek told the Guardian. “On the one hand Greek Cypriots are turning more and more against their own elites and perceived corruption, and on the other Turkish Cypriots are in a cultural war defending their identity against Turkey’s interferences.”
He said both had met “in a new sense of common Cypriotness” that was being voiced through groups fearing the window for a solution was closing.
Analysts in Athens, Ankara and Nicosia have also expressed hope that Erdoğan may show flexibility on Cyprus if he wants to curry favour with the west.
Kızılyürek is far from sure that Turkey’s assertive stance is not also part of a bargaining strategy being pursued by Ankara before a critical review of EU-Turkey relations in June.
“Turkey may well be using Cyprus as a bargaining chip with the EU on the issue of a customs union and visa liberalisation,” he said. “If that is the case it means there is still hope, but if it is the final word of Turkey to insist on a two-state solution then definitely we have a serious problem and difficult times ahead.”