Konuk Yazar, 2 Aralik 2002
Donald Crone - Scripps College
Ethnic Conflict, Sovereignty and the EU: Cyprus
Text of a talk
delivered at the European Union Center of California
November 22, 2002
I am taking as my theme today the one thing Cypriots, North and South, who I have recently talked to agree on – they are tired of outside states determining their affairs. While they may have different perspectives on many things, all want real independence and sovereignty. After brief diversions into Cyprus’ background, and an update on the present situation, I will return to this theme.
Cyprus became independent from Britain in 1960, with a proportionally representative government. The President was to be Greek, the Vice President Turkish, the Speaker of House of Representatives Greek (who was 2nd in the line of succession), national chambers represented each ethnic group, and certain other provisions were designed to share governance. Cyprus’ population was categorized by religion, either Greek (all Christians) or Turkish (all Moslems); this subsumed several small minorities into a state that was 78% Greek, and 18% Turkish. Britain, Greece, and Turkey had formal roles as constitutional guarantors. Despite this, intercommunal relations eroded into violence by 1963, and periodic efforts at ethnic purging concentrated the two populations into more segregated residential patterns by the early 1970s. A 1974 coup attempt against President Makarios by the National Guard, proposing unification with Greece (enosis – a goal of some elements of the Greek community since the late 1950s), led to Turkey’s invasion of the northern portion of the island; they eventually occupied 38% of the territory, and established a separate Turkish government. In 1983 a Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus was declared, but international recognition continued to be extended to the southern government only. Periodic talks took place between the north and the south, without progress in reconciling their differences.
The economies of the two sides developed unevenly. The Republic side developed rapidly, attaining a 1999 Gross National Product percapita (PPP method) of $16000, with the economic structure becoming 75% services (roughly similar to Greece). The Turkish side stagnated, supported by subsidies from Turkey, but mostly isolated from international trade and investment; the economy remained heavily dependent on agriculture. With very high unemployment, 1999 Gross National Product percapita (PPP method) reached only about $5300 (less than Turkey). Perhaps from this lack of opportunity, emigration from the north has eroded the number of Turkish Cypriots, from close to 200,000 in 1974 to about 70,000 now; around 100,000 immigrants from Turkey have supplemented this.
The island is highly militarized. There are about 32,000 Turkish troops in North, 3000 Greek troops in the South, along with a southern National Guard of 14,000. The United Nations has a peacekeeping presence there. Britain maintains 2 major ‘sovereign’ bases on the island. Occasional crises emerge from the introduction of new weapons, or threats to do so, as in the case of missiles to the south recently.
In 1990, Cyprus applied for membership in the European Union; negotiations started in 1997, and are virtually complete now. Accession is expected in the forthcoming round of expansion, effective May 2004. The Republic government only has been involved in negotiations to date (although an offer was extended for the North to participate).
Negotiations between the 2 parties have been almost constant for the past two years, fuelled in large part by the impending accession to the EU. Alvaro de Soto, Kofi Anan’s UN facilitator, conducted proximity talks, and eventually face-to-face meetings. Progress in these negotiations was nil – the Greek side, led by Cyprus President Glafcos Clerides insisted on a federal state, while the Turkish leader President Rauf Denktaþ insisted on recognition of the sovereignty of the Turkish side, and of political equality between the two in a confederal union (these two old warhorses have been negotiating with each other since at least 1964). Drawing from these talks, on November 12, 2002 the United Nations presented a framework peace plan. The UN plan proposes the creation of a common state and two equal component states, roughly modeled on components of Swiss and Belgian experience.
The Common state has a Presidential Council of 6 elected indirectly by the two elected chambers, with at least one Greek and one Turk (after a 3 year transition of two Co-Presidents). The President and Vice President must not be from the same community; the Presidency rotates among the Council members every 10 months. One community may have the Presidency no more than twice in succession. The chief executives of the component states sit in the Presidential Council for the first several years, without vote.
There is also a Senate of 48, equally drawn from the two communities, and a Chamber of 48 elected proportionately (but with a 25% minimum). Votes are to be by majority, but with a minimum of 25% of each community in the Senate. A Supreme Court is composed of 3 Greek justices, 3 Turkish, and 3 non-Cypriots. The Common state’s administration is to be proportionate at all levels, but no less than one-third from any one community.
The two equal component states will be territorially based, “sovereignly exercise their powers,” but “harmonize” their policies and legislation with the common state, which will also “sovereignly” exercise its powers. The equality of the structure is explicitly stated, and symbolized by 3 flags, 3 anthems, etc.
There are suggestions about issues of territorial adjustment, internal migration, property disputes and many other smaller issues – many of them contentious. The island is to be gradually demilitarized, with no armed forces of its own.
This proposed negotiating base has been accepted by the Greek Cypriot government, by Greece, by Turkey, but not yet by Turkish Cypriot President Denktaþ, who is in hospital in NY for heart surgery. There is some rush: the EU meets in Copenhagen Dec 12 to select expansion candidates, and prefers to offer entry to a united Cyprus.
For its entire history, Cyprus has been considered highly strategic by outside forces. It was a center for trade in the Eastern Mediterranean from ancient times, which attracted every major power in the region to occupy it at some point; the Venetians seized it in 1489 as the Byzantine Empire waned, and the Ottoman Empire took it as it rose in 1570. Ceded to Britain in 1878, it became a key component of their economic and political strategies in the region. As a result, Cyprus developed a very diverse population, mostly Greek, but with ties to all parts of the Mediterranean. During the Cold War, Cyprus became an important outpost of surveillance of the Soviet bloc, making the two large bases there indispensable for intelligence and logistics. Now, Cyprus is seen as a key location for the expansion of EU influence, as well as for the projection of power into the Middle East. These strategic values insured that the destiny of the island was never absent outside controls – always something of a political football.
Independence itself was imposed, on populations that wanted reunion (enosis) with their respective motherlands – Greece and Turkey. Greek military figures were key to rising violence in the 1960s, and the attempted coup in 1974. Of course Turkish priorities sustained their own involvement after that, as Turkey had gained a strategic foothold in the Mediterranean 40 miles from its southern shore. Britain and the United States were complicit in the Turkish invasion and control, for their own strategic purposes (now including logistics for ME operations). Manipulation and constricted options have been the norm for Cyprus.
The most recent efforts at peace are a fine example: Until summer of 2002, no progress could have been expected in negotiations, as the Turkish Prime Minister, Bülent Ecevit, was the same leader who had ordered the invasion in 1974, his Minister for Cyprus Affairs a Cyprus resident married to a Turkish Cypriot, and both firm hardliners. Turkey threatened to annex the north if the south was separately admitted to the EU. At the same time, Greece – no longer striving for direct enosis after the military regime collapsed because of that effort – threatened to veto all EU expansion if Cyprus was not a candidate. Greek-Turkish relations were themselves often tumultuous, riven by disputes left over from the foundation of the Turkish Republic over territory, airspace, seabed, and maritime boundaries. Neither Cypriot side had any incentive to compromise, both moved toward intransigence by strong support from the outside.
What has changed? For one thing, Turkish and Greek relations improved quite significantly in the wake of “earthquake politics,” and Greece has abandoned its confrontational stance toward Turkish candidacy in the EU. More directly, the Ecevit government collapsed, and was replaced in November 2002 by one led by the Justice and Development Party. As that party has rather a lot on its plate – including coping more effectively with Turkey’s economic crisis and with concerns that its Islamic base will cause trouble, its leader, Recep Erdoðan, has taken as the highest priority entry into the EU, and solving the Cyprus issue is a central part of that drive. Political leadership has signaled a ‘soft’ line on Cyprus (although the military Chief of General Staff, Gen. Hilmi Özkök, just completed a tour as commander of Turkish forces on Cyprus and is known to have a hard stance – which might pose a test of the ‘new’ role of the military in Turkish politics). Erdoðan’s first foreign trips included Greece, and various European capitals to lobby for “simultaneous” entry of Cyprus and Turkey into the EU. In addition to EU aspirations, an economically strapped Turkish government could likely find a better use for the $200 million or so their engagement in Cyprus costs each year. As a result, the UN proposal looks far more promising now than six months ago. The new government’s foreign minister, Yasar Yakis, met personally with Denktaþ, transmitting the opinion that the framework was a suitable document for beginning negotiations. As a result, it is expected that the Turkish Cypriot side will also accept the document, with reservations - like each of the other parties has done – and that final negotiations will begin soon.
The conclusion here is that a process initiated on economic grounds – EU accession, seems to have been driven mostly by political dynamics. “Buying” reconciliation between ethnic communities doesn’t seem to have provided sufficient motivation. Greek Cypriot and EU officials thought that the ‘carrot’ of EU entry would attract the north to reconcile – but that seems to have had little effect. Rather, the ‘diplomatic frame’ – the setting of the domestic conflict within its international influence structure - seems more decisive in moving toward resolution. A political conflict has been shaped by political dynamics – intransigent when the political frame is tension-laden, and more flexible with reductions of tension. Present discussions in both the north and the south are full of anxiety, and reasons to vote down the revisions significant. Here, a ‘peace dividend’ of EU derived economic gain may play a role in lubricating the domestic political processes of ratification of a new constitution. But so will the purely symbolic political ‘carrots’ – separate flags for the two communities, “sovereignly powers” to the component states – the symbolic political issues that have all along been the most difficult. Economic issues set the timing, will perhaps assist the popular mandate, but did not produce the result.
In an era when the pressures of globalization are seen to be molding events everywhere, when assumptions leap to the predominance of economic dynamics at the root of diplomatic behavior, Cyprus offers an alternative lesson: politics still matters.