Turkish Cypriot Elections Confirm Status Quo, But Times May Be Changing

By Jon Gorvett


	Supporters of Mehmet Ali Talat’s Republican Turkish Party (CTP) wave party flags near a giant picture of Talat and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan during a Feb. 18 election rally in the Turkish sector of Nicosia (AFP Photo/Tarik Tinazay).

LIKE MANY an election or referendum on the divided island of Cyprus, February’s balloting among Turkish Cypriots left two diametrically opposed impressions on either side of the U.N.-patrolled Green Line.

In the north, the victory of Mehmet Ali Talat’s Republican Turkish Party (CTP) was heralded by supporters and international organizations as a triumph for reconciliation and the ending of divisions. In the south, however, the voting was either ignored or dismissed, with President Tassos Papadopolous even accusing Talat of wanting to split up the island still further.

Perceptions, then, are as far apart as ever. Since last April, when Greek and Turkish Cypriots cast divergent votes over the latest U.N.-sponsored peace plan, little appears to have changed on either side. In the Greek Cypriot south of the divided capital, Nicosia, shops still display the “no” posters from that referendum, while in the northern Turkish Cypriot part of the city, many citizens still await some reward from the international community for having given a resounding “yes” to the same Annan Plan.

At the same time, there is also a sense of “Cyprus fatigue” among the international players involved in trying to find a solution to the decades-old division. The U.N., which had placed a great deal of hope and political capital in the Annan Plan, has largely dismantled its Cyprus team, assigning its key players to other hot spots. Meanwhile, since the Republic of Cyprus joined the European Union last May 1, the EU has been struggling to deliver on pre-referendum promises made to the Turkish Cypriots of aid and an end to their economic isolation.

Neither the U.N. nor the EU, however, looks likely to try and mount any major diplomatic initiative in the near future, arguing privately that neither can afford another failure like the Annan Plan referendum. At the same time, while both Papadopoulos and veteran Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash have both declared their willingness to begin face-to-face talks, most analysts and Cyprus watchers on both sides suggest that neither is really that interested.

“The [Greek Cypriot] government is rather determined not to return to the negotiating table,” according to James Ker-Lindsay, director of the Greek Cyprus-based Civilitas think tank. “It’s a question of what this means, though—is it a fundamental objection to doing so, or a temporary position?”

At the same time, Denktash has a global reputation as “Mr. No” when it comes to finding a settlement. The fact that so many people voted for Talat, known among Turkish Cypriots as the standard bearer of pro-settlement politics, demonstrates how little is expected of any Denktash-inspired negotiations.

Meanwhile, although some 44.5 percent of Turkish Cypriots did vote for Talat, giving the CTP exactly half the deputies in the 50-seat parliament and a 10 percentage point lift from their showing in the previous 2003 elections, most of their voting gains came at the expense of other pro-settlement parties. In particular, Mustafa Akinci’s Peace and Democracy Party (BDH) took a drubbing from the CTP, reducing its parliamentary representation from six seats to just one.

Votes for the anti-settlement National Unity Party (UBP) stayed much as ever, as did votes for the more ambiguous Democrat Party (DP), headed by Rauf Denktash’s son, Serdar.

If anything, then, the election showed a consolidation of the left wing, where pro-settlement sentiment has always been concentrated, and no real movement on the right.

Factors for Change

Yet all may not be gloom and doom. Two factors are still out there on the horizon that already are exercising their magnetic pull on events. The first is that Rauf Denktash will be stepping down in April, when the Turkish Cypriots will return to the ballot boxes to elect a new president. This position is a potentially powerful one, as it has historically also meant being chief negotiator in any Cyprus talks. Currently, many think it likely that Talat will stand for this post, leaving his prime minister position in the hands of his likely coalition partner, Serdar Denktash. If Talat can consolidate the other key ministries in the government around the CTP, he could end up with a staunchly pro-settlement negotiating team.

Secondly, there is the EU membership trajectory of the Turkish Cypriot’s big brother, Turkey. Under the deal struck last December that granted Turkey an Oct. 3, 2005 date to begin accession talks, Ankara has until then to extend its current customs union agreement with the EU to include all the EU’s latest members—including the Republic of Cyprus.

Currently, Turkey recognizes only the Turkish Cypriots on the island—being the sole country worldwide to grant recognition to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Ankara refers to the Republic of Cyprus as the “Greek Administered Region.” Extending the customs union is therefore a kind of backdoor recognition of the Greek Cypriot-dominated state.

Clearly, this sticks in many a Turkish craw. One hope is that this might spur Turkish Cypriots to try and restart talks for a settlement before October. If a deal can be done, there then would be no problem in Ankara recognizing a reunited Cypriot republic.

While this creates a willingness to come to terms on the Turkish and Turkish Cypriot side, however, the regrettable fact is that there is no such atmosphere on the other side of the Green Line.

“Papadopolous doesn’t really want to solve things,” says Vangelis Vasiliou of the pro-settlement Greek Cypriot newspaper Politis. “The elections in the north delivered a message that the Turkish Cypriots are still committed to a settlement, but it’s a message the Greek Cypriot politicians don’t want to hear.”

However, while the political front may still be in deadlock, economic changes are moving ahead. EU citizens now are free to move between both sides of the island—an important change when one remembers that most Turkish Cypriots are entitled to Republic of Cyprus passports—and thus EU citizenship. Already, Turkish Cypriots pass through Green Line checkpoints—which have themselves rapidly increased in number—to work, socialize, and trade in the south—and even fly to other EU countries from Larnaca Airport.

While trade between north and south is still slight—around 90,000 Euros a month, according to the European Commission—the EU is making a major effort to boost this. While the Greek Cypriots have historically objected to any easing of the economic barriers to trade with the north, their arguments have lost weight now that the whole island is technically EU territory.

Washington, too, has made some moves to bring Turkish Cypriots back into the global economic fold. A U.S.-Turkish business mission flew from Istanbul to northern Cyprus just prior to the election—provoking a storm of protest from Greek Cypriot political leaders, who threatened to start a boycott of U.S. goods and even join the Syrian-Iranian axis if the U.S. began direct trade with the Turkish Cypriots.

Here then, is perhaps the one element of pressure international players may be able to bring to bear in order to get talks restarted. If economic relations begin to normalize between the Turkish Cypriots and the outside world, and between Turkish and Greek Cypriots, the dividing line also begins to blur. Those who have gained much from the island’s effective partition over the last three decades may have serious cause for concern here—on both sides of their heavily militarized, but increasingly porous Green Line.

Jon Gorvett is a free-lance journalist based in Istanbul.