Zaman, Turkey
Sept 15 2005

EU Should Suffer more over Cyprus

by ABDULHAMIT BILICI

I do not know whether it attracts your attention or not. In the last
weeks, the giant European Union (EU) is suffering a lot because of
the tiny Cyprus problem.

While two of Europe’s most important capitals, Paris and the EU’s
term president London, are pitting themselves against each other over
the Cyprus issue, two other members of the Union, Greece, and the
Greek Cypriot Administration in particular, are coming up with new
scenarios every day.

In the meantime, Brussels, most especially the EU Commission, is
trying strike a balance between the feuding important members of
Union and the open promises that were made to Turkey at the December
17 Summit.

Although I strongly support Turkey’s full membership, frankly
speaking, I am not getting very upset about the EU’s suffering so
much over the Cyprus issue. I even take a deep breath over it,
because, the EU has embraced this pain on purpose, despite many
warnings, especially from Turkey. According to the famous saying, `If
you get yourself into trouble, then you’ve got no right to complain’.
Hence, it may be even good for the EU to suffer more for the mistake
it made deliberately.

The EU said `yes’ to the Greek Cypriots even contradicting to its own
principles, let alone ignoring the articles in the London and Zurich
Agreements (founding treaties of Cyprus Republic in 1959-1960) which
limits membership of the then Cyprus Republic to any international
grouping in which Turkey and Greece are not both members. Because of
this reason, EU officials have never given satisfactory answers to
following questions so far: How did the EU admit the Greek Cyprus
Administration, which is unable to control even half of its
territory, while the same EU sees Turkey’s problems with its
neighbors such as Greece and Armenia as for the membership? Why
didn’t the EU say the same thing to the Greek Cypriots, the way it
said to the East European countries, `Solve your problems with your
neighbors before you become a member.’

If it were the Turkish side that was responsible for non-solution,
then the EU’s attitude could have been understood since it may
rightly want to punish Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Northern
Cyprus (TRNC).

If former TRNC President Rauf Denktas, who needlessly and unfairly
gave the whole world the impression that the Turkish side was
responsible for the lack of solution with the policy he pursued, was
in power, then the EU’s present policy could have been well
understood. On the contrary, now there is President Mehmet Ali Talat,
who was elected because he is in favor of a solution.

In addition, if a government which sees `non-solution on the island
as the best solution’ was in power in Ankara, then we wouldn’t say
anything against the EU regarding its recent attitude.

Most importantly, if it were the Turkish Cypriots and not the Greek
Cypriots who had said `no’ in the referendum held on the Annan Plan,
in which the United Nations (UN), the U.S., the EU and the whole
world compromised in a way, we wouldn’t make be making any objections
now. Meanwhile, it may be useful to remember briefly the results of
this historic referendum: In the referenda held on both sides of the
island on April 24, 2004, 64.9 percent of the Turkish Cypriots said
`yes’ to the solution, while 75.83 percent of the Greek Cypriots said
`no.’ If the political administration had accepted the solution, but
were not able to convince its people, then we would have said that
this is the democratic will of a people and would have gone on our
own way. But this was not the case. Because, Cypriot Greek leader
Tassos Papadopoulos also joined the `no’ bandwagon.

Yes, if the previous Turkish government and Denktas had shown an
attitude in favor of a solution prior to the Copenhagen Summit and a
solution had been found before the membership of the Greek Cyprus was
approved, the picture would have been very different today. At least,
if they had pursued such a policy, which in fact would have revealed
that in fact the Greek Cyprus was the party that favored
non-solution, we would have been in a better situation now. But
whatever happened so far, we came to December 17, 2004 critical
summit where Turkey was given a conditional date to start accession
talks on 3 October this year. In this summit, both the EU officials
and leaders of the member countries announced and approved that with
regards to Cyprus, the only condition for starting accession talks
was Ankara signing the supplementary protocol, which extended the
scope of Customs Union Agreement to include 10 new EU members
including Cyprus.

Thus, while the EU’s rewarding Greek Cypriots who rejected a solution
is now lying at the center of the problem, forcing Turkey to pay
another price on Cyprus before starting negotiations is inconsistent
with reason, logic, law and morality.

In the meantime, the Europeans should decide how consistent they are
with the idea `Europeanism,’ something majority of us glorify without
questioning, when Greek Cypriots took to streets like spoiled
children, encouraged by France, which accepted the December 17
decisions and then signaled to set a condition at the very last
moment for the `recognition of Greek Cyprus’ out of certain domestic
political concerns. The recent signals show that current term
president Britain will keep the promises made on December 17 and will
not set any other conditions; however, if the EU is going to be a
structure where treaties, laws and promises are disregarded, then it
is better for Turkey to start thinking to slam the door and walk
away.