In Cyprus no solution means annexation

Cyprus is an unfortunate island that has been treated like a guinea pig by both nations who are the world leaders in nationalist bigotry. For decades, these two amateur chess-players, so to speak, keep making wrong moves and causing harm to the island and themselves. Now they play in overtime.

Mutual massacres committed in 1963, the 1974 coup d’Žtat by Nicos Samson, the second Atilla operation by the Turkish army, establishment of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, or TRNC, by the Turkish junta government in 1983 in a hurry despite a civilian, Turgut Özal was elected to the prime ministry seat then, EU candidacy and membership of the divided island, periods of nosayers Rauf Denktaş and of Tassos Papadopoulos, Denktaş paving the way for membership of the south of the island when he said "No" with the encouragement of Ankara in 2003 in the Hague, and the EU’s not lifting the economic isolation of the north though they promised to do so following the 2004 referendumÉ And finally the talks that have been launched after Cypriot Greeks elected their new President Dimitris Christophias early last year; the talks in which Greek and Turkish leaders of the island speak the same language for a solution.

However, relatively good results in talks in the island apparently disturbed the hawkish in Ankara and incited them to wipe off the ruling Republican Turkish Party, or CTP. As a result and helped by CTP’s clumsiness, former TRNC President Denktaş’s former party, the National Union Party, or UBP, seems most likely to win the early elections.

Reunification talks in Cyprus directly affect Turkey’s membership negotiations with the European Union. Coming from the tradition of "no solution is the solution" UBP, is certainly not the party who would fight for island’s reunification. Expecting the future UBP government, controlled by Ankara in all ways, to support President Mehmet Ali Talat in bilateral talks, is a waste of time. Therefore, settlement talks would fail on account of the Turkish side and Turkey’s membership negotiations with the EU would be negatively affected by this. If Turkey still wants to continue EU accession talks, the only way is to unilaterally open its air and sea ports to the vessels of the Republic of Cyprus to unblock the chapters that are frozen because of non ratification of the Additional Protocol to the customs union.

By taking side with those who say "no-solution is the solution," or those who at least do not say the opposite, the governing Justice and Development Party, or AKP, corners itself in the EU talks. But that’s apparently not enough. The AKP is preparing to work with the TRNC extension of the political mindset that it has been struggling in Turkey since coming to power.

I wonder if Ahmet Davudoğlu, chief foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who was explaining on television programs how to scale-up Turkish foreign policy by using the Cyprus issue as an example, is aware of the fact that we are squeezed back into the Cyprus scale today. Could it be that Turkey is strolling around big scales yet cornering itself in the small Cyprus scale? Normalization of Greece and its EU path were cleared after the Cyprus coup and the Turkish intervention. Normalization of Turkey and its EU path though may come to an end for good because of the Cyprus issue. But in the end, these are after all planned on purpose?

Cyprus becoming an appendice of Turkey
Since 1974, Cyprus is like a water mill that cannot run without hand-carried water. The AKP for some time has been trying to fix the system which was totally irrational in economic terms since 1974. But the efforts are slowly turning into taming the CTP government in TRNC through money. TRNC is obviously a burden on Turkey in the current economic crisis. In the end, however, what is being done means adoption of Turkish standards in TRNC; or in other words, not having labor unions and obeying the religion and military. Natives of TRNC are neither sufficiently nationalist nor adequately Muslim. Mostly free thinkers and Europeanized, Cypriot Turks won’t change though. So this has been taken care of by importing habits and settlers from the mainland.

In the last four years, the superiority complex we developed is also valid when it comes to the Cyprus issue. Today, most of us sincerely believe the world may recognize TRNC, so do the civilian and military bureaucracy. But in the north of the island, the course of event signals not international recognition but annexation at best.