Bitter fruit from a divided island

Press, 20 December 1986, Page 22

Bitter fruit from a divided island

NEAL ASCHERSON, the London “Observer” columnist, looks at the thorny problem of a divided Cyprus and argues that Britain is ideally placed to take some necessary action.

It is time to do something about Cyprus. More precisely, it is time for Britain — as a coguarantor of the rusting heap of wreckage which is all that remains of the 1960 independence settlement — to revive talks on the island’s future. Last month, Rauf Denktash paid his annual visit to London. He is the so-called president of the so-called "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus,” the part of the island seized by the 1974 Turkish invasion, and which declared its independence unilaterally in 1983. Nobody except Turkey recognises the regime of Mr Denktash. Britain still considers the Government of President Kyprianou as the legitimate authority in the whole island. However, as time goes by, the chubby and eloquent Mr Denktash wears himself a deepening ledge in public acceptance.

This time he lectured at Chatham House (the Royal Institute of International Affairs) and saw all kinds of unofficial, but influential, people. The “All-Party British Parliamentary Group of the Friends of Turkish Cyprus” made a great fuss over him; he was the star at a rally held in the Queen Elizabeth Conference Centre, a Government-owned building.

This was a mistake, the British Foreign Office admits. So was the guest list published in “The Times,” it seems: the influential Conservative Party backbench M.P., Sir Anthony Kershaw, and the Social Democratic Party leader, Dr David Owen, are among those who now angrily deny that they were present. Mr Denktash is not aiming mainly at those who think Turkey’s 1974 act of force was a liberation crusade. He is massaging skilfully that mental idleness which inclines to say that a partition which is a 12-year-old fact might as well be recognised as permanent. But he knows, better than most, that the partition has been a failure, whose consequences are now becoming steadily more dangerous. Earlier this year, some two years of work on the possibility of constructing an independent but federal Cyprus broke down in failure. There were “highlevel proximity talks” and then a

“joint high-level meeting” between Greek and Turkish Cypriots. There was then a series of draft agreements offered to the two sides by the United Nations Secretary-General, Javier Perez de Cuellar, for their comments. The point about these efforts is that they came very close to success. The Greek-Cypriot population, especially, was desperately anxious that they should produce agreement, although not at any price. The failure has generated a wave of anger and suspicion, not only on the island but between Greece and Turkey. The peril is not just that these two States will pursue their political feud into blocking much European development. It is that the tension between Greece and Turkey, two impoverished nations absurdly over-armed against one another, might explode into war. It is worth adding that the separation of Turkish Cyprus has been a disaster. “Independence”

has meant growing political dependence on autocratic Turkey. It has meant the influx of some 50,000 settlers from the mainland, who are not particularly popular with the local Turks. Above all, it has meant poverty. Turkish Cyprus has a per head gross national product of $2509, and an inflation rate of 43 per cent. The corresponding figures for Greek Cyprus are $8592 and 5 per cent.

These facts reveal what ought to be an open secret about Mr Denktash. His demand for international recognition is a ploy. What he is really doing is putting together a stronger hand for the next round of federation talks. He needs a reunified Cyprus even more than the Greeks, even though 180,000 of them lost their homes and property when the Turkish army drove them out. Battered and sobered by recent history, Greek and Turkish Cypriots have acquired a certain

capacity to compromise. Fanatical calls for unreal solutions have died down. The United Nations initiatives, although they have .broken off, showed that some apparently insoluble problems can be solved. There was consent to the idea of a federal Cyprus of two semi-autonomous parts.

The Greek side, although it counts 78 per cent of the population, accepted powerful rights of veto in federal matters for the Turkish Cypriots. And although the Greeks had possessed about three-quarters of the land, they were ready to let the Turkish area extend over a third of the island (since 1974, they have occupied 37 per cent of Cyprus).

All this means that the broken wires of negotiation can be picked up and reconnected. The biggest problem is security: the Greek Cypriots might be brought to accept Turkey as one of the guarantors of this new, federal X

Cyprus, but only if the Turkish army is withdrawn before the new constitution comes ‘ into force. On this, the Turks are shifty, and Perez de Cuellar failed to pin them down. But it is an utterly reasonable demand. Why should the Turks refuse it? One can hardly imagine happy ceremonies in Nicosia for the first session of a provisional government while a large foreign army, entirely outside its control, crouches a few miles away. And, in crude terms, it makes little military difference whether Turkish troops are on the island or a few minutes flight away on the Turkish mainland. This obstacle must be — and can be — bargained away by detailed international guarantees for both communities. Secondary, but on the face of things thornier, is the Greek-Cypriot wish for the removal of the mainland Turks who have settled in Cyprus since 1974., Here we

are up against an unscrupulous numbers game. Mr Denktash claims that there are 300,000 Turkish Cypriots living abroad with the “right of return” — nearly twice the present TurkishCypriot population. The Greeks hotly deny these figures; they say that only 20,000 Turkish Cypriots emigrated between 1951 and 1976, and that the total who fled in the years of E.O.K.A.’s guerrilla war for union with Greece is under 6000. (Mr Denktash makes it 30,000.) But who is going to sponsor a new effort to find a settlement — and what are the real interests of more powerful nations in putting Cyprus together again? Here the Greek-Cypriots have a nasty feeling of weakness. It is not so much that they feel that time is against them. It is that they suspect that the United States, above all, has a deep-rooted strategic commitment to Turkey. A vicious circle operates: the

anti-American mood of Greece, which draws much of its strength from the feebleness of the United States response to Turkey’s invasion of Cyprus 12 years ago, only reinforces the United States in its sense that Turkey is a more reliable ally. Britain has its sovereign base areas on Cyprus, but its huge radio intelligence operation is a priceless component of United States and N.A.T.O. strategy. It may be that the status quo in Cyprus — even permanent partition — looks to the generals like a convenient state of affairs which should not be meddled with. Soviet radio traffic would be harder to hear through the din of Christian and Muslim Cypriots hitting each other over the head. Another independent Cyprus might drift to the Left, and threaten the bases. At least one knows there will be none of that nonsense while the Turkish Army is around. I hope this is not how British calculations work. In the first place, they would be wrong: divided Cyprus is a menace to peace. Second, Britain is the only State among those the 1960 guarantees which could launch another search for a settlement

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