Ankara seeks resolution to Cyprus

Thomas Seibert
Foreign Correspondent

• Last Updated: November 03. 2009 10:08PM UAE / November 3. 2009 6:08PM GMT

Turkish Cypriots cross the Green Line that separates Cyprus’s Greek and Turkish regions. Laura Boushnak / AFP

ISTANBUL // After strengthening relations with Syria, Iraq and Iran and opening the way for healing historic wounds with Armenia, the Turkish government is preparing to take the initiative on another diplomatic front: Cyprus. Ankara is about to present new proposals to solve the conflict on the divided island, an effort also designed to remove one of the biggest hurdles to Turkey’s EU membership, reports say.

The British foreign secretary, David Miliband, is expected to visit Ankara for talks on the Cyprus issue tomorrow. Like Turkey and Greece, the UK is a guarantor power for Cyprus, which was a British colony before becoming independent in 1963. While Mr Miliband meets officials in Ankara, Egemen Bagis, Turkey’s top EU negotiator, will travel to Greece for talks on Cyprus. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, will take up the Cyprus conflict at a meeting with the US president Barack Obama in Washington on November 7, media reports have said.

Ankara’s decision to get more involved in the Cyprus issue comes after Turkey launched initiatives designed to repair or improve relations with neighbours Syria, Iraq, Iran and Armenia. Ahmet Davutoglu, the foreign minister, has said he wants Turkey to have “zero problems” with its neighbours, something he thinks is necessary before the country can claim a role as a leading power in the region.

“Our constructive position on the Cyprus problem, our attitude towards the Armenian problem, and our dialogue with Iran, Iraq and Syria are concrete expressions of our peaceful policies,” Mr Erdogan told a meeting on Turkish foreign policy organised by several think tanks in Istanbul last month. “A Turkey that knows the Middle East, the Balkans and the Caucasus very well and is European at the same time will not be a burden for the EU. In other words, it is not a country that will place a burden on the EU, but one of the countries that can ease the burden of the EU.”

Turkey’s “Cyprus opening” took shape in talks between Mehmet Ali Talat, the Turkish Cypriot leader, and Turkish officials, including Abdullah Gul, the president, in Ankara last week. Mr Talat also met Mr Davutoglu, who only recently asked his diplomats for fresh ideas on Cyprus.

Two weeks ago, Mr Davutoglu called about 40 Turkish ambassadors to Ankara for a two-day “brain-storming” session on the Cyprus conflict, a foreign ministry spokesman, Burak Ozugergin, told reporters in Ankara. Mr Bagis also participated. The meeting ended with a resolve to “push through peace” on Cyprus, Mr Ozugergin said. Turkey would be conducting an “active” policy on Cyprus from now on. According to media reports, Ankara wants to find a solution before next April, when Mr Talat, seen as a pro-EU reformer, faces a difficult election.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when a Greek Cypriot coup aimed at making the island a part of Greece triggered a Turkish military intervention. The internationally recognised Greek republic on the island has been an EU member since 2004, but the Turkish sector is isolated and recognised only by Ankara.

The unsolved Cyprus problem has slowed Turkey’s EU accession. The EU has frozen eight of 35 chapters of membership negotiations with Turkey because Ankara refuses to open its ports for ships from the Greek republic of Cyprus. Brussels gave Turkey until the end of this year to comply.

Ankara says the EU has not honoured a promise to improve the situation for Turkish Cypriots, who voted in favour of a reunification plan put forward by the United Nations in 2004. The plan fell through because it was rejected by Greek Cypriots. Mr Talat and the Greek Cypriot president, Demetris Christofias, have met in almost 50 sessions since the start of unification talks last year, but have so far failed to reach an agreement.

“There has to be a solution over there, a durable solution,” Mr Gul said after his talks with Mr Talat. According to Turkish media reports, the two men agreed that Mr Talat would show more flexibility in negotiations with Mr Christofias.

Bulent Aras, a political scientist at Istanbul’s Isik University, told the NTV news channel that the Turkish government was speeding up things on Cyprus to make progress on several fronts.

Mr Davutoglu “wants a result [by] the end of the year”, Mr Aras said. Ankara was asking the EU to drop trade restrictions for Turkish Cypriots and to open the Turkish sector of the island for international air travel, he added. In return, Turkey would be willing to open its ports for the Greek Cypriots, press reports have said. There was no official confirmation.


tseibert@thenational.ae