Why a green light for Cyprus may not mean the end of green line dividing island

Date: 19/09/02

By David Cronin

The Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities remain diametrically opposed on the big constitutional questions ahead of the island's accession to the EU.

THERE's a huge flag - reputedly the size of four football fields - painted on the mountains overlooking Nicosia. Locals hope one day it will listed in The Guinness Book of Records as the biggest national flag in the world.

The snag, though, is that the 'state' represented by this red star and crescent on a white background, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), has only ever received official recognition from the country whose emblem it apes - mainland Turkey.

As far as every other government on the planet is concerned, the TRNC has no legitimacy.

EU leaders felt they had international law on their side, then, when they decided in 1999 that Cyprus could join the EU even if a long-running dispute between its Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities continued.

Yet the walls along the UN-patrolled green line separating Nicosia along ethnic lines indicates the leaders' decision may not be conducive towards ensuring peace and stability on the island and between its two powerful neighbours, Greece and Turkey. Turkish Cypriots feel aggrieved at how the EU is processing a membership application for the whole island to join.

This, they say, was tabled only on behalf of the Greek Cypriot administration - which does enjoy international recognition.

Turkish Cypriots are, therefore, being dragged into the Union without their prior consent, say leading members of Rauf Denktash's government in the north.

Last week Denktash's Foreign and Defence Minister Tahsin Ertugruloglu warned that a move to officially name Cyprus as an imminent EU state by the end of this year would spark 'trouble and chaos' across the eastern Mediterranean.

He hopes violence can be averted but said military action by Turkish troops against the gesture may not be 'off bounds'.

But Ioannis Kasoulides, the Greek Cypriot foreign minister, feels this threat could be mere bluster.

'The European Union does not operate under threat,' he told European Voice. 'It is also ludicrous for someone to think that Turkey will sacrifice its own road to the European Union by taking or contemplating any sort of military action.

'I don't think positions like those of Mr Ertugruloglu are reflected in Ankara.'

Kasoulides says he 'cannot be totally pessimistic' that a breakthrough will be secured in the current round of face-to-face talks between Denktash and Giafcos Clerides. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has invited the two men to New York in early October to see if a compromise agreement on the island's future can be brokered in the coming months.

Yet the two sides seem diametrically opposed on the big constitutional questions. For Denktash and his cohorts, the bottom line appears to be that there must be two sovereign states on the island, although the two would have some joint centralised institutions, for example one for liaising with the Brussels bureaucracy.

Kasoulides, however, says the idea of having two states is a non-runner.

A solution, he argues, has to be based on reunification, not on permanent partition.

He also feels that Denktash's hard-line approach is becoming increasingly unpopular among his own people.

Recent elections have seen significant gains for the opposition Republican Turkish Party.

Instead of having two states, it is advocating a federal solution, based on several UN resolutions about Cyprus, which would explicitly guarantee the equality of its two main peoples.

The Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities remain diametrically opposed on the big constitutional questions ahead of the island's accession to the EU. Article is part of a European Voice survey on enlargement.