A settlement for Cyprus: A last, last chance

Date: 08/03/03

The UN's secretary-general offers the islanders a last chance of reunification

DEADLINES in Mediterranean countries have a habit of slipping - and so it is proving in Cyprus. After fruitless talks in the divided island's capital, Nicosia, the UN's secretary-general, Kofi Annan, extended until March 10th his ultimatum to the Greek- and Turkish-Cypriot leaders that they should have signed his peace plan's latest version by February 28th.

Mr Annan also changed tack. He proposed that if the leaders were unable to accept the plan, the Greek- and Turkish-Cypriots should themselves give their verdicts in referendums on March 30th. If both communities vote yes, the leaders of a reunited Cyprus would then agree to sign an accession treaty in Athens on April 16th, together with other countries, mainly from central Europe, that are keen to join the EU.

The UN's idea is to stitch Cyprus back together as a pair of two “constituent” states, each of which would run its own affairs, leaving a central government to look after foreign policy and, in particular, relations with Brussels. The second revised plan, say diplomats, was intended to win over Rauf Denktash, the Turkish-Cypriot leader, by letting the Karpas Peninsula, a chunk of territory in the north, stay under Turkish-Cypriot control.

Before the Turkish military intervention in 1974 (after a Greek-Cypriot coup had briefly threatened to unite the whole island with mainland Greece), the peninsula had long been peopled largely by Greek-Cypriots but is considered strategically valuable by Turkey's generals, who have been Mr Denktash's strongest supporters. In return, the Greek-Cypriots would get back some more villages and another stretch of coastline in the east. The overall amount of territory handed back to the Greek-Cypriots under the revised plan would drop just a tad, from 9% to 8% of the whole island. At present the Turkish-Cypriots, who were 18% of the island's population before the invasion, control 37% of its territory.

True to form, Mr Denktash, who has resisted every previous UN blandishment, rejected this one too. But his constituents now overwhelmingly favour a settlement. While Mr Annan was pressing for a deal, about 70,000 people - nearly half the impoverished north's population - showed how they would vote in a referendum by staging a pro-EU demonstration on their side of Nicosia. Thomas Weston, the American special envoy for Cyprus, signalled his country's backing for the UN plan - and its displeasure with Mr Denktash - by turning up among the protesters.

But would the Greek-Cypriots vote in favour too? Even without a settlement, their bit of the island is assured of joining the euro-club, though Gunter Verheugen, the EU's commissioner for enlargement, stresses that a reunited Cyprus would have a warmer welcome. But Greek-Cypriot politicians call the latest UN plan “much worse” than previous ones. Without the Karpas prong, they say, Greek-Cypriot hotel-builders have little space for expansion. The British have tried to sweeten the pill by offering to hand over nearly half their sovereign base at Dhekelia, which straddles the present boundary, for settlement largely by Greek-Cypriots; the other base, at Akrotiri, would be untouched.

Tassos Papadopoulos, the new president of the Greek-Cypriot (and internationally recognised) south, used to be a hard man opposed to any sort of compromise with Mr Denktash. Now he says he wants to work for a settlement. Diplomats trying to fix a deal are unconvinced.

The Greek-Cypriots have previously been able to shelter behind Mr Denktash's intransigence. But if, all of a sudden, he is willing to accept a settlement, Mr Papadopoulos might find it hard to rally wavering Greek-Cypriots. Mr Annan says the meeting on March 10th, due to take place in The Hague, would mark a final deadline. There would be no discussion of the plan, just a request for a yes or a no.

After 14 months of negotiation two or three times a week chaired by Alvaro de Soto, the UN's special envoy to Cyprus, Mr Annan says he is calling a halt. If this last effort fails, he says there will be no new UN initiative on Cyprus while he holds the top job. Local pundits guess there is a 50-50 chance of the Greeks saying yes. Otherwise, it will be up to the EU to work out a deal by May 2004, when the new countries are due to enter the expanded club.