Cyprus question leaves Union between rock and a hard place

Date: 11/06/1998

The EU's political leaders appear very uncertain about how to deal with the Cyprus government's demands for fast-track Union entry amid signs that the conflict between the divided island's two communities is deepening. John Carr reports

WHEN the government of Cyprus announced its intention to buy Russian anti-aircraft missiles last year, many observers questioned its motives.

The move seemed to stem not so much from a desire to beef up the Greek Cypriots' defence capability, but rather to acquire a heavy bargaining chip with which to force the Turkish Cypriots, and by extension Turkey, into a substantial involvement in helping to reunite the island.

It has not quite turned out that way. Far from being frightened into a more cooperative stance, the breakaway Turkish Cypriot state under its leader Rauf Denktash has dug in its heels even further against any kind of accommodation with the legitimate government in Nicosia.

Turkey's generals are threatening to bomb the S-300 missiles into dust if they ever reach (Greek) Cypriot soil.

The US and UK are fervently hoping that the Cyprus government of President Glafcos Clerides will cancel the missiles deal, and miss no opportunity to put pressure on Nicosia over it.

Is Cyprus, then, in for a long, hot summer which is in no one's real interests?

The Americans, who tend to feel they are shouldering an unfair share of the burden of trying to keep the precarious Cypriot apple-cart upright, believe more vigorous intervention by the European Union would be highly desirable, particularly as Cyprus identifies its future with the Union.

“Time is working against a Cyprus settlement,” Washington's official coordinator for Cyprus Thomas Miller warned in Nicosia late last month.

“The situation could get worse before it gets better,” he said.

Such warnings have been sounded countless times before, without any dire consequences coming to pass. Cyprus' present crisis, which dates back to Turkey's invasion of the island in July 1974 and subsequent occupation of nearly 40&percent; of its territory, resembles a stalemated chess game that has so far defeated the ingenuity of even the ablest diplomats.

The island's Greek Cypriot majority and Turkish Cypriot minority are effectively split by one of the world's two remaining iron curtains (the other divides Korea).

Attempts to breach the line often end in bloodshed, as happened in August 1996 during a Greek Cypriot bikers' demonstration. Last summer a Greek rock singer, Sakis Rouvas, tried to do his bit to mend fences by performing in the buffer zone together with a Turkish pop star.

Most of the audience consisted of United Nations soldiers. Politically, the concert failed to cut even a sliver of ice.

Clerides, probably backed by a majority of Greek Cypriot public opinion, appears set on acquiring his Russian missiles.

However, the Greek government, which views diplomatic support for Nicosia as tantamount to an article of faith, is uneasy.

The foreign ministry knows that any Greek-Turkish clash over Cyprus would inevitably open a Pandora's box of the first magnitude.

Turkish motives appear to be less clear. Although Ankara is coming under mounting pressure from Washington to improve its frosty relations with Greece, it appears intent on doing quite the opposite. Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz's government has constantly to repolish its credentials with the powerful military leadership, not to mention the growing Islamist movement.

The conventional wisdom is that Turkey would give its eye-teeth to boost its own hopes of joining the EU and is apparently dangling the carrot of the huge, barely-tapped Turkish market in front of Brussels to try to get it to block Cyprus' accession.

The Americans, at least, are not falling for that one. EU membership for Turkey, said Miller last month, is “under any conceivable scenario, likely to take many, many years”.

But what about the Union itself? Only last week, the Nicosia government claimed it had disturbing evidence that the Turkish Cypriot opposition to Cyprus' accession was being taken seriously in high European quarters.

Greece's Foreign Under-Secretary, Cyprus-born Yannos Kranidiotis, claimed he had evidence that top British, French, German, Italian and Spanish diplomats were working 'behind the scenes' to delay Cyprus' accession to the EU.

Some fear that the European Commission's headquarters could become a battleground for the two Cypriot communities supported respectively by the bigger powers of Greece and Turkey. Or, if Denktash gets his way with a 'double entry' of two Cypriot republics, which one would speak for Cyprus?

Denktash is pressing for official recognition of his breakaway state, formed in 1983, in any negotiations on EU entry, but his wish is unlikely to be granted. All attempts so far to discover a formula to please everyone have foundered on this.

Miller has flatly dismissed it, as well as a demand that the membership bids of Cyprus and Turkey be considered together, as “simply not realistic. In negotiations, you have to put stuff on the table,” he added. “Politically, the refusal of the Turkish Cypriots to engage in straightforward discussions on practical problems reinforces their international image of being the intransigent or non-cooperative side.”

In the final analysis, Cyprus has proved to be a pawn in the nationalist games of Greece and Turkey, which influence the south and north of the island respectively.

In the case of the north, the influence is direct and overwhelming.

In the south, the Clerides government does maintain a form of independence, although often severely curtailed at the behest of Athens.

Any efforts by either the US or EU to iron out the tangle will come up against a widespread cynical belief among the Greek Cypriots that it somehow suits the West to let Turkey keep the fruits of its 1974 invasion.