Fiona Mullen’s latest assessment of a possible new initiative by UN Secretary-General António Guterres offers a careful and intellectually honest attempt to map out how the sides might return to the negotiating table in Cyprus. Her reading of the diplomatic atmosphere is broadly accurate: the immediate objective is unlikely to be a final settlement, but rather an agreed framework that allows a structured process to resume.
Yet one part of the analysis risks underestimating a core political reality on the Turkish Cypriot side.
Political equality is not an abstract principle open to reinterpretation according to diplomatic convenience. Nor is it a symbolic phrase that can be left deliberately vague in order to create negotiating ambiguity. For Turkish Cypriots, political equality has already acquired concrete institutional meaning through decades of negotiations, convergences and UN parameters.
That meaning includes two indispensable pillars: rotating presidency and at least one positive Turkish Cypriot vote in federal decision-making mechanisms.
These are not “maximalist demands.” They are not fresh conditions introduced by Tufan Erhürman or by Ankara. Nor are they bargaining chips that can be traded later for confidence-building measures or phased incentives. They are part of the political equality architecture discussed, negotiated and effectively internalized throughout the federal negotiation history, particularly during the period leading to Crans Montana.
The persistent effort by some Greek Cypriot political circles to reduce political equality into a vague reference found somewhere inside UN resolutions is precisely one of the reasons previous processes repeatedly collapsed.
UN Security Council resolutions indeed define political equality. But the Cyprus negotiations did not stop there. Over decades, the sides moved beyond theoretical definitions and negotiated operational expressions of political equality within a federal structure. Rotating presidency and effective participation through at least one positive vote were not accidental additions. They emerged because Turkish Cypriots cannot accept becoming a numerical minority expected merely to “participate” in a state ultimately controlled by Greek Cypriot majority rule.
A federation/confederation without effective political equality would simply reproduce the crisis conditions that destroyed the 1960 partnership republic.
That is why presenting rotating presidency and positive vote mechanisms as negotiable “flexibilities” fundamentally misreads the Turkish Cypriot political consensus. These issues are not tactical preferences of one leader or another. They represent the minimum threshold for any bizonal, bicommunal federal arrangement to be politically sustainable and publicly defensible on the Turkish Cypriot side.
The same applies to the notion that Turkish Cypriots may now become “more flexible” because the status quo is increasingly difficult.
Yes, the current status quo is strategically unsustainable. It creates diplomatic isolation, economic inefficiencies and growing geopolitical risks. But recognizing the unsustainability of the status quo does not mean accepting a weaker version of political equality. Quite the opposite: the more unstable the regional environment becomes, the more essential credible power-sharing guarantees become for both communities.
In today’s Eastern Mediterranean, where Cyprus is increasingly drawn into wider security rivalries involving Israel, France, the United States, Türkiye and broader EU defense structures, Turkish Cypriots are even less likely to accept formulas that could eventually transform them into a permanently overruled constituent community.
The lesson of Crans Montana is also frequently oversimplified.
The collapse of 2017 did not happen because there were “too many guarantees” for Turkish Cypriots. Nor did it happen because political equality became too strong. The breakdown occurred because the parties never managed to build sufficient strategic trust regarding governance, security and implementation simultaneously.
Trying to reopen settled governance convergences now would not create flexibility. It would destroy what remains of the negotiation acquis.
This is why preservation of convergences matters. If convergences are to be preserved, then they must be preserved in substance, not merely referenced rhetorically. One cannot simultaneously defend “past convergences” while quietly treating rotating presidency and positive vote mechanisms as optional.
Fiona Mullen is correct on one important point: any future process will likely need milestones, phases and carefully balanced incentives to survive politically. A results-oriented structure may indeed be necessary if another endless open-ended process is to be avoided.
But no diplomatic creativity will succeed if one side believes the negotiations are designed to dilute already accepted elements of political equality through constructive ambiguity.
A sustainable process requires clarity before flexibility.
And clarity begins with acknowledging a simple reality: political equality, including rotating presidency and effective participation through at least one favorable Turkish Cypriot vote, is not up for renegotiation.
This article first appeared on Yusuf Kanli's Substack.
