By Fiona Mullen
Last week I argued about that the international community needs to give the Greek Cypriot political establishment a big juicy carrot to get them really interested in a settlement of the Cyprus problem and that this carrot should take the form of a serious geopolitical upgrade.
Some people asked where were the carrots for Türkiye (Turkey), or the Turkish Cypriots?
I confess I had not even thought about writing up benefits for Turkey because Turkey’s “asks” are so well known. Kyriakos Pierides put it succinctly in Politis to the Point earlier this week:
“One significant factor is Turkey’s strong interest in resetting its relationship with the EU, including customs union upgrades, visa liberalisation, accession prospects and defence cooperation.”
So Turkey’s asks for solving the Cyprus problem are pretty clear: customs union improvements, visa liberalization, EU defence cooperation and, what I assume is some positive noises about EU accession, even though I think everyone knows accession proper is highly unlikely.
The fourth Turkish Cypriot ask
The Turkish Cypriot asks are also, in theory, pretty well known:
- Political equality is not open to debate.
- Negotiations should be time-bound.
- Past convergences will be confirmed in principle.
- There will be no return to the status quo for Turkish Cypriots if the talks collapse.
All four of these have been traditionally contentious for the Greek Cypriots. But they could be surmountable for reasons I have written about elsewhere.
Today I want to focus on the fourth parameter, namely that the Turkish Cypriots do not slip back into unrecognized limbo if they try in good faith but the process fails. It is the trickiest one to find consensus on, even within the pro-rapprochement community, but it is also the biggest of red lines for the Turkish Cypriots. Negotiations are simply not going to start again without it.
So how do you get to “no return to the status quo”? Essentially two approaches are doing the rounds: a step-by-step approach and what one might call the “big stick” approach.
Approach 1: step-by-step with backstops (“irreversible gains”)
The first, and to be transparent, the one I favour because I think it is the only way Greek Cypriots will find their way to power-sharing, is a staged process with irreversible gains at each stage or “milestone”.
I have been working with others to see if we can come up with a list of attractive carrots at each milestone. The latest iteration has 14 stages of ever-closer cooperation, with various rewards for the two communities once they reach that milestone (and some rewards for Greece and Turkey at later stages too).
To give you an idea, the first small step is that both sides accept past convergences and are rewarded with the 5+1 meeting. The second step is that all sides accept a new process design with milestones and backstops. Their reward is 2 crossing points each.
Things start to get more serious, so that by Milestone Number 9, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots form a committee to decide investment priorities for a fund that will manage future revenues from hydrocarbons and other energy-related income (eg pipeline transit fees).
The Greek Cypriot reward for agreeing to this is that Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots lift their objections to the Great Sea Interconnector (GSI) electricity cable that will run from Crete to Cyprus and eventually onto Israel. The reward for Turkey and Turkish Cypriots is that the Greek Cypriots lift their objections to an electricity cable from Turkey to the north. (Cyprus’ energy isolation is thereby solved!)
A few more serious milestones and carrots lead us to the last irreversible carrot before a referendum, when both leaders sign off on the settlement and agree to take it to a referendum. Some have suggested that this could be many years from the first milestone.
When the leaders endorse the agreement, the Greek Cypriots get Varosha under their control. The Turkish Cypriots get direct trade with the EU, direct flights to northern Cyprus and direct contacts with EU officials (known as “the 3Ds”).
Under this scenario, regardless of what happens at the twin referendums, both Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots will have irreversible gains.
However, some Turkish Cypriots have told me that this still leaves them unrecognized, so vulnerable to future action by the Greek Cypriots.
Approach 2: no step-by-step and big stick referendum questions
This is why others, notably former negotiator for the Turkish Cypriots, Ӧzdil Nami, have said we should not waste time with step-by-step approaches, but recognize that we were very close to a comprehensive settlement in Crans Montana in 2017 and we should go directly to something rather stronger.
The main crux of the idea is two different referendum questions that will lead to a known, final status for both communities.
- The Greek Cypriots would be asked: do you want the federal solution agreed by the leaders or do you want to live in two internationally recognized, separate sovereign states?
- The Turkish Cypriots would be asked: do you want the federal solution agreed by the leaders or do you want to continue with the unrecognized status quo?
You can see that this creates massive incentives for both sides to vote yes. And doing it via a referendum creates a democratic mandate that would be hard for other states that worry about secession to argue with.
But precisely for this reason, some are calling it coercion, so it is not clear that the normally risk-averse UN would sign up to it. With Crans Montana in mind, I also fear that the Greek Cypriots will ensure that they never get to a referendum if they think the outcome might be two states.
Is there a third way?
Is there some way of marrying these two approaches? Could you start with a step-by-step approach that gets the two communities slowly used to sharing power (so in my opinion increases the chance of Greek Cypriot acceptance), and then have a referendum question that everyone knows means internationally recognized status for the north if the Turkish Cypriots vote yes and the Greek Cypriots vote no again, even if it is not in the referendum question?
What would be strong enough to get this and reassure the Turkish Cypriots? Clearly, given past experience, promises from the EU, where the Greek Cypriots wield a veto, will not be enough. Maybe a UN Security Council resolution, after a Turkish Cypriot yes and a Greek Cypriot no, stating that Turkish Cypriots have a right to self-determination, would be strong enough for the EU to recognize the north. But you are not going to get a Security Council resolution now, before the talks start. And we all remember who asked Russia to veto the Annan Plan resolution, so it runs the risk of sabotage.
Maybe the only way is fully to combine the two: have a fairly long period of gradually sharing more and more power, which will generate more acceptance for Mr Nami’s two referendum questions.
All the above underlines the difficulty of finding a way to relaunch the negotiations in a way that can satisfy everyone. It might also explain why the Turkish Cypriot leader, Tufan Erhürman, has not actually gone as far as to insist, a priori, that the consequences of a Greek Cypriot no and a Turkish Cypriot yes should be two states.
It also explains the nervousness in pro-rapprochement circles about statements expressing optimism. We have been here many times before. In the past 25 years we have had 2003, 2004, 2008, 2015 and maybe 2026. And prior to that, we had 1964, 1977, 1978, 1979 and 1992 (details here).
Will this time really be different? I honestly do not know. But I am glad that the Personal Envoy to the Secretary-General (PESG), María Ángela Holguín Cuéllar, is at least trying to do things differently.
This article first appeared on SapientaCyprus.Substack.com.
