Greek Cypriot move casts shadow over Cyprus talks

The recent step taken by the Greek Cypriot parliament to exclude guarantor powers - Turkey, Greece and Britain - from the peace process amid ongoing Cyprus talks creates question marks on the Turkish side. A senior analyst says attempts by both sides to put conditions on the talks will only increase mistrust.

A resolution adopted by the Greek Cypriot parliament refusing any guarantors or rights of intervention by outsiders has received a cold shoulder in Ankara.

Turkey believes any such decision will negatively affect the ongoing negotiations to reunify the divided island and is pressing for more intensified talks between the Cypriot leaders while making the latest move a test of Greek Cypriot sincerity toward a possible deal.

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, who said the Greek Cypriot decision was against the nature of the negotiations, discussed the issue with his British counterpart, David Miliband, over the phone. Alarmed by possible failure of the current talks, Britain is proposing three-way talks involving the guarantor powers – Turkey, Greece and itself – to broaden the negotiating process for a swift resolution with the participation of all parties concerned.

Turkey, Greece and Britain are three guarantor powers of the state of Cyprus’s 1960 independence agreement – providing them with the right to intervene militarily if the terms of that agreement are threatened. The Turkish side is warm to the British proposal.

For Turkey and northern Cyprus, the Greek Cypriot decision to exclude guarantors from the peace talks is a sign of ill intent, given that security and guarantees constitute one of the negotiating chapters between the two Cypriot leaders. In Nicosia, Turkish Cypriot President Mehmet Ali Talat slammed the move as “provocation” also involving his Greek Cypriot counterpart, Dimitris Christofias. The Turkish Cypriot parliament is now planning to adopt a counter-decision defending the guarantor rights, he said.

“I think this underlines how deep the mistrust remains between the two key parties to this problem. Greek Cypriots simply do not trust Turkey in any respect and Turkey also does not trust the Greek Cypriots in any respect. The reason is that they are not talking to each other,” Hugh Pope, senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review.

He said both sides were putting conditions on the talks.

“Turkey, which is theoretically not a party to the talks, draws boundaries and says there must be an effective guarantee, while the Greek Cypriots, who represent a direct party to the talks, are also drawing boundaries around a settlement. This is of course going to increase mistrust on both sides about the goodwill for a settlement,” he said.

The Cyprus problem was thoroughly discussed at the Friday meeting of the National Security Council, or MGK, which brings Turkey’s top civilian and military figures together.

According to the scenario floated in Ankara, Greek Cypriots have plans to put the ball in Turkey’s court, anticipating that pro-reunification President Talat will be defeated in the April presidential elections in the north and that he will be replaced by a more hawkish candidate who will drag the reunification talks into a deadlock.

Under the plan, that situation would make the Turkish side pay the price of a failure and complicate Turkey’s European Union process, while showing the Greek Cypriots as the party that pushed hard for a settlement but failed to do so due to the attitude adopted by the Turkish side.

/Hurriyet Daily News/