Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, November 2003, page 34

Talking Turkey

 

Will Turkish Cypriots Oust Denktash in December Polls, Paving Way to Reunification?

 

By Jon Gorvett

Long before the Greek Cypriot militants of EOKA-B staged their abortive coup against the Nicosia government in June 1974—and long before the first Turkish paratroopers bailed out over the island a few days later—many Turkish Cypriots had arrived at the conclusion that their Greek Cypriot neighbors had murder on their minds. Yet, as the Turkish Cypriots gear up for the most important election in their history on Dec. 14, the signs now are that popular beliefs could hardly be more different than they were some three decades ago.

Since the earliest days of the post-British colonial Republic of Cyprus, the most central issue for the island's Turkish Cypriot minority, according to most of the community's leaders, has been security. Indeed, right-wing Turkish Cypriot politicians have long used this issue to dominate the political landscape. In the past, the talk in many Turkish Cypriot homes when discussing the island's future often was of the Greek Cypriot threat—and the danger, even in pre-Bosnia times, of ethnic cleansing. Put bluntly, there was a widespread belief that the Greek Cypriots wanted to wipe all trace of the Turkish Cypriots off the island, and then join Cyprus with mainland Greece.

No politician championed this viewpoint more effectively than Rauf Denktash. Cutting his political teeth in the Turkish nationalist movements of the 1950s—which included links to the Turkish pro-partition guerrilla group, TMT—Denktash's entire political life has been bound up with the central notion that Turkish and Greek Cypriots cannot live together side by side without an eventual bloodbath. Therefore, according to this view, the only way forward was to keep the two communities as far apart as possible, within the cramped confines of the tiny island. Underpinning this de facto partition would be Turkey itself, the mainland Big Brother, which would have to provide the military and economic muscle to enforce the division.

Until relatively recently, this also appeared to be the gut feeling of most Turkish Cypriots on the island. Denktash repeatedly was reinstalled in office as president—first of the self-proclaimed Turkish Federated State of North Cyprus and then, after 1983, as president of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), the internationally unrecognized state he founded with Ankara's support. While his Democrat Party (DP) has not been as successful in parliament, it has been in office for most of the intervening years in partnership with Prime Minister Dervis Eroglu's UBP, a party which shares Denktash's basic view. Only a few years ago, most Turkish Cypriots would tell visitors they believed Greek Cypriots had not really changed since 1974—or from even before then, with the repeated attempts in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s to unite the island with mainland Greece, a megali (grand) idea that would be carried out largely at the expense of the Turkish Cypriot community.

Now, however, it is hard to find anyone who would agree with this position. While opinion poll results vary wildly in numbers, all agree that by far the vast majority of Turkish Cypriots nowadays want Denktash out, the latest United Nations plan for reunifying the island signed, and the TRNC consigned to the dustbin of history.

No wonder, then, that the TRNC president now is feeling the pressure. In fact, however, the movement against him has been building for some time. As far back as the summer of 2000, when a major financial crisis led to an angry crowd storming the TRNC parliament in its sector of the divided capital, popular opinion has been swinging against the governing powers. The financial crisis that ensued in mainland Turkey in 2001 also added to the frustrations of Turkish Cypriots, whose economy is almost entirely tied to Turkey's, thanks to their international isolation and the economic embargo maintained against them at the insistance of the recognized government of Cyprus.

Then came 2002 municipal elections, which put the opposition parties in charge of all the TRNC's major urban areas. After that, two major new factors sealed the party's fate: first, the election in Turkey of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, and, second, a new U.N. initiative known as the Annan Plan. Both followed in quick succession at the end of 2002, significantly changing the political landscape.

No sooner had the AKP been elected than it was faced with an EU summit called to fix the list of which new countries would be admitted. With the AKP naming Turkey's epoch-long struggle to join Europe as its number one policy objective came the suggestion from Ankara that a solution on Cyprus could come easily if the EU doors were opened. Denktash's blank-check support from previous administrations in Ankara suddenly was withdrawn.

Seizing the moment, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan then revealed the new U.N. plan, setting tight deadlines for responses. "When the Annan Plan was introduced," recalled Mehmet Ali Talat, leader of the left-leaning Republican Turkish Party (CTP), which has emerged as the leading opposition group, "the people grasped this as an element of emancipation."

The plan resembled many previous, ill-starred U.N. initiatives—most notably the 1993 Boutros Ghali Plan—yet differed in one vital respect: it gave the Turkish Cypriots a sense of recognition, not as a minority, but as a roughly equal partner in any reunited state.

"Other plans didn't talk about a Turkish Cypriot state, rotating presidencies and a continuation of the Turkish guarantee," said Ozdil Nami, chairman of the Turkish Cypriot Businessmen's Association. "We always wanted these things, and Annan gave them to us."

Denktash, however, virulently opposed the Annan plan, labeling it a "crime against humanity." Fortunately for him, the Greek Cypriot leadership also was hostile, and with the early 2003 election defeat of his long- standing sparring partner at the international talks, Greek Cypriot President Glafkos Clerides, Denktash was able to breathe a sigh of relief when Clerides' successor, Tassos Papadopolous, was voted in on an anti-Annan plan ticket. President Papadopolous since has said that his government is pursuing a settlement by May 1, 2004, when Cyprus joins the EU, and that it supports "negotiations based on the Annan plan."

At this point, however, the U.N. seems to have largely given up. Annan's permanent representative to Cyprus, Alvera de Soto, was redeployed off the island to oversee U.N. efforts in Western Sahara, and the initiative appeared dead. Yet, north of the Green Line dividing the island, the Annan Plan lived on.

Behind much of the support it continues to enjoy is the belief among many Turkish Cypriots that if they sign on to it, Cyprus will be reunited before May 1. A reunited Cyprus would mean Turkish Cypriots, too, would then become part of the Union—perhaps many years before Turkey itself. In doing so, many Turkish Cypriots also feel that their own identity—as a group distinct from the Turks of the mainland—would be preserved as well. The alternative to reunification, it seems to many, is to become a de facto province of Turkey.

Yet there also are many doubts about what that identity would consist of in a reunited Cyprus. Since April, when some restrictions on travel between north and south were lifted, many Greek Cypriots have revisited the north. The exchange has been largely peaceful, yet it has also highlighted the enormous differences between the two Cypruses, exacerbated by nearly three decades of separation.

"We are two people with different religions, different customs, different languages, different traditions and different cultures," noted journalist and commentator Huseyin Alkan. "Yet somehow everyone insists we must be together."

Even if Turkish Cyprus votes for the opposition in December, ditches Denktash and signs on to Annan, there are few guarantees of what the future may hold. "I'm more worried about the Greek Cypriots," said Nami. "They haven't said they are in favor of Annan clearly at all."

In addition, allegations already are flying that Denktash's supporters are trying to rig the ballot by giving citizenship—and voting rights—to many Turkish settlers, who are opposed to the plan. If that appears to be the case, Talat says, his party will refuse to recognize the election outcome.

That would mean moving into yet more uncharted territory. December looks set to be a crucial month for the historic island in the eastern Mediterranean.

Jon Gorvett is a free-lance journalist based in Istanbul.

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