Changing Trains

New Rift Over UN Security Guarantees'

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Reaction to the UN Security Council statement on security guarantees yesterday underlined the differences of opinion plaguing the government alliance over the Annan plan.

Coalition partners AKEL had been seeking a UN resolution that would go further than merely offering guarantees that Turkey would comply with the implementation of the plan. But additional guarantees were not forthcoming from the five-member Security Council on Friday, amid reports that the government had intervened in an attempt to block debate on the issue. Reports from New York said that Russia, France and China had raised objections.

AKEL is seeking, before next Saturday’s referendum, “tangible and binding” guarantees under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter that would provide for resolutions which the UN could enforce in the event of a threat to peace.

The party has already asked that the referendum be postponed but said that if the additional guarantees were offered it might decide to support the plan.

AKEL’s support for the plan is crucial to the outcome of the referendum.

Party leader Demetris Christofias said yesterday the party had asked for a resolution “which has a practical application”.
The Security Council press statement on Friday said the UN was committed to helping ensure that the parties fully met their obligations under the settlement and that should the plan be approved, “the Council stands ready to take further actions as provided for in the plan”.

President Tassos Papadopoulos made it clear during his speech on April 7, when he urged all Greek Cypriots to vote a “resounding no”, that one of his biggest concerns was that Turkey would not comply with its commitments under the plan.

The inclusion of a Chapter 7 resolution would have gone a long way towards meeting those concerns.

But the government yesterday appeared unconcerned that the chance to push for a stronger statement to satisfy the President’s concerns had slipped by.

In a written announcement, the government said it welcomed the New York statements, prompting speculation that it did not want the Security Council to go further in guaranteeing the security concerns of Greek Cypriots under the plan. In the announcement, government spokesman Kypros Chrysostomides said the Security Council did not consider that they should adopt the plan before the referenda. ''The government and the President agree and welcome this policy statement”, Chrysostomides said.

DISY leader Nicos Anastassiades, whose party supports the Annan plan, was yesterday quoted as saying the government had used one of the permanent members of the Security Council to block debate on the issuing of a resolution before the referendum. Former Foreign Minister Yiannakis Cassoulides went further and said the government tried to “deter Russia” from helping to pass a resolution.

UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan welcomed the Security Council statements yesterday. He is due to issue his report on Cyprus tomorrow.

'Blackmail Without Any Substance?`

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LAST week, in his defining speech to the Greek Cypriot people urging a “resounding no” in the referendum on the Annan plan, President Tassos Papadopoulos urged his countrymen to dismiss the “blackmail” about the possibility of recognition of the occupied north in the event of a ‘yes’ vote in the north and a ‘no’ vote in the south.
“There are no conditions for the recognition of the pseudo-state by countries that matter, like the countries of the European Union,” he told his audience. “For these countries have already signed with the Republic of Cyprus the Treaty of Accession which prohibits such recognition. What is said about international isolation is a blackmail without any substance.”

Of course, formal recognition may indeed be limited to countries “that do not matter”, but it became clear this week that countries that do matter have no intention of maintaining the status quo in their relations with the Turkish Cypriots.

Many may choose to trust the president, just as he says he trusts the people: “I trust your judgment,” he said in his televised addressed. “I am certain you are not affected by false dilemmas and you are not scared by threats about alleged international isolation. I am certain you are not convinced about what it said that this is the chance.”

Blackmail, perhaps, but below are just a few extracts of statements from actors on the international stage, both (formerly) friendly and hostile, important and ‘unimportant’ on the consequences of Greek Cypriot ‘no’.

US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher: “We would not leave the Turkish Cypriots out in the cold, but I think it’s premature to speculate on what we might do if that were to occur.” Washington appreciates “all the work that particularly the Turkish government has done to get us here… We would not want to see the Turkish Cypriots penalised further if they voted in support of the referendum.”

US Secretary of State Colin Powell, asked if Washington might consider recognising the north if Greek Cypriots voted ‘no’: “Right now we are focusing on persuading both sides that it is in their interests, their very best interests to vote ‘yes’.”

EU Enlargement Commissioner Gunter Verheugen: “I would find it rather unfair that the Greek Cypriot community would enjoy benefits of membership, Turkey would enjoy benefits of entering the pre-accession phase, and only the Turkish Cypriots would get nothing.” The commissioner added he would personally undertake an initiative to overcome the economic isolation of the Turkish Cypriots, raising the possibility of starting direct trade with the regime in the north.

Verheugen also said “the absence of a solution would damage everyone,” warning that the status quo would deepen the island’s division and that the dividing line would become de-facto an external EU border. “I have to inform you that in case of no solution a regulation would define the terms under which EU law would apply to the dividing line.”

Unnamed senior US official: “We would do everything we could to ameliorate the effects on Turkish Cypriots, which would include an examination of all the policies related to their unfair isolation.”

Azeri President Ilham Aliyev: “If the Turkish side says yes and the Greek side says no, we will start the recognition process… Azerbaijan will be among the first countries to recognise (northern Cyprus)... The Turks living there are our brothers.”

Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul: “If a positive vote comes from the north and a negative vote from the south, then we will make every effort to make the world recognise Cyprus... starting with friend and brother countries and then on to the EU and the whole world.”

Pat Cox, President of the European Parliament: “The presumptions that a settlement or an other deal lies just around the corner are illusionary.” Cox also expressed deep disappointment “at the failure of imagination and courageous leadership exhibited by too many at this time.”

Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly President Peter Schieder: “Those seeking to obstruct the settlement will bear grave political responsibility for this failure and should not be allowed to take advantage of it. At the same time, the international community, and the European Union in particular, should not betray the hopes of those Cypriots who are in favour of the settlement, nor make them pay the price of failure.”

Cyprus and Its Relationship to the Region

Two interesting articles which suggest a complex relationship between Cyprus and the rest of the region. The first is a report of a three-day general congress of journalists held in Cairo last week which tackled such issues as the protection of the independent media, press freedom and ethical conduct, amongst other issues. In that context, it was reported:

The (Eygptian) government...strictly controls the paper licensing process, making it difficult to initiate new publications without official consent. To circumvent these restrictions, some independent publishers register their papers as foreign publications in countries such as Cyprus and then print them inside Egypt or abroad. However, these publications are subject to an Egyptian foreign publications censor who reports directly to the information minister and can ban publications that contain objectionable material.

From the same source Iason Athanasiadis writes about the continued strategic importance of the island:

Arab intellectuals are increasingly chewing over the growing US incursions into their region. Washington has switched from indirect attempts to increase its regional influence, as in the 1980s, to a more incisive strategy, of which the recent invasion of Iraq and threats against Syria are prime examples. With US troops in Iraq hemming the Arab world in from the northeast and American warships passing through the Suez Canal to a new naval base in Djibouti, then onwards to Bahrain, Cyprus is an increasingly desirable location for a US base in the eastern Mediterranean.

Cyprus has traditionally been viewed by European and US policymakers as a strategic Western outpost next to the often-hostile Arab and Muslim worlds. The island was used in the 1950s to check the spread of communism to the Middle East and monitor Arab nationalism. It was also used to keep an eye on three Arab-Israeli wars – the Lebanese civil war, the Iran-Iraq war and the 1991 Gulf war – as well as on other events having a direct bearing on Western policy. More recently, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan ordered all UN operations in Iraq to be moved to Cyprus following the attack on the organization’s Baghdad headquarters last year.

For the past 30 years, a robust UN presence, two sovereign British military bases and 40,000 Greek and Turkish troops have all tensely coexisted on the island. Although Cyprus registers a weak pulse when it comes to the global footprint of US military activity, sustained recent US involvement in reunifying the island could change that. The two British bases on Cyprus – established in 1960 and still active today – have kept a low profile in the Arab world, but are still intercepting vital military and diplomatic signals around the Middle East and the Caucasus. The US gets some of this intelligence through a sharing agreement established during the Cold War...

...The two British bases and a NATO listening post – all facing the Arab world from the island’s eastern extremities – stand testament to this statement. Between them they have acted as a bomber base, a listening post for the US National Security Agency and a staging post for British troops during the 1991 Gulf war. Nuclear bombs were stored there throughout the Cold War; and British and US spy-planes took off on flights to monitor Syria, Lebanon and Israel, especially during the Lebanese civil war.

Today, the oil that so obsessed Eden has still not left the equation. If anything, it has become even more crucial to the conduct of international affairs. Cyprus is just 70 kilometers from the Turkish port of Ceyhan, site of an important oil-exporting facility. Ceyhan is set to become the region’s main energy hub when a gigantic oil pipeline stretching over 1,700 kilometers, from Baku to the Mediterranean, is completed. Already, Ceyhan is the terminus for all the oil pumped out of northern Iraq.

With the war on terrorism increasingly zeroing in on the Middle East, Cyprus’ Arab neighbors may be wondering how a unified island might affect them. Arab fears that Cyprus might become a US protectorate have been heightened by Washington’s recent shift toward Eastern Europe and reports that the White House applied much pressure on Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan during his recent trip to Washington to find a solution, promising up to $35 billion in investments to unify the island.

Signs of the Bush administration’s strong political and financial support for a solution to the Cyprus standoff have fuelled speculation that an American base would be set up in whatever unified state emerged from the negotiations. Though the US does not need a base on Cyprus to safeguard the Ceyhan outlet (it already has use of the Incirlik airbase, a few kilometers north of Ceyhan), it is likely to gain a presence on the island as the existing UN policing force there is replaced by NATO troops.

The current of geopolitical change will doubtless make itself felt in Ankara, Damascus and Cairo, just as it will in Nicosia, Famagusta or Limassol. Crucially, Cyprus’ status as a traditional battleground for Arab and Israeli intelligence services will also be reassessed as EU leaders seek to minimize the security threat that the freedom of movement inside Europe will entail.

Nicosia will not cease being a 30-minute plane hop from Beirut after May 1, but a far stricter visa regime will be instituted, as the island becomes an entry point into the EU. Lebanese and other Arab nationals may find themselves scrutinized far more closely than before. Soon, the sight of Saudi tourists and Syrian and Egyptian workers may become a thing of the past and even well heeled Beirutis may think twice before popping on to the Middle East Airlines flight for a weekend getaway to Larnaca. More crucially, Cyprus could have a far higher profile in the politics of the Arab world before this decade is out.