TURKPULSE No:70..........MAY 6th, 2002
The European Union’s decision to insert the PKK and DHKP-C in its list of terrorist organisations has given a boost to the Ecevit Government’s efforts to conform, before the end of the year, to the Union’s political demands for starting negotiations for full membership. One of the thorniest questions is the EU’s demand of Turkey with the blessing of the United States to solve the Cyprus problem before the year is out. The third round of the Denktas-Clerides talks have just been wound up with not much hope of a solution in any foreseeable future. Yet, with or without an agreement on Cyprus, Ankara does not expect it to be against its EU accession because Denktas’s proposals are totally in accord with the EU’s foreign policy principles and practices in Europe. For the details of the points reached in both Turkey’s accession to the EU and the Cyprus problem please see the article below.
Under
heavy pressure from Ankara and with Washington’s help to Turkey, the
European Union has finally inserted the PKK and DHKP-C in its list of
terrorist organisations, thus putting an end to a big controversy in the way
of Turkey’s accession to the Union. It is now Turkey’s duty to fulfil
before the end of the year the EU’s demands about abiding by the Copenhagen
criteria. A long distance has already been covered in this direction
especially with the 35 constitutional amendments the Ecevit Government
miraculously passed on October 3rd, 2001, but there are still a few
important points in the air. They concern abolishing the death sentence,
training (not education) in the mother tongue and broadcasts in Kurdish. The
important point concerning foreign policy in this regard is the Cyprus
conflict.
Foreign Minister Cem’s top-level briefing to coalition leaders and the TGS
In
addition to Deputy PM Mesut Yilmaz’s constant efforts to prevent Turkey from
missing the train, Foreign Minister Ismail Cem also briefed the coalition
leaders and the TGS on the steps to be taken for EU membership straight after
the Union’s constructive move to ban the PKK and DHKP-C. At the briefing on
Thursday (2nd) FM Cem reportedly told the leaders and commanders,
“Insertion of the PKK and DHKP-C in the terrorist list was one of Ankara’s
important expectations. We were awaiting this as a goodwill gesture of the EU.
The Union has now taken this step. Now Ankara should assess this development
as an opportunity and take certain steps for establishing the calendar for
accession negotiations. It is impossible to establish this calendar unless the
steps expected by the EU are taken.”
The
Foreign Minister suggested to the leaders that Turkey should coordinate
legislation and the de facto
situation. For instance, it is a de facto
situation that no death penalty has been executed in Turkey
since 1984, but the legal situation should also be in accord with
this de facto situation. This
has already been done with the latest constitutional amendments with the
exception of war, imminent war or terrorism. Now the EU is insisting on
lifting these exceptions too thereby banning the capital penalty totally
without any exceptions. However, this is a requirement for Turkey’s
accession to the EU, but not a requirement for starting the negotiations for
accession. That is why this legal amendment is not an urgent one, according to
Mesut Yilmaz.
Likewise,
the de facto and legal (de
jure) situations do not conform to one another about TV broadcasts
in the mother tongue. The Radio-Television Law bans broadcasts in Kurdish, but
these broadcasts are tolerated and continue in practice despite the law. The
EU is now pressing for this de facto
situation to become de jure.
Another
point is education in the mother tongue, but it is impossible under the
Turkish constitution, as Article 42 stipulates that only Turkish can be taught
as the mother tongue in Turkish education. So it is out of question to have
national education in Kurdish, but the Ecevit Government is planning to allow
private training centres to teach in the mother tongue as a right of the
individual, but not as a communal right. Mesut Yilmaz’s contacts with
European leaders show that it will satisfy the EU.
The months
ahead will see the Ecevit Government’s intensive efforts to pass the
necessary rules and laws for these changes and for conformity of de
facto and de jure situations
on these points. Agreement in principle was reached among the coalition
leaders at Cem’s briefing last Thursday (2nd). To eliminate
certain hesitations of the MHP leader Devlet Bahceli, the leaders` summit has
agreed to have a working group under Ambassador Ugur Ziyal, Under-Secretary,
MFA, and Ambassador Volkan Vural, Secretary-General of EU Affairs of the Prime
Minister’s Office. The leaders’ summit will review the situation again for
the final decisions, when the working group’s report is ready before long.
The EU’s recent decision about the terrorist list has paved the way for the
finalisation of these steps by Turkey. All being well, Cyprus will remain the
only important point in Turkey’s EU accession, but Turkish diplomacy’s
timely work on it for years has already prevented it from being much of a
problem if there is goodwill on the other side. Last week’s decisions about
the PKK and the DHKP-C bans in Europe have strengthened the hands of the EU
supporters by delivering a serious and timely blow to Turkey’s
Euro-sceptics.
Brief history of attempts to link European integration to Cyprus problem
Ages long
inter-communal talks between the TRNC (Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus)
and the Greek Cypriot Administration recognised by the UN as the “Republic
of Cyprus” broke down at the end of 1997 when the Luxembourg summit of the
European Union resolved to start negotiations with the Greek Cypriots for
accession to the Union as a full member. Persistent efforts by especially the
United States and the EU mostly within the United Nations to restart the
negotiation process in Cyprus gained momentum in the second half of 1999.
Finally, this deadlock was broken when the UN Secretary-General officially
stated on September 12th, 2000 that the two peoples of the island
are politically equal entities not representing the other party and that they
should find a comprehensive new partnership through direct negotiations under
UN observation with their equality status. When the Greek Cypriot parliament
rejected this outlook on October 11th, 2000 the deadlock dragged on
for another year or so.
Meanwhile,
the Turkish side elaborated upon new concepts as the basis of the new
partnership with the Greek Cypriots for the solution of the Cyprus problem. It
first launched the confederation idea on August 31st, 1998, but did
not find much support in the international community simply because of the
fact that the only confederation in the world today is La
Confédération Helvétique, i.e. the Swiss Confederation and it is
a confederation in name only. In practice and legal definitions it is a
cantonal system or a federation.
Furthermore,
the Greeks were always pointing to the fact that historically national unities
of federal states always started with weak links similar to a confederation,
but the central governments gained strength in time to become a strong
federation as has been the case in the United States, Australia, Canada, and
the German and Italian unifications in 1870. Only Italy among them is not a
federation but rather belatedly became a nation-state from city-states with
strenuous efforts between 1861 and 1870.
These
historical realities effectively used in the world by the Greeks for decades
cut down the ground from under the Turkish side’s feet first in its
federation thesis and then confederation. That is partially why the whole
world recognised the legally non-existent Greek Cypriot Administration as the
“Republic of Cyprus” founded in 1960 as a partnership of Turkish and Greek
Cypriot communities, even after the disintegration of that Republic as from
Christmas 1963 with illegal Greek accomplished facts. That is also why at the
Luxembourg Summit in December 1997, the European Union, with tacit, but
obvious support of the United States, took the step for the accession of
“Cyprus” to the EU as a full member.
Turkish diplomacy steals a march over the Greeks with direct negotiations
It was
obvious that the US-EU team was trying to force the Turkish side into a
solution about Cyprus in line with the Greek outlooks by using the island’s
EU membership as a stumbling block in Turkey’s way to EU accession and in
world diplomacy in general. Today they are in for some surprises in this
attempt because Turkish diplomacy devoted long years and meticulous studies
into countering and frustrating these ambitions.
These
years long toil of Turkish diplomacy is coming to fruition now that the direct
talks between Denktas and Clerides, started on January 16th, 2002,
have just completed a third round (on April 29th, 2002) with a
comprehensive parcel of documents Denktas presented to Clerides. These
documents, which Denktas calls “non-paper”, are based on the negotiation
principles of these direct talks as explained by the UN Secretary-General’s
special envoy for Cyprus, Alvaro De Soto, at his press conference at the
buffer zone on December 4th, 2001 that “until
everything is accepted at these comprehensive talks covering every question
concerned with Cyprus, nothing has been accepted.”
The MFA in
Ankara declared at the commencement of the talks in mid-January that Denktas
has taken “a constructive step forward
on the path of a comprehensive solution aimed at establishing a new
partnership on the basis of an equal status in Cyprus”. It also
expressed the hope that the constructive atmosphere that appeared would be
furthered with new steps. There was also an express warning in the MFA’s
statement: “Should the Greek Cypriots
enter the EU as a full member with the claim of representing the whole of the
island there will be no limit to Turkey’s
reactions.”
The Greek
Cypriots have taken this warning as Turkey’s preparation to impose a full
air and sea blockade on the naval base in Zigi and air base in Paphos, which
they illegally established on the South of the island.
The Greek
Cypriots’ representing the whole of the island in the EU is viewed by Ankara
as a flagrant violation of the Guarantee agreements, which established the
Republic of Cyprus in 1960. The report dated September 2001 by British
international law expert Prof. Mendelson also confirms this point with
concrete examples and it has now become a UN document.
And
how do Washington and the EU regard the issue of the Greeks representing the
whole of the island in Cyprus’s prospective EU membership? The USA’s
Cyprus coordinator, Tom Weston, came to Ankara last month and was told by the
MFA that Turkey was not receptive to any outside intervention on the Cyprus
issue at a time when direct negotiations were going on at top level between
the two sides in Cyprus. He took it as Ankara’s assurance that Turkey was
putting down its weight on Denktas for concessions and left Ankara
“satisfied”.
A much
more important development concerned the EU’s Defence and Foreign Policy
Commissioner Javier Solana’s interview to the Athens daily To
Vima a couple of weeks ago. Solana said that if there was no
agreement on the Cyprus problem the Greek Cypriots could not enter the Union
representing the whole of the island, but would enter only as the Greek
Cypriot section. While Denktas took this statement as Solana’s warning to
the Greeks that Cyprus would be partitioned in that event, Clerides said, “Solana
cannot decide how Cyprus will enter the EU. We have been given the assurance
that the entire Cyprus will enter the Union.”
21st century diplomacy versus the Greeks’ “absolute sovereignty” outlook
As can be
seen from the Greek side’s reactions to Solana and their entire Cyprus
thesis, the Greeks’ understanding of national “sovereignty” is as hard
as Saddam Hussein’s perception of that concept. And naturally they both hold
on to the famous Article 2, paragraph 7 of the UN Charter, which precludes the
UN from nations’ “domestic jurisdiction”. Half a century ago France used
to put forward this article to justify its military campaigns and operations
in Algeria, but today one has to be Jean-Marie Le Pen to use the same
argument. Saddam’s rejection of UN supervision of WMD (Weapons of Mass
Destruction) and the Greek Cypriots’ disregard of the TRNC or claim of a
“single sovereignty” in Cyprus are the poisonous fruits of the same
understanding of archaic diplomacy.
On the
other hand, Turkish diplomacy has carefully studied in detail the Greek thesis
with its 19th and early 20th century examples of
federations and confederation as explained above and worked out a
counter-thesis on the basis of the realities and practices of the civilised
world today. This is the thesis Denktas came up with in his non-papers at the
talks with Clerides. It is based on the following world events:
“The
process of bringing about a new edifice and a new union on the basis of a
partnership of two equal states by Serbia and Montenegro, which form the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, has begun in accordance with the agreement
signed in Belgrade on March 14th, 2002. The coming to life of the
agreement by completing the process will depend on the details of the agreed
upon principles and their ratifications by the parliaments of the parties
concerned.
“Turkey
wishes that the formation of the new partnership state expected to be called
‘Serbia and Montenegro’, thanks to the agreement reached by the parties
concerned, will make constructive contributions to their aspirations for
democratisation and being a part of the European integration. It also believes
that the agreement in question will also make constructive contributions to
the stability and security of the region.”
Naturally
Denktas hailed the Serbia-Montenegro partnership state in the pipeline as “an
example very close to our proposals”.
He said on March 27th, 2002, “Serbia
and Montenegro decided to test this partnership state for three years. If it
works it continues, otherwise, we separate, they said. We don’t even say
that, because we believe that we will be able to perpetuate this new formation
with the guarantees of Turkey and Greece. The accession to the EU would make
it irrevocable. But we have to build our rights on our own republic, our own
sovereignty. It would harm no arrangement. That is what we are discussing.”
“Right is might” in Turkey’s Cyprus policy
This
agreement reached in Belgrade with the EU’s efforts is a typical example of
what to expect of the Union in its outlook for the final solution of the
Cyprus problem and Solana’s interview to To
Vima is a proof of it. Indeed, the European Union itself is a
multilateral partnership formation of independent states relinquishing part of
their sovereignty rights for this unity. That is why it is not “Might is
right”, but “Right is might” in the Turkish thesis for the comprehensive
Cyprus solution. And what’s more, these principles are based totally on the
EU’s foreign policy principles and practices in recent decades.
Turkish
diplomacy merits credit for its silent but effective work on the Cyprus issue.
How long can the Greeks’ outdated, 19th century sovereignty
understanding withstand this powerful position of the Turkish side based on
these realities, no matter who supports them. The bottom line of the whole
affair will be a volte-face on the part of the United Nations about its wrong
policy of recognising the illegal Greek Cypriot Administration as the
“Republic of Cyprus” since the beginning of 1975. There is no other
solution to the Cyprus problem and the Turkish side is in the ease of
conscience of being sure of this outcome, hopefully without further upheavals
of the Cyprus affair.
uras@ada.net.tr
- May 6th, 2002