THE TURKISH CYPRIOT PEOPLE’S REMARKABLE ACHIEVEMENT

 

At an impeccably free, transparent and democratic election on Sunday (14^th), the Turkish Cypriot people proved their maturity as an independent people and showed the way out of an international impasse that has been going on for the last 40 years since the Greek side attempted to throw into the dustbin the validity of the 1959 London and Zurich agreements and the 1960 Guarantee agreement on Cyprus. As it is impossible to unilaterally and arbitrarily scrap a valid international agreement, the Greeks themselves suffered the most from this unwise attempt when Turkey, in July 1974, used its treaty right to intervene under the Guarantee Agreement with a surprisingly successful overseas military operation. The TRNC (Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus) that was consequently founded in November 1983 lived through the most critical days of its survival in recent months and on 14 December 2003 the Turkish Cypriot people put an end to it all with a tacit reply to the plans engineered through years long toil against their survival with heavy external pressures. For the details of this unique occurrence in world history which “confused” the American coordinator Weston, as well as his bosses’ national interest calculations over oil and natural gas and what to expect for the future, please see the article below.

 

Not even the worldwide excitement over Saddam’s capture in his “spider-hole” near Tikrit in Iraq the same day could cast a shadow on the outstanding achievement of the Turkish Cypriot people on their 14 December election performance. The election result was a solid tie with 25 seats each to the ruling parties supporting President Denktas and the opposition pledging to dismiss him from the Cyprus negotiations for a final agreement with the Greek Cypriots and the EU on the basis of the third Annan plan.

Even though the TRNC election was impeccably democratic and transparent, it was not devoid of abuses. On one hand, the USA and the EU went out of their way to influence the result in their favour by financing and even actively campaigning for the Opposition and, on the other, President Denktas flouted the neutrality of the presidency in the most flagrant way and received Turkey’s financial help for the outgoing government. The US-EU front’s intervention in the election went as far as the EU Commissioner Verheugen’s most out of place statements from Brussels to the effect that they would recognise the elections as valid only if the opposition won it and the American coordinator Thomas Weston’s active canvassing in the opposition’s election rallies, giving way to considerations to declare him persona non grata. In the end, that unwise decision was replaced by Ankara’s warning to Weston against such interferences in a country’s domestic affairs. Also President Denkras’s joining in the other camp‘s rallies and Ankara’s stepping up its contributions to the TRNC’s budget on the eve of the election did balance out these external abuses.      

Turkish Cypriots call for a solution, but not at any cost dictated from abroad

In a nutshell, the Turkish Cypriot people said at the 14 December election that they wanted a quick solution to the Cyprus problem within the Annan plan provided that the justified objections to its pro-Greek bias is rectified. And about the negotiations with the Greek side for finding the middle course, the Turkish Cypriot voters did not give the mandate to the externally supported opposition led by Mehmet Ali Talat as they had been persistently demanding, but left it in the air with a tacit warning to Denktas that he should be more reconciliatory in his outright rejection of the Annan plan.

In this regard both the Turkish Government and President Denktas have prepared amendments to the third Annan plan. The Turkish media claims that there are basic and irreconcilable differences between the two. While the former foresees a federation for a solution as the Annan plan calls for, the latter is based on a confederation system, it is claimed.

The claim of the Turkish media is, by and large, wrong. It only reflects the wishes of the Disinformation Mechanism. In reality, the initial discrepancies between PM Tayyip Erdogan and President Denktas were largely eliminated shortly before Erdogan became Prime Minister at the beginning of April.

On 5 March 2003 the TGNA (Turkish Grand National Assembly)  took a unanimous resolution on Cyprus announcing its determination to reject any solution on Cyprus unless it preserves both the bizonal structure of the island and Turkey’s effective guarantor status. On the following day, the military and civilian summit under President Sezer in Cankaya reiterated Turkey’s national State policy for Cyprus.

The then presidential spokesman, Ambassador Tacan Ildem announced on 6 March, after the Cyprus summit in Cankaya about the third Annan plan, “In its present form, the Annan plan is far from addressing Turkey’s basic anxieties and expectations. It is only possible to attain a just and lasting solution with the mutual consensus of the two sides. Like the Greek Cypriot side, the Turkish side will also inform the Secretary General about its proposals for alterations in the Annan plan.” He also stressed that the TGNA is the competent organ for determining the appropriate solution plan for Cyprus.

Now that the Turkish Cypriot general elections are over after a heated atmosphere that turned it into a referendum about the final solution of the Cyprus problem, it is time for the Turkish side to present its counter proposals to the third Annan plan. The pro-Annan-plan opposition claims that the third Annan plan would have been accepted by the Turkish Cypriot people if the 14 December election had been a referendum for this plan. The Denktas supporters reject that claim and point to the election law’s provisions. Ankara expresses regret that the elections were turned into a kind of a referendum during the political parties’ election campaigns.

The US-EU alliance which, for the last several years, mobilized its financial resources and political influence for the downfall of the Denktas front at the election with the expectation that there would be a landslide in favour of the TRNC Opposition similar to Tayyip Erdogan’s 3 November 2002 election victory in Turkey was greatly disappointed with the outcome. The minute margin in favour of the opposition was no advantage in practice because it yielded 25 seats for either side and the constitution calls for 26 votes for the vote of confidence to the government. Considering that the Speaker of Parliament has no voting right, the Opposition’s votes in parliament fall to 24 in practice if it becomes the government without a coalition with the pro-Denktas parties. The same is the case for the pro-Denktas front.

Furthermore, the Turkish Cypriot election system turns the slight majority for the Talat team into a slight minority in calculations because it stipulates multiplying each vote by the number of MPs elected from that constituency.  If a constituency elects four MPs each vote is multiplied by four, if five or six, multiplied by five or six. As the Denktas supporters received most of their votes from bigger constituencies their slight minority became slight majority for referendum calculations. The opposition parties received 50.35% of the valid votes and the pro-Denktas front 49.63% on the basis of counting each votes as one. But with the qualified vote system, these rates became 48.93% for the opposition and 51.06% for the Denktas front. In other words, the votes cast by Turkish Cypriot people and the way they were counted, along with the interpretations of the parties concerned confused the American coordinator Weston enough to admit at the end of his contacts with the two sides in Cyprus and the guarantor States last week that he could not make head or tail of the TRNC’s current stance about the Annan plan.

Cyprus to determine Turkey’s place in the world

In short, a western plan, the Annan plan for Cyprus,  meticulously engineered after decades of preparations by the Anglo-Americans and executed with an all-out campaign for years by mobilizing enormous financial resources in northern Cyprus with the end in view of solving the Cyprus problem to Washington’s and London’s long-term self interests were foiled by the Turkish Cypriot voters in the most democratic way last Sunday.

This plan boils down to tying the Cyprus problem to the Turkish nation’s decades old dream of EU accession and solving it to their dictations by using the Europe dream of the Turks and the Turkish Cypriots as a weapon. That is why the Greek Cypriots are now becoming in May 2004 a full member of the EU with a claim that the Turkish Armed Forces in the TRNC will become an invasion force if the Cyprus problem is not solved by next May.

The Turkish diplomacy, military and intelligence have long sensed this plot and taken timely measures as it concerns Turkey’s place in the globalizing world where no country can survive by itself. Turkey’s ambition since WW II has been to join the European integration as a full member. That is why its special relations with the EEC, the EU’s forerunner, goes back to April 1959 when Turkey and Greece became associate members. While Greece has long become a full member of the EU, Turkey has not been able to become one of the ten new members and is now striving to jump into the last wagon of the train by becoming the last candidate after Bulgaria and Romania.

Meanwhile Ankara is facing a long list of concession demands from the EU some of which are justified in order to attain European standards and norms for Turkey and some are far- fetched claims mostly concerned with the West’s selfish national interest calculations. Tying the Cyprus problem to European integration issues is typical of the second category demands of the West, and the outcome of the 14 December elections was the best answer given to these desperate attempts of the West. Turkey is now busy preparing an alternative to EU accession if it proves impossible and this alternative is called “Eurasia cooperation”. It was not a coincidence that PM Tayyip Erdogan was in Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan last week and he was in Kyrgyzstan a couple of months ago when Russia opened its first air base in the former USSR countries 40 miles away from the American airbase in that country. Neither was it a coincidence that there was talk of the Georgian model about the possible outcome of the TRNC elections. It was lengthily speculated during the election campaign that if the Denktas side won a big victory in the elections as Shevardnadze did in the recent Georgian elections, what happened to the President in Georgia would have happened to Denktas. In other words, hordes of people financed and backed up by Washington would raid parliament and topple the president as they recently did to one time pro-American president Shevardnadze. Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots allowed none of this and provided no one any pretext for such games in their own lands. So election results in the TRNC were perfect and the best result for the Turks’ national interests. If it had been a resounding victory for the Denktas side it would not probably have been better than today’s middle course dictated by the Turkish Cypriot people’s common sense.

Election returns were to Ankara’s expectations and so will be the outcome

PM Tayyip Erdogan said before the elections that there are two States, two nations, two languages and two religions in Cyprus and that the final solution should safeguard this duality. Yet the Annan plan is based on a single Cypriot nation idea because it was drafted by the Anglo-Americans in the behind the scene flirtation with the Greeks. To answer Denktas’s strong objections on that point the West made some small alterations to the Annan plan’s terminology and used the “Constituent States” term in the third Annan plan but these alterations never went as far as making essential changes. While the UK still has “sovereign bases” in Cyprus the TRNC’s independence is still recognised only by Turkey and its sovereign independent State status is ignored in the final solution. Such vital problems have to be changed in the Cyprus talks ahead. And what if they are not? The answer came from PM Tayyip Erdogan in his rather unsubtle style before the elections, “Then they will go their way and we will go our way.”

And what does it mean? It means the threat of declaring the Turkish forces in Cyprus an occupation force after May 2004 is nonsensical. If the Greek Cypriot integration with Europe will be completed in five months so will the Turkey-TRNC integration in a bit of a longer period, but quite fast. “What happens in that case, Turkey has not been able to get the TRNC recognised by a single country besides itself in 30 years it will not be able to take fresh steps valid under International Law now.”

Yet another fallacy extensively used overtly and covertly during the election campaign period.  President Denktas’s son Deputy PM Serdar Denktas explained during the election campaign why Turkey is so important for the existing and future balances of the world along with the TRNC beside it. He told a press conference on 10 December that there are the biggest oil and natural gas resources of the world in the sea around Cyprus, mostly between the island and Turkey in the north, Syria Lebanon, Israel in the east and Egypt in the south. Under the Law of the Seas internationally accepted by the United Nations, prospecting and exploitation of oil and other natural resources in the high seas are not possible unless the riparian countries reach an agreement about it. The West, using the Greek Cypriots, recently attempted to conclude such an agreement with Egypt, but with Turkey’s objection, pointing to the TRNC coasts facing Egypt, the attempt fell through or was rather postponed until the rapid solution of the Cyprus problem.

That is the reason for Washington’s haste about pushing the Annan plan through with a week’s notice to President Denktas when he was undergoing heart surgery in New York. And also why the US-EU alliance put unprecedented pressures on Turkey and Denktas for a solution before next May.

The Washington guided disgusting Disinformation Mechanism of the Turkish media made fun of Serdar Denktas’s revelations, but they are absolutely true and the offshore seismic surveys carried out by Turkey 18 months ago confirmed all that. Insiders say that the American multinationals did find oil in eastern Mediterranean near Iskenderun, but sealed them off with concrete for later exploitation.

It seems that the $500 billion trade deficit a year and that much budget deficit that has been going on for years as well as the quagmire in Iraq have brought the United States to the point of hurrying for exploiting the Mediterranean oil.

To this background, the Turkish Cypriot people held their general election last Sunday and not only did they disappoint the Verheugen mentality but also confused Weston’s mind about what to do now. A friendly advice from this modest publication to them - the sooner they drop playing the Kurdish card in Iraq and against Turkey, the better they do for themselves. Otherwise Turkey’s long term plans are ready for alternatives to cooperation with America or accession to the European integration. uras@ada.net.tr – December 21^st, 2003