Ahmet Sözen gave a speech about the Cyprus conflict and negotiations to the students of ICAR (The Institute of Conflict Analysis and Resolution) from George Mason University.

 

AHMET SÖZEN: I usually give a half-hour, maximum, presentation on the Cyprus Problem the way I see it and then I open it up for your questions. So instead of like one hour standard presentation, it will me more of a tailor made for you … Half of it will be my presentation - the way I perceive the Cyprus problem as academic, as somebody that has been working on this almost 20 years and then open it up for your questions so that you know I can tailor made my presentation based on your interest areas.

 

ANDREA: If I am to say just a couple of words just one to help frame for you what is this visit and then because we didn’t have direct contact than that is good for me to have a little bit of sense of an effort that is completely experimental for us. We never did something like this before. The Institute of Conflict Analysis and Resolution, at George Mason University has been around for a long time. But we never had this kind of experimental learning investment and never in Cyprus. The title of our workshop is an “advanced workshop in sustainable peace.” So the question for us is how Cyprus problem reveals the constrain or peace that may seem to be there because there is no violence, there is …

 

 

AHMET SÖZEN: Some level of civility

 

ANDREA: Exactly, you can go back. You can see that and get where there have been several attempts as addressing the Cyprus problem looking for something else where in a way interested you why there is a need (for a solution). Because in many ways people could say what it is? Why is this not sustainable? So this is what we are coming for. The students have read the Security Council reports on Cyprus that was the…

 

AHMET SÖZEN: Which one?

 

ANDREA: I mean the first one in 1964.

 

AHMET SÖZEN: You mean the Secretary General’s Report?

 

ANDREA: No there is new NGO called the Security Council Report, which is an NGO created by Colombia University, I was part of it, it provides information for states that do not have intelligence capability a prevalent to the PF. So what was happening in the Security Council was that all the known permanent members do not have capacity to particulate position based on independent research. So an NGO provides this regularly. It provides an independent evaluation of the case. And we had some meetings with Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriots in other universities in the last few days.

 

 

AHMET SÖZEN: University of Cyprus in the south?

 

ANDREA: Organized with Maria, Bülent, and Neşe and then we are right here. We are delighted to be with you; for the students I don’t know Ahmet Sözen well enough, I know him through friends, the first thing that I said to him we already have friends in common.

 

AHMET SÖZEN: Let me give you a couple of bullet points with regard to the Cyprus problem. Almost, you know, taking the risk of stereotyping... when you speak with most of the people in the South, the way they describe the Cyprus problem, or the way they start the origin of the Cyprus problem, there is a huge emphasis on 1974. Most of them will tell you that it is a problem of “invasion and occupation of an independent country.” … as if (until then) things were going very good, suddenly an aggressor country – Turkey - came and invaded one third of the island and since then we have the Cyprus problem.

 

For most of the Turkish Cypriots, history starts mostly in 1963, when there was ethnic violence where it resulted in the expulsion of the Turkish Cypriots from the 1960 Republic of Cyprus, whereas after the violence in 1963, what was known as the Republic of Cyprus became predominantly, de-facto a Greek Cypriot Republic. When you tell this to the Greek Cypriots they will tell you we didn’t expulse the Turkish Cypriots, they left the Republic on their own will because they were separatists.

 

So, in Cyprus, in a way there are two versions of the history.

Instead of starting from either version the starting point, I usually prefer to start talking about the Cyprus problem from a very different date which I think no body uses … For me the root is 1648… the Peace or Treaty of Westphalia after the Thirty-Years War… the emergence of the first modern state system. The international political system became a system where the most important actor was the “state”.

 

Don’t worry I am going to come to the contemporary times by taking quantum leapsJ. One quantum leap, we are in 1789J… the French revolution where the “state” became the “nation state” being most important actor in international politics. And mostly a state in a republican form and mostly in a unitary state format became the most dominant actor in world politics.

 

Another quantum leap, we are in the 1950sJ- the post war era, the decade after World War II when, you know, colonial powers started losing their power. They started losing their control on their former territories and there were lots of liberation movements in these territories. The question was: Once these colonial powers are out of these territories, what will be the next government structure in these countries? Well, as we know from the very beginning from the Westphalia, the most important actor was the “state” in a “unitary state” format. Then the question was: What do you do in areas where you have multi ethnic societies, where you don’t have one nation, but people who don’t regards themselves as belonging one nation. And Cyprus was not an exception here… Cyprus was one of these areas, regions where we didn’t have one nation. But we had two communities who regard themselves as belonging to two big family of nations; Turkish and Greek. So what happened after the British left in 1960 in Cyprus, was that - in my opinion of course, and feel free to challenge me if you want - Cyprus was presented a progressive solution; a progressive plan for the future which took into consideration the fact that Cyprus was a multiethnic society.

 

‘The Republic of Cyprus’ which was established in 1960; if you look at the literature; is regarded as a ‘Consociational Democracy’- a consociational democracy is politics of accommodation where the interests and the rights of different groups, be it ethnic or religious or whatever, are protected and that they are represented in the governance system. If you look at the literature in political science, the consociational models, we can roughly divide into two categories: those who “failed”, similar to Cyprus and the other one Lebanon; and, there are successful ones like Belgium, Switchzerland, Canada. In my opinion, I think the Cypriots-Turkish and Greek Cypriots- were not ready for such a progressive solution in Cyprus back then in the 1960’s. They were not ready for consociationalism, of different ethnic communities sharing power. So the paradigm of “unitary state” becomes dominant, that’s why the Greeks wanted to become part of this bigger unitary Greece. So their national policy which was known as ENOSIS (union of Cyprus with Greece); and as a reaction Turks said: “…well lets have Taksim, which is partitioning of the island…” -meaning dividing the island into two: one part joining Greece; the other part joining Turkey, to the bigger unitary states. Very few people thought about, well you know what, actually we could live in one state in a multiethnic system where different groups could share power. But as I said back in the 1960’s, in my opinion, neither the Greek nor the Turkish Cypriots were ready for it. Another breaking point for history of Cyprus was 15 July 1974. There was a Greek coup d’etat, the fascist military regime in Greece tried to unite Cyprus with “mother” Greece. And five days later, on the 20th of July, Turkey send troops to prevent that; let me remind you that, both of the guarantor powers… -guarantor powers in case of Cyprus means Cyprus having three Guarantor powers, Turkey, Greece and UK. They were guaranteeing the security, independence, territorial integrity and constitutional order that was created in 1960. But what happened was, in 1974 one guarantor power who was supposed to do all of those, tried to unite the whole island with itself (Greece); and five days later another guarantor tried to prevent this (Turkey). And what was the third guarantor power doing- UK- nothing! Just trying to keep it’s bases safe. But since than, especially starting in the second half of 1970’s, there was an attempt to find a solution to the Cyprus problem and the basic parameters of what the future solution was going to look like. Basically two initiatives, which we call the High Level Agreements, were the agreements between the two communities in 1977 and in 1979. In 1977, it was between Makarious and Denktash who signed the four points or four guidelines document; and the 1979, it was signed between Kyprianu, who was the Greek Cypriot leader because Makarious was deed by then, and Denktash on behalf of the Turkish Cypriots who signed the 10 point agreement.

 

According to the High Level Agreements the two communities agreed on the basic principles of the future solution of the Cyprus problem. Hence it will be a federation; it will be independent, non-aligned, bi-zonal with regard to the territorial aspects; and, bi-communal with regard to the constitutional aspect. Since 1979, there has been no other document which was signed by the two sides. So, still 77-79 High Level Agreements are the only agreements that are endorsed by the two sides. Whether whole heartedly or half heartedly that something else… At least, there are the only documents that are agreed by the two sides on at least paper. Let me remind you, although they agreed them on paper, their leaders were telling something else. By and large, the basic preference of the Greek Cypriots had been to have a “unitary state”. Through which by their population they will be dominant. They, sort of dominate the whole island where Turkish Cypriots will be a sort of minority- just equal citizens in a republic, but only a minority having no communal rights. Where as the Turkish Cypriots: their political leadership, preferred a solution which they called it “federation” but it was more like a con-federal structure where two states will have their own sovereignty; but they preferred to have the right to opt out because they fear that if they don’t have the right to opt out from the partnership, they could have the same thing they experienced in 1963- where they were thrown out and the republic and the state remained to the Greek Cypriots, where the Turkish Cypriots become stateless. So these are some of the milestones.

 

The biggest achievement in Cyprus was the 2002-2004 period, where it was the first time that all these basic parameters as framework agreed turned into full fledged; finished; detailed; comprehensive solution plan which was known as the Annan Plan. It was hundred and eighty two pages long document plus thousands of pages of federal laws plus three constitutions: Constitution of the Federal Republic; Constitution of the Turkish Cypriot Constituent State; and Constitution of the Greek Cypriot Constituent State. All these were put into simultaneous, separate referenda on the 24th April of 2004. And, probably you know the results: the plan was accepted by 65% yes in the North; but rejected by %76 No in the south. It needed two ‘Yes’s for that to be implemented. That was the first and the last comprehensive solution plan ever been put on the table in Cyprus. So, it was a big opportunity lost. And it’s not a secret that this time it was the Greek Cypriot’s leader-our good old friend Tasos Papadopulos - who although negotiated it, then in a live TV program in what we called “alligator tiers” - who was crying – he told his community “…you know, you should give a “Resounding No” to this plan..” and his citizens followed him. He was not interested in to any vast of plan where there will be power sharing between the two communities. And, these are not my words, if you read Secretary General Kofi Annan’s report on Cyprus, one month after the referenda: 28th of May 2004, he specifically put it very clearly that if the Greek Cypriots live ready for a federal solution based on power sharing of two communities, it should be demonstrated by deeds; not by words.

 

So we come to the point where although two sides agreed on basic parameters- the future of Cyprus solution will be bi-zonal, bi-communal, federation, based on the political equality of the two communities as the power sharing-, by enlarge, the Greek Cypriot society as political elite failed to prepare its people to what is a federation, what it means to the power sharing in a federation, and that it is normally in federation that there will be rotational presidency and you get from the other community to precede over the country for a certain time.

 

Have the political elites prepared the Turkish Cypriots to such an arrangement? Up to 2002 my answer would have been ‘no’; but, since 2002 this country, meaning the North, has witnessed several massive street demonstrations-ranging gathering people from 50000 to 80000 people. This is a huge number, where the population is about 200000 people. To be able to gather 1/3 or ¼ of the population of a country into a demonstration is something really amazing. And they were very peaceful demonstrations. There was nobody who gets hurt. These events were take place between 2002 and 2004. Basically these demonstrations were organized by a platform that called itself ‘This Country is Ours Platform’- basically comprised of a few left wing parties, plus some NGO’s. And they were basically giving messages to two actors: One message was to Turkey (as the motherland and the guarantor power), saying that “you know, we love you but we don’t want you to intervene in our domestic affairs. This country is ours and we want to be masters of our country”, meaning Turkish Cypriots, said “we want to rule ourselves, so we don’t want interference from motherland, we are not a child anymore, we are a sort of adults now”; the second message was of course to the Greek Cypriots, telling them that “we are interested to have a federal solution with you, but that doesn’t mean that we are going to accept a deal where you are going to dominate us due to your population being more than us”, the second message was “we want to rule ourselves , we want to be domestically independent here; but on an upper level, on the central government, we are ready to share power in a federal arrangement”. To me these years (2002 to 2004) were the years where the ‘Turkish Cypriot Political Elite’ exposed ‘Turkish Cypriot General Public’ to what it is to have a federation and what it is to share power with another community. Unfortunately, that has not been the case in the south. Now we have two leaders, both of them coming from the left wing ideology and from the parties who were the pro-solution and pro-federation parties. Neither Mr. Hristofias nor Mr. Talat, either directly or indirectly is responsible for the events in 1963 and 1974. So they are a sort of clear. They are not Cold War period politicians and I don’t know if it makes any sense or if there is anything logical with what I will say now that none of them is a lawyerJ.

 

The inter-communal negotiations started the year that I was born (1968), between Denktash and Klerides in Beirut and then they moved the negotiations to Nicosia. Since then in the past forty years, either one or both leaders have been lawyers. This is the first time that none of them is a lawyer, so I don’t know, sometimes it is like a joke, but I don’t know whether it is going to make any difference. The only thing about Mr. Talat, I don’t know if you ever met him, or if you know him, he is an engineer and he is very pragmatic; I have a bit of some doubts about Mr. Hristofias, because he has a PhD in history. But his PhD was from Moscow, a Marxist sort of education, I don’t know whether it is conducive for being pragmatic in negotiations; but again it’s a joke. JThere was a presidential election in the south, in February 2008, in which Hristofias was elected. As of April the two sides agreed to form six working groups to deal with substantive issues of the Cyprus problem, these are: governance and power sharing; economic issues; EU affairs; territory; property; and guarantees and security. Between April and late July, we (usually four or five Turkish Cypriot in each committee) prepared a report which we identified areas of convergence, where two sides have similar positions. We put those aside and then we look at the other areas where we don’t have convergence. So, at the end, the report was having three colors: black, for areas where we have the same position; where we didn’t agree we put the Turkish position in one color, and we put the Greek position in another color. And then, report was given to each leader and as of 3rd of September the two leaders started to negotiate based on our reports.

 

This first topic is governance and power sharing (our community); the two leaders still continue on it. The last meeting was yesterday (November 17) -which was the ninth meeting. What I envisage is that probably the next couple of months the two leaders will continue the negotiations, on the reports which the communities prepared, trying to come up with more areas of convergence. Sometimes next year, sort of anticipate it to be something like April or May, the real give-and-take negotiation table will be established. Because currently the two leaders have been doing “shadow boxing”. If you ask Mr. Tay Brook Zerihoun (Special Representative of the Secretary-General and UNFICYP Chief of Mission), he would tell you that the real negotiating process has not started yet. And I think that, when it will happen, I am not very optimistic; I am cautiously optimistic, if you ask me what chance I will give to a solution: I will give 51%. I have also been involved in a study with two professors; one is Birol A. Yeşilada from Portland State University, and the other one is Jacek Kugler who used to be the president of the International Studies Association, Professor at Claremont Graduate University. He developed a computer program known as “agent based model”. The agent based model goes back to game theory, if you are familiar with the methodology of the game theory… The latest study, that we have done a couple of weeks ago, I provided the available data about the actors. The result is that: if the two leaders are left alone and the type of the positions of the ‘stake-holders’ being constant, a solution is not in the horizon.

What does this tell us? You need the involvement of the third parties in order to get the two sides to agree on a solution. If the two leaders are left uninterrupted, they are not going to reach a solution on all issues which means that they will not come up with the finalized comprehensive solution plan. So we need some sort of a third party involvement! But what type of a third party involvement is it going to be? It is not clear yet. The UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has appointed a high level representative: Mr. Downer. Alexander Downer was the former foreign minister of Australia. It seems, like after Christmas, he will be coming to Cyprus more often and start staying longer. One good thing about him is that he is a no a bull-shit taking person. He is not a UN bureaucrat who can take this shadow boxing and time killing of the two leaders for a long time. He is a politician; I know that he will be impatient. And my hunch tells me that next year (2009) in spring time a camp, and a sort of Burgenstock dialog (locking the two leaders into a camp to get them engaged in a final give and take process) - is going to take place.

 

We came to the issue that Andreas mentioned on sustainable peace. It is known that Turks and Greeks have been living separately for more than 30 years. Nobody kills one another across the border. They don’t mix and they don’t integrate. Greek Cypriots usually come to the North for gambling purposes; and on the other hand, Turkish Cypriots usually go to the south for shopping. What’s wrong with this picture is it seems that the international community doesn’t accept the existing situation. These are not my words; these are the words of the UN secretary General, saying that “the status quo is not acceptable”! Big states do not want to have a precedent in the island, which would lead to encouraging other separatist movements throughout the world as in the 1970’s.

 

Implementation of the right of self determination with its original meaning, leads to the automatic right to establish your own state. And if they let every single group to do that, they fear that, they will find over 1000 nation states in the world. Then the international system will be very difficult to regulate, it will be very chaotic. Especially the big powers were not very happy to give out the right of self-determination to small groups to establish their own state, so in the 1970’s they modified the meaning of self-determination. They said that the right of self determination means the right of a group of people to participate into the democratic governance within the existing state- sort of consociationalism. And if a group is prevented to exercise that right, then the original version of self-determination can be used, meaning that ‘…ok if I was not given the chance of participation into the democratic governance, so I have no other choice but to secede, creating sort of my own state’. So the Annan Plan in 2004 was the first time that both the Turkish Cypriots and the Greek Cypriots exercised their right of self determination, not in the original form as Woodrow Wilson stated - automatic gain of statehood -, but to participate into democratic governance within one state. My feelings tell me that the international community wants to push a solution in Cyprus one more time. If it fails again, personally, I don’t envisage any actor not just the two Cypriots and two motherlands, but no any other international actor will be interested to solve the Cyprus problem. And I think the Kosovo, South Oshetya and Abkhazia cases sort of changed the way one look at things in international platforms. I think the Pandora’s box, may be not opened fully, but was opened slightly that can give room for different models in solving the Cyprus Problem in the future if this current initiative fails. This is my perception.

 

It comes to that, what Andreas mentioned. Before 1970’s it was very difficult to be a Turkish Cypriot. It was a time that Turkish Cypriots were very much discriminated. It was a time that we have seen attempts of almost ‘genocide’- it is a very strong word. In 1963, there was a part of the plan that if Turkish Cypriots oppose to the changes in the constitution, Greek Cypriots would deal with them! And if Turkey did not intervene that would be the case. I am not saying that, the Turkish Cypriots would be killed in one night like what happened in Rwanda, but they would have been forced out of the country. There are hundreds of thousands of Turkish Cypriot living in Australia, UK and in some other countries. But I am coming to your question. The old generations have seen a lot of negative things in Cyprus which makes it difficult to change their perception about the Greeks. Whereas the younger generation they were born in a country (TRNC) where they have not been exposed to any Greek Cypriot. They heard stories from their parents, they heard stories in their textbooks, but not really got into anything related to “hatred”. And even the Turkish Cypriots have changed their textbooks on this side. Where we have eliminated all racism and all the things which were bringing hatred and we brought all these against a lot of reaction from the nationalists in the country and reactions of the old generation including former president Denktash. But in the South what happened was, unfortunately, the 1974 was taken as the start of the history and everything was built on it in the textbooks to that, your (Greek Cypriots’) basic enemy is the Turk. And in their military training which is compulsory, for example, their basic slogan is ‘the best Turk is the dead Turk’. This is the type of mentality which is going on. And unfortunately the young generation, who are forced to go to the military, after they finish high-school face with this nationalistic education plus two years in the army. By the time you are out of the army, your brain is washed. I am not saying all of them are brain washed but it has a very traumatic and dramatic effect on why the younger generation is not interested to share power with Turkish Cypriots. Because they see Turk’s as a sort of enemy. The older generation failed to tell them ‘…we were living together in certain villages and we did bad things to this community’. They failed to do that…

 

In the North, the rise of the opposition to Mr. Denktash-the former president-especially started in the late nineties such as “…look because of your policies, you don’t want a solution, we are going to miss the train”. By “train” it was meant that finding a solution in Cyprus and being a member of the EU. So the Turkish Cypriots have been more future-oriented to be EU citizens and being in prosperity. So the young generation is not so much interested in the old stories. So this is the sort of picture that created the elite picture of both sides.

 

The Turkish Cypriot side a few years ago when the regime changed, when the opposition left wing come to power in 2003 election-then they took the presidency- they changed the history text books. They said “…these text books are too nationalist, they breed hatred so we are going to erase all these things from our history”. I am not saying that they have done a good job or bad job, but I’m saying something else. But obviously taking out things which breed racism and animosity and hatred is good thing. How they did it is debatable in another level. The content what they have done is discussable in certain areas where I have seen they took it to the extreme where the history became very superficial. They should have more nuanced. But in the south it hasn’t been done and currently one of the debate is that one of the AKEL minister-AKEL is the ruling party now, Hristofias’s party, former communist party-, the minister of education, they have this program of changing the textbooks. But currently he is getting a lot of reaction, resistance from the church, from the nationalist parties and NGO’s, so they are not able to do that.

 

STUDENT QUESTION: If an agreement would be reached, are you going to have books remained the same in the South?

 

AHMET SÖZEN: If we reach an agreement, how are we going to have books remained the same in the South? On the one hand, you will be partners in a federation; at the same time the text books in the south saying that “…the Turks are your best enemy”. So, probably the natural expectation is that the books will be changed.

 

ANDREA: As a consequence obviously when you come to Cyprus, you come to this line. So it seems that you have attention callers. You told us.

 

AHMET SÖZEN: I don’t have…

 

ANDREA: I am just kidding youJ, but you told us that you have these different colours that you were working on as a black and red. I am curious about colours and…

 

AHMET SÖZEN: Of course when you are preparing a document where you mention areas where you have the same position and other areas where you don’t have the same position, one way of dealing with it in diplomacy is drafting is done by using different colors.

 

ANDREA: My question is colors didn’t specify the parties.

 

AHMET SÖZEN: They did, red was Turkish and blue was Greek. I was in our group saying “…lets use red for Greeks and let’s use blue for Turkish”; but that wasn’t accepted. Because it is classical colors: Look at the flag of Greece and look at the flag of Turkey. In Greek flag, you have blue as the most dominant color; and red on the Turkish flag. So my proposal was not acceptedJ

 

ANDREA: I think that I would like the idea. So when you have disagreement simply you say that the black are the points that agreed by both. And, when something is written in red, the opposition is held only by the Turkish side; and when it is in blue, it is only hold by the Greeks. But there is no mention what is the countries position.

 

AHMET SÖZEN: This is it, ok but that much I can show you, I can not dispose you… (Showing a text on his laptop from far awayJ)

 

ANDREA: No we didn’t see anything…

 

STUDENT QUESTION: Can you explain a bit about the Agent Based Model?

 

AHMET SÖZEN: We have been using this for a long time. Actually, the first time we used this was at a conference- International Studies Association 2004. Again saying usual suspects we used it, so this proceeding is available in internet. And the last one was in 2005, another international conference, again the same people- why same people because Jacek Kugler who has the copyright of the computer simulation program, running the simulation program is very expensive. Running on one variable, cost thirty-forty thousand dollars. Sometimes we would run on seven variables, like territory, property, political system in Cyprus, guarantorship etc. And they would cost like 200000-300000$. We did it for free because Jacek Kugler is a friend and you know we collaborate on this and we put his name as one of the co-authors. So we are in a way very much blessed. The thing is this model; this computer simulation program has a very high accuracy level of forecasting 90+ percent. And let me tell you that; ok you might not be too much of number cruncher, I am not. I just provided the data as an expert on Cyprus; I identified the stake-holders. And I assigned certain numbers with regard to their positions on an issue. If the correct data is provided then the forecasting power is more than 90 percent. This was tried in research on Afghanistan, on Iraq cases. Let me tell you that the US Department of State and CIA are very interested. They actually read articles that used agent based model, written by Jacek and friends on Afghanistan and Iraq. So it has a very high popularity among certain decision making centers.

 

ANDREA: And I am fascinated just clearly out this also ask him the future as a trajectory. This is good for the students independently; I am going to be the director of the ICAR (Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution). And one of the trajectories is going to be interdisciplinary collaborational this kind. My sense is that the new generation cutting at resource will be, will look something like this for what you do have a number crunch worked with the expert, on that will be able to bridge the contextual equality.

 

AHMET SÖZEN: I just showed you what I did and the rest was basically all these variables: negotiation issues like territory, guarantorship. I provided these: stake-holder; President Talat; President Hristofias; DISI, one of the ruling parties; AKEL, the opposition party; actors in Greece, Turkey, US, EU, UK, whatever. In each one of them, these are the numbers I have entered.

 

ANDREA: And these are arbitrary. You need to have an understanding…

 

AHMET SÖZEN: Not really arbitrarily, I mean relatively to one another. Look at the power of each side how much of their resources they are ready to devote to that issue. To be able to assign a number, you should be a good expert on the situation on the ground. If you find the real experts and provide that with a good accuracy, then the forecast will be extremely accurate.

 

ANDREA: What I am saying is that, what Ahmet doing is like Leonardo painting.

Ok, in this senses the process is qualitative process; not a quantitative one. It’s generated by somebody’s brain, because they know the situation, and I understand these variables, these are the variables that I have assigned to them.

 

The fifth is there is a risk on direct negotiations. So the two leaders are negotiating, other people doing all the things and actually preparing. But they don’t necessarily negotiating. It’s not just a problem of third party but actually the expert in….. What is the contribution we can do?

 

The sixth question is what I am going to describe is unrequited hope. When the Turkish Cypriots voted “yes” to the Annan Plan, and the Greek Cypriots voted “no” to the Annan Plan, there was an unrequited dimension. There is this missing each other, like somebody attempting and like the feel that psychologically it hard to overcome, so I am curious what you think and then the seventh is just you know I liked your observation about Downer. My only concern is that time pressure can work in both ways and sometimes you just need to have time that is needed.

 

AHMET SÖZEN: Starting with the first one, who decided the colors. The committee level negotiations between April and July 2008, was basically a process where UN was an observer. They have one person in every working group, sitting down and taking notes. They were note takers. Everything was up to the two sides. So, the issue of when they are going to meet again and what topic they are going to discuss, was left to two sides. The UN, after the 2004 failure (the referenda), didn’t want to be too much involved. So they are now saying that “… look, you are the ones who are going to solve your problem. We are here to help to provide facilities like meeting room, coffee, water and air conditioningJ. So it was basically up to two communities to decide on the procedure. The UN’s role in Cyprus is described. It is mission of good offices. That is Secretary General’s mission of good offices. And mission of good offices means a third party involvement but which is not mediation, that something below mediation. Something between, may be, facilitation and mediation, if I use the CR (Conflict Resolution) terminology. Why? Because a mediator can make a proposal, can put a paper on the table. The mission of good offices does not allow it. But sometimes we see UN, putting proposals on the table, but they have other methods. They say “this is a non-paper”. When it is said that this is a non-paper, and then you can put it in your agenda, you can put your own proposal on the table. But simply you can not openly impose it. The first time that the UN played a mediating role, and more than mediating, but sort of an arbitrary role, was in the second part of March 2004 in Bürgenstock, during the run up to the referenda, where the process was that the two sides agreed in February in New York, was that the two sides will come together for a couple of weeks in New York to iron out their differences. If they can not iron out all their differences the two motherlands will join, for a week, to help them iron up more differences. And at the end of that, if there are still differences, the UN will fill in the blanks -meaning the UN Secretary General will play the role of arbitrator to finalize the solution plan- the documents which was the case of the Annan Plan. There were certain points which the two sides didn’t agree and but the UN got the consent of two sides to play this role. All the negotiations since 1968 were done under the auspices of the UN in Cyprus. There has never been direct, in that sense, without anybody in the room type negotiation between the negotiating leaders. This was not accepted sometimes by one side; sometimes by both sides. The Greek Cypriots wouldn’t like this because they don’t want to put themselves into an equal position with the Turkish Cypriots. They want only the negotiations under the UN auspices, because both sides negotiated as the leader of each community. The title of each leader is the ‘leader of the community’. When they get out of the UN negotiations Hristofias becomes the president of the “Republic of Cyprus” that is recognized by all states other than Turkey; and, Talat becomes the president of TRNC recognized by Turkey but no other country. So the Greek Cypriots don’t want to have a direct engagement with the TRNC. That’s why they want the UN to be there.

 

Unrequited hope you said. There has been a big disappointment in the North after the 2004 referenda and where we are today in a situation that if you have a referenda without any influence, I don’t think that 65 percent will say ‘Yes’ to it. It is currently way below that. But I don’t know whether if there is a new text (solution plan) in several months from now. It depends on how much our leadership is going to endorse it and how much Turkey as the motherland is going to endorse it. That will make a difference. If President Talat and the Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan comes out openly and say that: “this is a good deal, we didn’t get 100% of what we want, but this is something that we can live with. So this is going to help building regional peace between Greece, Turkey and the United Republic of Cyprus”. If they say this, I think then they will be able to mobilize again enough number of people to say a ‘Yes’ that will be enough to pass the text. What happens in the south I don’t know…