CYPRUS

THE SEARCH FOR A S O L U T I O N

 CYPRUS
T H E S E A R C H FOR A S O L U T I O N

David Hannay

/ I.B. T A U R I S 1
L O N D O N . N E W Y O R K
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 Contents

Preface vii
X
Map

The Historical Background: 1960-1 996

The Players
T h e Issues
1996: Getting a Show on the Road
1997: Missiles and Missed Opportunities
1998: Damage Limitation
1999: Getting the Show on the Road Again
2000: Proximity, Equality, Walk-Out
2001 : Trench Warfare
2002: Countdown to Copenhagen
2003 : Extra Time
Epilogue: The Curtain Falls
What Went Wrong; and Will It Ever Go Right?
Envoi
Postscript

Index
T o my wife, my children and my grandchildren
who uncomplainingly put up with my absences
even after I was meant to have retired.
 Preface

w hen I was first approached in February 1996 to ask whether I

would be prepared to take on a new, part-time job as the
British government's Special Representative for Cyprus, I had
some idea of what I was being let in for, but not that it would last for
seven years. Although I had never actually set foot on the island, I had,
like many other British diplomats, bumped into the Cyprus problem from
time to time during the 36 years of my professional career in the Diplo-
matic Service, which had ended the year before with my retirement from
the post of U N ambassador in New York. I had been involved in the
negotiations for a trade agreement between the European Community
and Cyprus when Britain joined the EC in 1973; I had subsequently
participated in the negotiations that developed this agreement into a
customs union and, more relevant than either of these two experiences, I
had a ringside seat for the last major attempt by the United Nations to
negotiate a comprehensive settlement in 1992 and the subsequent, equally
abortive, effort to agree a major package of Confidence-Building Measures
on the island which had finally run into the sands in 1994.
So I could not be said to be unaware of the singular intractability of
the problem, nor of the capacity of the main players to spin out any
negotiation until the Greek Kalends, nor of their preference for playing
the blame game over making any serious effort to get to grips with the
core issues in an attempt to reach a settlement. Why did I say yes? Partly,
I suspect, out of a reluctance to quit entirely the scene of international
diplomacy in which I had spent the whole of my professional life. Partly
also, like a mountain climber drawn towards an unclimbed peak, simply
because it was there. The Cyprus problem was certainly an unclimbed
peak, said by many - particularly by those who had tried to climb it and
failed - to be un-climbable; so there was an element of irresistible chal-
lenge. And then there were less personal reasons. The commitment given
by the European Union in 1995 to open accession negotiations with
 ...
V~II CYPKUS: T H E SEARCH FOR A S O L U T I O N

Cyprus, divided or not, within six months of the end of the Inter-
Governmental Conference which was drawing up the Amsterdam Treaty
(in 1997), meant that we were sliding towards a parting of the ways which
might either consolidate the division of the island or lead to its entering
reunited into the European Union. It also had the potential to lead to a
serious crisis in the relations between Turkey and the European Union
and thus to a threat to the peace and stability of the Eastern Mediterra-
nean. So the case for making a further determined attempt to reach a
settlement was a serious one.
Seven years later, after two failed attempts to reach the summit, the
second of which, at least, got agonizingly close, it was time to recognize
that even if that peak was going, one day, to be climbed - and I do not
join the ranks of those others whose efforts failed, in saying that it cannot
be - it was not going to be climbed by me and almost certainly not for
some considerable time to come. A secondary question then arose. Did it
make sense to write down, while events were reasonably fresh in the
memory, the story of the negotiations? Would anyone be interested in an
account of a negotiation that failed, itself only the latest in a whole series
of failed negotiations to settle the Cyprus problem? But there were argu-
ments that pointed the other way. Cyprus may well be a place, like other
scenes of long-running disputes - Northern Ireland springs to mind - that
suffers from a surfeit of history. It does not, however, suffer from a surfeit
of properly recorded and reasonably objective historical works. Indeed it
is almost entirely lacking in them. Most of what has been written about
Cyprus has been the work of members of one or other of the two embat-
tled communities - or peoples (but that is part of the story that belongs to
a later stage). As such they are at best distorted by that prism, at worst
little better than polemic and propaganda. And the non-Cypriots who
have ventured into the field seem to have fallen prey to the same distor-
tions, often appearing as little more than apologists for one side or the
other. So, for someone who has always been a student of history, it was
tempting to try to redress this balance a little. Not that I have any illu-
sions that what I write will be regarded by many on the island or in the
region as objective. It is an occupational hazard for anyone who gets
involved in attempts to resolve the Cyprus problem to be considered by
both sides as being irremediably prejudiced against them and in the
pocket of the other side. The same is all too likely to be the fate of any
such person who tries subsequently to set out the record.
 There is another reason for setting all this down. The Cyprus negotia-
tions between 1996 and 2003 were complex enough in themselves, but
they were made even more complex by the inter-relationships between
two other entities, the United Nations, which was centre stage through-
out the efforts to get a settlement, and the European Union, accession to
which was an important motivating factor for the two parts of Cyprus and
Turkey. So this was far from being a classical, bilateral international
dispute, to be addressed within the framework of the relations between a
limited number of nation states. It was rather a very modern negotiation,
a kind of three-dimensional game of chess. Since neither United Nations
diplomacy nor that involving the European Union is particularly well or
widely understood, I believe that it could be useful to examine the anat-
omy of this negotiation from that point of view and not just as another
chapter in the weary saga of attempts to settle the Cyprus problem.
So much for the author's motives; now some more practical points.
This book is not, nor does it attempt to be, a history of Cyprus, even
during the period described, although a chapter on the historical back-
ground is included to situate the negotiations that took place within their
context. That chapter is neither an original product, nor is it the fruit of
deep historical research, but the minimum needed to assist comprehen-
sion of the negotiation itself. So the book describes the anatomy of a
negotiation, not the history of Cyprus. Being written very shortly after
the events described, the author has had no access to any classified docu-
ments from the archives of governments or other parties. The documents
referred to or cited in the book are all either formally in the public domain
or else so widely and fully described in the press as to amount to the same
thing. The opinions and judgement in the book are the author's own and
no one else's, least of all those of the British government.
As often where two cultures and two languages are present there is a
problem over the spelling of the names of people and places. I have opted
for the versions most commonly used in the language in which the book is
written, English. Since the two chief Cypriot protagonists, Glafcos
Clerides and Rauf Denktash, both often used anglicized versions of their
own names I feel in good company.
I have decided, for obvious reasons and despite the risk of appearing
ungrateful, not to mention by name all those with whom I worked during
this negotiation and without whose wisdom and advice it would not have
got even as far as it did and this book would not have existed. It goes
without saying that my thanks to them are profound.
CYPRUS: Adjustments to the status quo in the island proposed
in the second revision of the Annan Plan tabled in February 2003

Rizokarpaso
Dipkarpaz
Agialoussa
Yeni Erenkoy
Agios Andronikos
¸
Yesilköy

Kormakiti Lapithos
Korucam
¸ Lapta Kyrenia
Larnakas
Agia Irini Kozan
Akdeniz Diorios Kondemenos
Tepebasi¸ Kilicaslan
¸
(Yeni Güzelyurt) Peristerona
Agia Marina Skylloura Alanici
¸
Syrianochori Gürpinar Limnia
Kokkina Kato Pyrgos Yeyla Yilmazköy ¸
Mormenekse
Morphou Pyrga
Erenköy Günebakan Güzelyurt Asha Pirhan Prastio
Gerolakkos Pasaköy
¸ Dörtyol
Soli Zodhia Alayköy NICOSIA Famagusta
Agia Acheritou
Galini
ˆ Bostanci Dilekkaya
Tymvou Güvercinlik
Omerli Lefka Kirklar Varosha 1:690,000
Lefke Petra ˆ Lysi ˆ
Taskoy Arsos
ˆ
Akdogan Achna
Yigitler Düzce Upon entry into force of
Potamia Foundation Agreement:
Pergamos
Beyarmudu
Pyla Turkish Cypriot constituent state
Louroujina
Akincilar Pile Greek Cypriot constituent State
Areas of Territorial Adjustment

Larnaka After entry into force of the protocol to the

Treaty of Establishment
Turkish Cypriot constituent state
Greek Cypriot constituent State
Pafos Parts of SBAs to become part of
The United Cyprus Republic

corresponding maximum level of

property reinstatement:
Limassol - per <component State>: 10%
- per village or municipality: 20% except
in Agialousa/Yeni Erenköy,
Agia Trias/Sipahi, Melangara/Adacay
and Rizokarpaso/Dipkarpaz

Refer to pages 207-11

The boundaries and names shown and the designations used on this map
do not imply any official endorsement or acceptance.
 The Historical Background:

T
he historical background to any international dispute is invariably
an integral part of the dispute itself, and understanding that
background and its implications for the present and for the main
protagonists in negotiations for a settlement is essential to the search for a
solution. Nowhere are these propositions more true than in Cyprus,
whose peoples often seem weighed down by the accumulation of histori-
cal folk memories and by the received, but far from accurate, accounts of
their past experiences. This chapter does not pretend to be a full, aca-
demically researched account of the modern history of Cyprus. It is more
a series of snapshots taken, mainly over the last 50 years, of the principal
milestones and turning points in what has been an often kaught and
unhappy process. T h e focus is on events and developments that directly
or indirectly influenced the present situation and the attitudes of the two
sides when they returned to the negotiating table, first in 1997, then in
1999 and for the third time in 2002.
T h e story of Cyprus, from classical times down to its independence in
1960, was one of domination by outside powers. T h e mainly ethnically
Greek population often enjoyed a fair degree of autonomy in the man-
agement of their own domestic affairs, and this was the case even when
Cyprus was part of the Ottoman Empire from the sixteenth to the late
nineteenth century, but for most of the time Cyprus fell under the
broader sway of outsiders, whether Greeks in classical times, or Romans
or the Byzantine Empire or the Latin crusaders or the Venetian Republic
or the Ottonlan Empire or, most recently, Britain. This history of exter-
nal domination has left its mark on a11 Cypriots; it has contributed to the
feeling, widely prevalent on both sides of the island, that Cypriots are not
masters of their own destiny, that their fate will inevitably be decided by
forces situated outside the island. This long sequence of external masters
2 C Y P R U S : T H E SEARCH FOR I\ SOLUTION

left a population less mixed and multicultural than might have been
expected. So, while there are various small minorities, Latins (essentially
Catholic descendants of the Crusaders), Armenians and Maronites, the
population of the island emerged at the time of independence as roughly
80 per cent Greek and 18 per cent Turkish. The two communities lived
scattered all over the island and inter-mingled geographically, with no
substantial mono-ethnic enclaves; but socially and politically they were
separate (with almost no evidence, for example, of inter-communal mar-
riage) and gradually became more so under the pressure of events.
The last decade of colonial Cyprus (1950-60) was a period of turmoil
and violence on the island. Many of the dragons' teeth of the subsequent
dispute were sown during that period. The Greek Cypriots prosecuted a
guerrilla war, both in the Troodos Mountains and in the towns, against
the Rritish colonial power and the police (many of whom were Turkish
Cypriots, appointed by the British colonial authorities once the troubles
had started). While casualties were not high by the standards of other
similar struggles, the residue of bitterness on all sides was considerable.
The objective pursued by the Greek Cypriots and by their unchallenged
leader, tfic head of the Greek Orthodox Church in the island, Archbishop
Makarios, was at the outset enosis, union with Greece, but gradually, as it
became clear that this was unattainable in the light of the attitudes of both
Greece and Turkey, it switched grudgingly to independence. However,
the military leader of the armed struggle, General George Grivas, a
former Greek army officer, never made that switch. The Turkish Cypri-
ots began by putting their faith in the British colonial power, both to
resist the political pretensions of the Greek Cypriots and to protect them
against the attacks and harassment of their Greek Cypriot neighbours.
But, as they became steadily more aware of British inadequacies in both
respects, the Turkish Cypriots turned towards a reliance on Turkey as
their ultimate protector and towards a willingness to use force themselves.
Thus relationships between the two communities steadily deteriorated
during this period. The British, for their part, zigzagged between the
options of keeping the island under colonial tutelage in perpetuity for geo-
strategic reasons and a traditional gradualist approach to self-government,
finally dumping the whole problem in the laps of the Greeks and Turks,
in return for the establishment of two Sovereign Base Areas to meet their
strategic needs in an otherwise independent Cyprus. This legacy would
haunt British policy in the future, as all in the region convinced them-
selves that Britain's involvement was solely intended to preserve its hold
on the Bases. The Greek and Turkish governments were gradually drawn
deeper and deeper into this morass. At various times the options of enosis
and of taksin~(partition or 'double enosis', with the northern part of the
island becoming a part of Turkey) had some attraction to each of them.
But once they realized the risk that they could be drawn into open hos-
tilities or at least into a proxy war between them in Cyprus, they drew
back, and effectively imposed an independence settlement on the two
distinctly unenthusiastic Cypriot communities.
The longer-term consequences of this troubled decade were complex
and highly destabilizing. The British ended up distrusted and disliked by
both sides. Unlike in many other post-colonial situations they did not
benefit from a post-independence honeymoon with the Greek Cypriots.
The Turkish Cypriots considered that the British had let them down and
never again fully trusted them. Surprisingly, given that the main charac-
teristics of British policy in that period were muddle, fudge and
indecisiveness, both sides credited the British with incredible deviousness
and subtlety. Neither the Greek nor the Turkish Cypriots much liked the
situation they found themselves in following the settlement, and neither
felt any sense of ownership of or loyalty towards it. (Indeed throughout
the 1960s President Makarios openly described the creation of the state of
Cyprus as a step on the road to enosis.) It was something imposed on
them by Greece and Turkey and by the indifference of Britain. Greece
and Turkey in the short term drew a deep sigh of relief at having escaped
from a dangerous corner but they did little to help make the newly inde-
pendent bi-communal Cyprus work; and, in the case of Greece, once the
military regime of the colonels took over in 1967, they actively set about
undermining the settlement and once more promoting enosis. A further
development from that period was that the United States began to take an
interest in Cyprus, but largely from the point of view of avoiding an open
conflict between two NATO allies, Greece and Turkey, and the conse-
quent weakening of NATO's southern flank. Predictably the Soviet
Union became interested too, with the precise aim of weakening that
southern flank, an objective it pursued by lending largely unquestioning
support to Makarios.
Three international treaties, the Treaty of Guarantee, the Treaty of
Alliance and the Treaty of Establishment, between them effectively
limited and constrained the exercise of Cyprus's sovereignty. The 1960
Cyprus constitution is difficult to categorize in any of the commonly
known definitions; it was neither federal nor confederal; it was perhaps
4 C Y P R U S . T H E S E A R C H FOR A SC)LU'l'ION

closer to a unitary structure, but it contained elaborate checks and bal-

ances between the powers exercised by the leaders of the two
communities as president and vice-president and between the other
representatives of the two communities. It could only ever have worked
smoothly with a high degree of cooperation between the two sides; in the
hands of people who were in no way motivated to try to make it work, it
provided a recipe for deadlock and frustration. The Treaty of Guarantee
forbade secession or the union of Cyprus with any other state; it gave to
the three guarantor powers (Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom)
the duty to consult together to preserve the territory and the constitu-
tional order of the newly established state of Cyprus and, if such
consultation did not lead to agreement on the steps that needed to be
taken, it permitted each of the guarantor powers to intervene unilaterally
with a view to restoring the status quo ante. The Treaty of Alliance
provided for a small military force composed of a specified number of
Greek and Turkish troops, with a tripartite headquarters, to be stationed
on the island. This treaty was never implemented. The Treaty of Estab-
lishment was the basis for the United I h g d o m ' s retention of sovereignty
over 99 square miles of Cyprus in the two Sovereign Base Areas of Ak-
rotiri and Dhekelia.
This potentially dysfunctional set of arrangements lasted for only
three years before a major crisis derailed it. In 1963 the Turkish Cypriots
withdrew from participation in the institutional structures of the state.
The proximate cause of this withdrawal was a dispute over fiscal matters.
But disagreements between the two communities went deeper than that.
The Greek Cypriots believed that t h s was part of a systematic campaign
by the Turkish Cypriots to frustrate the proper working of the state and
so lead to partition. In response they threatened to push through (uncon-
stitutionally) a number of constitutional amendments that would have
removed the Turkish Cypriot veto. From this time on the security situa-
tion deteriorated steadily, with extensive harassment, particularly of
Turkish Cypriots by Greek Cypriots and of Greek Cypriots by paramili-
tary nationalists, with numerous atrocities committed by both sides and
with the much less numerous Turkish Cypriots tending to abandon their
houses scattered in villages and towns where Greek Cypriots were in a
majority and to group themselves together in enclaves where they could
better defend themselves. Both sides formed militia forces, the Greek
Cypriots E O I U B, the Turkish Cypriots TMT. The Cyprus National
Guard, the Republic's army, was entirely Greek Cypriot in composition
 'THE H I S ' f O K I C h L BACliCLIOUND 5

and accordingly partisan. It was at this time that the United Nations first
became directly involved in Cyprus, with the deployment in 1964 of a
small U N military force which, however, was unable to do much to
improve the security situation. The Security Council continued, follow-
ing the breakdown of the 1960 constitution, to treat what was now
effectively a Greek Cypriot administration as the properly constituted
government of the Republic of Cyprus. A number of appeals were made
to the guarantor powers to intervene but, prior to 1974, no such interven-
tion took place, although in 1967 the Turks were only dissuaded from
intervening militarily at the very last moment by a brutally forceful
demarche from the then president of the United States, Lyndon Johnson.
This time of troubles, from 1963 to 1974, marked all the players in the
Cyprus problem and profoundly influenced the attitude of those who
participated in the subsequent attempts to reach a settlement. Through-
out that period, and even more so after 1974, the Turkish Cypriots
believed that the constitution had simply been hijacked in 1963 by the
Greek Cypriots and that it therefore no longer had any validity. They
bitterly resented the fact that the United Nations (and other international
organizations such as the European Union, the Council of Europe and the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe which followed
suit) continued to treat the Creek Cypriots as the sole government of
Cyprus. Denktash in particular was prone to argue that until that recog-
nition was reversed, either by recognizing the Turkish Cypriots on an
equal but separate basis or by derecognizing the Greek Cypriots, there
could be no solution to the Cyprus problem. The refusal of the U N to do
this led both Turks and Turkish Cypriots to suspect the Security Council
and the whole international community of being biased against them, and
it also caused them to take a restrictive view of the use of the U N secre-
tary-general's good offices. In addition the Turkish Cypriots acquired a
conviction that U N peacekeepers could not protect them from Greek
Cypriot harassment. The Greek Cypriots for their part regarded their
recognition as the sole government of Cyprus as the jewel in their crown
and used their position in the various international organizations to out-
manoeuvre the Turks and Turkish Cypriots and to build up defences
against the latter's secession and attempts to achieve international recog-
nition. They came to believe that the Turks had always wanted to annex
Cyprus for its strategic value and that the Turkish Cypriots' complaints
about their plight was merely special pleading to provide cover for this
policy. The British, disinclined from the outset to allow themselves to be
6 CYPRUS T H E SEi\lICH FOR A S O L U T I O N

dragged back into Cyprus, came to see the United Nations as a preferable
instrument for conflict prevention and resolution than the Treaty of
Guarantee.
The Greek Cypriot coup d'e'tat in July 1974 triggered off a series of
events that profoundly altered all the parameters of the Cyprus problem.
The coup, which was actively encouraged by the military regime in
Athens, then in an advanced state of decay, resulted in the forcible over-
throw of Makarios and the installation as president of Nikos Sampson, a
former guerrilla fighter with an unsavoury reputation. It was followed by
a short but bloody civil war with his Greek Cypriot political opponents,
particularly members of AKEL, the Greek Cypriot communist party, and
by some high-profile attacks on Turkish Cypriot enclaves. Within days
the Turks invaded Cyprus and in two stages occupied about one-third of
the island, finally stopping their operations along the present Green 1,ine
which crosses Cyprus from east to west. During this military phase the
outside powers, the US and the UK in particular, avoided intervening and
did little more than wring their hands, calling for restraint on all sides.
Sampson's regime had collapsed (as did that of the military in Athens)
and, after some delay, during which Glafcos Clerides as president of the
National Assembly was acting president, Makarios returned. Many Greek
Cypriots from the north of the island fled south and many Turkish Cyp-
riots from the south fled north or took refuge in the British Sovereign
Base Areas. In 1975 this ethnic cleansing was regularized by an agreement
that enabled the practical arrangements for the population exchange to be
completed but did not legally recognize the exchange. Only a few Greek
Cypriots and some Maronites, the former mainly living in villages in the
Karpas Peninsula (the 'pan-handle') in the north-east, remained in the
north and even fewer Turkish Cypriots remained in the south. Thus in
1975 the geo-political configuration of Cyprus as we now know it came
into being, with two virtually mono-ethnic states separated by a buffer
zone guarded by UN peacekeeping troops.
These traumatic events scarred all parties in the dispute. The Greek
Cypriots had lost control of one-third of what they regarded as their
country, and the part most agriculturally fertile and developed for com-
mercial and tourist purposes at that. They were determined to recover at
least some of the territory lost. Moreover many tens of thousands of
Greek Cypriot refugees had abandoned their property in the north and
were left destitute; they and successive Greek Cypriot governments were
determined to get this property back in any settlement and regarded
getting compensation for its loss as an unacceptable alternative. These
property claims were eventually taken up in a series of private cases
brought before the Council of Europe's European Court of Human
Rights, where the first case was won in 1998. The Greeks had discovered
just how disastrous meddling in Cyprus's internal politics could prove for
them and for the Greek Cypriots. They had also discovered that if Tur-
key did intervene militarily, there was no way in which they could
effectively resupply their own and Greek Cypriot National Guard forces
in Cyprus and thus withstand the superior military might of Turkey.
Turkish aircraft could be over Cyprus within a few minutes of takeoff; by
contrast, by the time they had made the long trip from Rhodes or Crete,
Greek aircraft had only about 30 minutes' endurance over the island
before needing to refuel.
T h e Turkish Cypriots saw their view that only Turkey could be relied
upon when the chips were down vindicated. They were also confirmed in
their prejudices towards the Greek Cypriots as people who were deter-
mined at least to dominate Cyprus by force and at worst to expel all
Turkish Cypriots from the island. The Turks, whose military operations
had gone rather less smoothly than had appeared to the outside world,
were determined never again to be put in the position of having to mount
an opposed, amphibious landing in order to protect the Turkish Cypriots.
The Turkish military now had a massive troop presence (even today
numbering about 35,000) in the north and, as the Greek Cypriots recov-
ered from their defeat and began to acquire ever more sophisticated
equipment, found themselves having to deal not only with Turkish Cyp-
riot security concerns but with their own too. They also became
convinced that the British Sovereign Base Areas (of which the key airport
at Akrotiri was now embedded in the Greek Cypriot part of the island)
meant that Britain would always take the side of the Greek Cypriots in
any dispute. The outsiders had seen that a smouldering ethnic dispute
could burst into flames, which only narrowly avoided spreading into
hostilities between two NATO members; they were all the more con-
vinced of the need to work under the aegis of the UN for a settlement to
the Cyprus problem; but their alarm was not sufficient to incline them to
overcome their reluctance to get drawn into direct involvement.
From 1974 onwards a UN peacemaking process of some kind or
another was under way, with successive special representatives of the U N
secretary-general working with the two sides on the elements of a com-
prehensive settlement or, during some periods, on confidence-building
8 CYPRUS T H E SEARCH FOR i\ SOLU'TION

measures designed to reduce the tension on the Green Line and to pave
the way for a settlement.
In 1977 and 1979 I-Iigh-Level Agreements were reached, the first
between Makarios and Rauf Denktash, the second, following Makarios's
death, between Denktash and Spyros Kyprianou. These agreements were
only thin skeletons of a settlement, not the real thing. But they did estab-
lish a framework for a solution based on a bi-communal, bi-zonal
federation. The demand for a federation was a Turkish Cypriot one (they
had in 1975 named their own part of the island the Turkish Federated
State of Cyprus, i.e. not at this stage claiming independence from the state
of Cyprus). By conceding federation the Greek Cypriots effectively
recognized that the bi-communal unitary state of 1960 had gone beyond
recall and that in the future Cyprus would need to consist of two units,
with the Turkish Cypriots having a considerable range of responsibilities.
But attempts to move beyond this conceptual breakthrough were system-
atically frustrated by the obstinacy and hesitations of both sides when it
came to fleshing out the agreed framework.
In November 1983 Denktash and the Turks proclaimed, through a
unilateral declaration of independence, that the north of the island was
the Turlush Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). The United Nations
Security Council condemned this move and called on U N members not
to recognize the new state. None did; and, to this day, only Turkey
recognizes the TRNC. The 1983 declaration considerably complicated
the search for a settlement. By giving Denktash, backed by Turkey, a
status that was unnegotiable with the Greek Cypriots and with the whole
of the international community, it introduced a new, potentially insolu-
ble, element. And over time it also led directly to the further isolation of
the Turkish Cypriots, as their unrecognized claim gave rise to problems
ranging from the trade with the European Union to participation in
international sporting competitions and to international arrangements for
civil aviation. It therefore contributed to the widening prosperity gap
between north and south and to the increasing dependence of the north-
ern economy on Turkish subsidies.
In 1992 Boutros Boutros-Ghali's Set of Ideas brought together the
elements of a comprehensive settlement. This document, which was
negotiated at a series of meetings in New York between George Vassiliou
and Denktash, went far beyond the 1977 and 1979 High-Level Agree-
ments, on w h c h it was based, but still fell short of a comprehensive, self-
executing settlement. In any case it was never agreed, both sides still
having difficulties with it when negotiations were suspended for the
Greek Cypriot presidential elections in early 1991. The narrow victory of
Glafcos Clerides, who campaigned against the Set of Ideas, meant that the
negotiations for a settlement then lapsed. Instead the U N tried, through
1991 and 1994, to get agreement on a major package of Confidence-
Building Measures, the most significant of which would have led to the
return of the tourist ghost town of Varosha to the Greek Cypriots and to
the reopening of Nicosia Airport to trade and passenger transport with
both sides of the island (the airport, being in the UN buffer zone, was
contiguous to both north m d south). These negotiations also failed to
come to fruition; as ever in Cyprus, having swallowed the elephant, the
two sides strained at the gnat, agreeing to the principle but failing to agree
on the practical arrangements necessary to implement a deal.
Before we reach the period covered by the present book, one furthcr
development needs to be noted. In 1990 the Greek Cypriots applied for
Cyprus to become ;I member of the European Union; in 1995 this appli-
cation was, in principle, accepted as being valid by the European Union, a
date for opening negotiations being set at six months after the EU's Inter-
Governnlent,d Conference which met in Amsterdam in June 1997. The
Turkish Cypriots challenged the legality both of the application and of
the European Union's acceptance of it and refused point-blank Clerides's
invitation to join a common Cypriot negotiating team.
 The Players

ny diplomat facing a complex and extremely long-running inter-

national dispute such as the Cyprus problem and hoping to help
-move it towards solution needs to recognize and take account of
the importance of personalities and of the interaction between them for
any such effort. But he or she also needs to recognize that personalities are
not all-important, that even the strongest and most dominant characters
are not entirely free agents, and that national and sectoral interests, the
weight of history, the flow of events outside those directly related to the
problem, will influence the outcome every bit as much and sometimes
more than the actions and views of the individual players. This was
certainly the case with the Cyprus problem, which from the outset had
never anywhere near made it into the first league of world problems
demanding a solution and which remained for everyone except the in-
habitants of the island a second-order problem - one which it was
desirable to solve but which failure to solve would not be a life or death
matter.
As I made my way around the Cyprus circuit, two other things struck
me about the personalities involved. The first was the unevenness of the
importance of personality in the different capitals. On the island the two
leaders were precisely that, the virtually unchallenged determinants of
Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot policy and the real players in nego-
tiations if negotiations ever could be got under way. In Athens the
significance of the foreign minister's role in the determination of Cyprus
policy was considerable, but, given its history in Greece as a national
issue, far from absolute. In Ankara opacity was invariably the order of the
day. It was never at all clear where Turkey's Cyprus policy was being
decided or who was at any one time playing the key role in deciding it. It
was often tempting to believe that the answers were nowhere and no one,
and that policy was largely being decided by default, falling back, for lack
of agreement on any new policy, on the old one. Certainly personality
played some role - Bulent Ecevit's sincerely held belief that he had solved
the Cyprus problem in 1974 weighed like a dead hand on the policy-
making process so long as he was prime minister - but not, it seemed, a
crucially important one compared with the institutional and historical
influcnees.
The second impression was how tiny and how hermetically sealed was
the circle of those in each of the four capitals who had any real say in the
making of Cyprus policy. All four were democracies, but the public
debate on Cyprus in each of them was ill-informed, formulaic and chau-
vinistic. Negotiations to resolve the Cyprus problem had been going on
for so long and so fruitlessly that most commentators, journalists and
their readers had become bored and cynical, unwilling to look at the
issues with a fresh eye or to challenge conventional wisdom. Indeed many
journalists, especially on the island, seemed to consider it their patriotic
duty to follow the long-established partisan line and to denounce any
politician who dared to suggest that any aspect of it might be re-
examined. Within the bureaucracies, and in particular within the foreign
ministries in Athens and Ankara, Cyprus was an important and sensitive
subject but not an attractive one, not one to be chosen from a career
development point of view. Most officials kept their distance and concen-
trated on less static, less entrenched mew of policy. In Cyprus itself the
problem was an all-consuming obsession but far too politically charged
for officials or diplomats to have much say in the matter.
Two sets of inter-relationships between the principal players were of
critical importance - those between Greeks and Greek Cypriots on the
one hand and those between 'I'urks and Turkish Cypriots on the other -
but they were, by their nature, singularly difficult for an outsider to
penetrate or to comprehend fully. None of the players was prepared to
discuss these inter-relationships freely, and much effort was devoted by
all concerned to concealing from prying eyes and ears, including from
their own public, the content of their mutual discussions and the view
each took of the other. Both pairs also devoted a considerable effort to
sustaining what was often a fiction, or at least only a half-truth, namely
that their views at any given time and on any given issue were identical.
The relationship of thc Greek government and the Greek Cypriots was
burdened by history - by the perception that in the 1950s the Greek
government had traded in the aspirations of the Greek Cypriots for better
Greek-Turkish relations and that in 1974 the military regime in Athens
had overthrown the democratically elected president of Cyprus by force
12 C Y P R U S . T H E SEARCII FOR A S O L U T I O N

and thus precipitated the events that led to over one-third of the island
being controlled by Turkey and to the ethnic cleansing of 1975. Any
suggestion that the Greek government was giving less than wholehearted
support to the Greek Cypriots or was meddling in Greek Cypriot internal
politics was therefore dynamite, both in Athens and in Nicosia. Indeed
the official mantra quoted often by both Greek and Greek Cypriot politi-
cians and journalists was 'Cyprus decides; Greece supports'. Add to this
that throughout the period of negotiations the government in Nicosia was
on the right of the political spectrum while the Greek government was a
socialist one and there was plenty of scope for friction and submerged
tension.
The relationship between the Turkish government and the Turkish
Cypriots was rather different, although not entirely devoid of similar
tensions. The primacy of Denktash in determining not only Turkish
Cypriot but Turkey's policy on the Cyprus problem was longstanding.
Any challenge to it, as there had been when Prime Minister (and subse-
quent President) Turgut 0zal tried to settle the Cyprus problem, brought
about an immediate sharp rise in the temperature but had, hitherto at
least, always ended in victory for Denktash, who at any point in time had
as high, if not higher, opinion-poll ratings on the mainland as any Turkish
politician.
Strangely enough the personal relationships between the Greek Cyp-
riots and the Turkish Cypriots, and between their two leaders, Clerides
and Denktash, were of less significance than those other two symbiotic
pairs of relationships. It was true that Clerides and Denktash personally
got on well together, respected each other, reminisced about their time
practising law in colonial Cyprus and rather wistfully looked at each other
as the only ones from that period left standing. But that did not translate
into any beneficial effects at the negotiating table. Denktash was no more
flexible dealing with Clerides than he had been in the 1992 negotiations
with his predecessor Vassiliou, whom he disliked and distrusted. And
while Clerides initially thought that face-to-face negotiations with Denk-
tash were the key to unlocking a deal, he came to believe, once they had
started, that there was little point in negotiating directly with Denktash,
as the ultimate decisions would be taken in Ankara. So neither the ups
and downs in Clerides's and Denktash's view of each other, nor the fact
that, almost alone of Cypriot politicians on either side, they never made
personally offensive remarks about each other, played much of a role in
determining the outcome of the efforts to get a settlement.
 THE PLAYERS

The Greek Cypriots

The 1960 constitution of Cyprus was full of checks and balances between
Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, in particular between the Greek
Cypriot president and the Turkish Cypriot vice-president; but once, after
1963, the Turkish Cypriot dimension and participation had been re-
moved, what remained was an executive presidency whose powers and
influence were greater than in almost any other democratic state in the
world. The president was elected for five years; there was no limit on the
number of times he could be re-elected; he had no vice-president (the
president of the National Assembly stood in if the president was absent or
incapacitated); he had no prime minister and appointed all the ministers
(who did not need to be elected members of the legislature); it was the
norm to rule without a majority in the Assembly; he was the negotiator
for the Cyprus problem.
The holder of this powerful office for all but the last two weeks of the
period covered by the present book was Glafcos Clerides. He had been a
prominent figure in Greek Cypriot politics from before the establishment
of an independent Cyprus; he had been president of the National Assem-
bly at the time of the 1974 coup and had stood in for the first president,
Archbishop Makarios, until the latter returned to the island and resumed
office; he had been the Greek Cypriot negotiator for the Cyprus problem
when that post had been separate from the presidency; he had been
elected president for a first time in 1993 and for a second time in 1998, on
both occasions by a tiny majority of around 1 per cent; he was the leader
of the Democratic Rally, a centre-right, nationalist party, which through-
out his presidency was either the largest or the second largest in Greek
Cypriot politics; he was in his late 70s, passing his 80th birthday about
half way through his second term of office. He was short, rotund, bandy-
legged, with a twinkle in his eye, an infectious laugh and a complexion
that bore witness to his love of the sea and swimming. He was not much
interested in the day-to-day minutiae of government, which he left to his
ministers, and not at all in economic matters, and he found everything to
do with the European Union puzzling and not particularly enthralling.
His passion was the Cyprus problem, about which he was subtly and
encyclopaedically knowledgeable, reflected in his multi-volume autobiog-
raphy, My [Link] understood very well that the Greek Cypriots
had made major mistakes, with disastrous consequences, when they had
hijacked the Republic in 1963 and when they had precipitated the hostili-
ties in 1974. He was determined to learn and to apply the lessons from
14 C Y P R U S . I ' H E S E A R C H I;OR A SOI.U'I I O N

those mistakes. As time wore on, as the residue of his second term of
office grew shorter, and as the negotiations intensified, he became ever
more committed to achieving a positive outcome, although never at any
price. The Clerides one met in his office, invariably over a working
breakfast, could be tetchy and irritable if he thought things were not
going well or that he was being put under pressure, but generally he was a
fluent and flexible interlocutor, abreast of every twist and turn of the
negotiations. The Clerides one met on his boat on a swimming expedi-
tion, with none of his ministers or officials present, was a perfect host, full
of stories drawn from his time in the RAF during the war, when the
bomber of which he was a crew member was shot down over Germany
(an MKI scan in the last months of his presidency picked up only one
piece of Second World War shrapnel, much to his doctor's relief), and
from his long political career, loving to gossip about personalities and
addressing the negotiations only in a tangential and non-specific way.
Clerides's negotiating team was small, the inner core consisting of his
attorney-general Alecos Markides and his under-secretary and eminence
grise Pantelis Kouros. Markides was a skilled and assiduous lawyer who
was equally capable of using his legal knowledge to frustrate or to facili-
tate progress in the negotiations; during the proximity talks the accent
was on the former, during the final year of negotiations very much on the
latter. Behind a gruff and often glowering exterior, he nursed a burning
ambition to be president himself. There were also three semi-detached
figures: Ioannis Kasoulides, who was the president's spokesman at the
outset and then his foreign minister, George Vassiliou, Clerides's prede-
cessor as president and later Cyprus's chief negotiator with the European
Union, and Michalis Papapetrou who was spokesman during the crucial
phases of the negotiation. Kasoulides (who also nursed presidential ambi-
tions), Vassiliou and Papapetrou were a good deal more outward-looking
and cosmopolitan than the normal run of Greek Cypriot politicians and
realized how tight a rope the Greek Cypriot politicians were walking if
they were to be accepted into the European Union even without a settle-
ment of the Cyprus problem. Kasoulides was capable of wearing either
hawkish or doveish plumage; Vassiliou was an imaginative and commit-
ted dove and was a close confidant of Clerides; Papapetrou, an
enthusiastic participant in bi-communal meetings with Turkish Cypriots,
was also a dove - even if compelled by his role as spokesman to appear
hawkish in public - although much less close to Clerides than the other
two and a less experienced politician.
 T H E PLAYERS 15

For the last two weeks before the negotiations ended in March 2003
Clerides gave way to Tassos Papadopoulos, the incoming president, who
had handsomely won the presidential election in mid-February. Papado-
poulos, another lawyer, had also figured prominently in most phases of
Greek Cypriot history pre- and post-independence. He had at one stage
served as Clerides's deputy negotiator on the Cyprus problem before
taking the role over from him. He had a reputation as a hardline rejec-
tionist, a reputation that he did everything possible to live down once he
had reached agreement with the communist party (AKEL) to support his
presidential candidature and during the campaign itself. In my own
dealings with him, both over the years when he was deputy leader, then
leader of DIKO (a centre-right natinnalist party formerly led by Spyros
Kyprianou), and in the short period after he was elected president, Papa-
dopoulos was always exceptionally careful to avoid saying anything
which would enable him to be categorized as a rejectionist. But he was
less careful in his public comments aimed at a domestic audience and it
was not too difficult to gauge that he was less committed to making the
compromises necessary to achieve a successful outcome than Clerides.
T o the extent that the Greek Cypriot president was accountable to
anyone it was not to his parliament but rather to the National Council,
which grouped together the leaders of the political parties represented in
the Assembly and past presidents of Cyprus (i.e. Spyros Kyprianou, until
his death in 2002, and George Vassiliou). This peculiar body (set up
outside the constitution) had no other function than to advise the presi-
dent on the conduct of negotiations on the Cyprus problem and did not
have powers of decision unless it was unanimous. And given that Clerides
could normally rely on the leader of his own political party (Nikos
Anastasiades) and on Vassiliou to back him up, the chances of his ever
being overruled were minimal. But since any settlement reached would
need to be endorsed subsequently in a referendum, the views and in-
volvement of the party leaders, even those politically opposed to Clerides,
were important and could not easily be ignored. The National Council
was also remarkably leaky, with the result that, however hard Kofi Annan
and Alvaro de Soto might work to keep a news blackout over the details of
the negotiations and however well Clerides might try to cooperate with
this policy, it never worked; and, within minutes of Clerides briefing the
National Council, some version of the briefing, usually several versions,
spun this way and that to suit the views of the leaker, was in the hands of
the media. In theory Clerides could leave the National Council behind
16 C Y P R U S : THIS S E A R C H F O R A S O I . U T I O N

when the negotiations took place outside Cyprus (this option obviously
did not exist when they were in Nicosia) but in practice it was not an
attractive course to take; the members of the National Council left behind
in Nicosia were all too likely to spend their time sniping at the president
on the basis of inaccurate press reports. On most occasions, therefore,
they went along, a handicap but a necessary one.
The key players in the National Council, apart from the president
himself and his team and the leader of his own party, were the leaders of
the three biggest parties, Dimitris Christofias of AKEL, the communist
party, Spyros Kyprianou (later Tassos Papadopoulos) of DIKO, and
Vasos Lyssarides (later Yannakis Omirou) of the socialist party KISOS,
formerly EDEK. Of these, Christofias was by a long way the most im-
portant politically. The reason was simple. Come wind, come rain, AKEL
clocked in approximately one-third of the vote in any Cyprus election,
and it voted as their leader told it to, like the unreconstructed Marxist-
Leninist party that it was. So, if AKEL opposed a settlement, it would not
be easy to muster a majority in a referendum (an integral part of all set-
tlement plans from the 1992 Set of Ideas onwards) in favour of one.
Traditionally AKEL had been the most doveish of the Greek Cypriot
parties, with links to a Turkish Cypriot sister party (Talat's CTP). But
the party had been out of office and deprived of the perquisites of office
since 1993, and gradually the determination to reverse that came to pre-
vail over any spirit of moderation on the Cyprus problem. Christofias, the
architect of the alliance with Papadopoulos (which brought him, along the
way, the presidency of the National Assembly), gradually hardened his
position in the settlement negotiations, resisting Clerides's efforts to enlist
his support. Papadopoulos's views have already been described. As to
Lyssarides, who had been Makarios's doctor, he was a flamboyant and
quixotic rejectionist, the strength of his views only tempered by his close
links with the Greek governing party, PASOK, which was, of course,
throughout the latter part of this period far from rejectionist. Once Omi-
rou took over the leadership and particularly during the period up to
December 2002 when he was being promoted as a coalition candidate to
succeed Clerides with the electoral support of the latter's party, there
ceased to be problems in the National Council from that quarter.
Outside the president, his negotiating team and the National Council,
there were really no other significant players on the Greek Cypriot side.
The ministers were completely cut out of the action. The foreign ministry
and the diplomatic service (apart from Kasoulides and his private secre-
tary) were told little of what was going on and were left to wage the
endless worldwide campaign to resist Turkish and Turkish Cypriot
efforts to enhance the TRNC's status. 'l'here was one other important
factor, the media, most definitely part of the problem, not part of the
solution. It is a safe bet to say that no place on earth has a greater concen-
tration of newspapers and of television and radio stations than the
southern part of the island of Cyprus - six daily newspapers, five national
television stations and about 50 radio stations, all serving 600,000 people.
And all of them were writing and broadcasting almost exclusively about
only one subject, the Cyprus problem. Given the paucity of news on that
topic, the media were driven to making most of it up as they went along.
Issuing rebuttals of their latest fictional extravagances was grist to their
mill. T o some extent such saturation coverage and such an unprofessional
attitude to reporting were self-defeating. Anyone who handled the Cy-
prus problem just had to grow an extra skin, preferably several. But,
watching from the depths of one of Denktash's sofas as a gaggle of Greek
Cypriot journalists called in to cover one's call on Denktash, put offen-
sively worded questions to him and then scribbled out feverishly the
equally offensively worded replies, was to feel that one was in the pres-
ence of two of the most prominent obstacles to reaching a settlement.

The Turkish Cypriots

The powers of the Turkish Cypriot president were, on paper at least, less
than those of his Creek Cypriot counterpart, but in practice his position
was even more dominant and less constrained. The Turkish Cypriot
constitution, which bore some superficial resemblance to that of Turkey
itself, in fact, largely due to the personalities involved, operated quite
differently. So what appeared on the surface to be a parliamentary sys-
tem, with a prime minister and a government based on a coalition
enjoying majority support in the legislature, in reality operated as a
presidential system, with all decisions relating to the Cyprus problem in
the hands of Ilenktash who, like Clerides, was the negotiator. If one
added to that the unwritten code by which Denktash was the main and
often the sole Turkish Cypriot interlocutor of both the Turkish govern-
ment and the Turkish military, one ended up with a situation in which
Iknktash called all the shots. And although, when he wanted to play for
time or to avoid responsibility, he would often say that he would have to
consult his government or parliament, or that the matter in question was
for the government and not for him to decide, this was no more than a
18 CYPRUS T H E SEARCH FOR A SOLU'I'ION

fa~ade:when an important matter arose on which he wished to take a

position no such procedures were invoked or applied.
Rauf Denktash had been president throughout the nearly 20-year
existence of the T R N C and before that he had been president of the
Turkish Cypriot federated state. IIe bestrode north Cyprus like a colos-
sus, and indeed, despite his modest stature, he did embody that image. A
massive torso was topped by an expressive and dominant face with a large
nose (about which he was capable of making jokes, particularly when
comparing it to that of Papadopoulos whose nose had been likened to
Cyrano de Bergerac's). Like Clerides, although some years after him, he
had been trained as a lawyer in Britain and had practised in colonial
Cyprus, with the interesting distinction that whereas Clerides tended to
defend Greek Cypriot guerrilla fighters, Denktash prosecuted them on
behalf of the British authorities. H e had an almost unstoppable flow of
idiomatic and forceful English which he would unleash on any new
visitor in the form of a lengthy history lesson retailing all the sufferings of
the Turkish Cypriots and all the iniquities of the Greek Cypriots. With
those who had progressed beyond that opening salvo (which tended to be
repeated for several visits before it was accepted that something closer to a
dialogue might be more useful) he would launch himself with enthusiasm
into a rumbustious and aggressively conducted debate during which,
however, he always remained polite, correct and controlled, with bursts of
humour often breaking through. As a host at his residence near Snake
Island, a few miles west of Kyrenia, he could be extremely hospitable,
though relaxed was hardly a word one would use even there, except when
he was talking about photography or was conducting a guided tour of his
collection of budgerigars, parrots and small animals, kept in a menagerie
behind the house. Like Clerides he had a remarkable supply of engaging
personal reminiscences - of being in Trafalgar Square on VE Day, of his
escape from house arrest in Ankara in the 1960s (when the Turks re-
garded him as a dangerous firebrand), of his return to Cyprus in a small
boat, leading to his arrest and deportation by the Makarios government.
There was, however, a darker side to Denktash: his isolation from anyone
who might have stood up to him, his vindictiveness towards anyone
among his own people who criticized him and towards Greek Cypriots,
both collectively and individually.
Most of those who had dealt with Denktash in the past had reached
the conclusion that he simply did not particularly want a settlement of the
Cyprus problem or at least not one short of a wholesale capitulation by
 'THE P L A Y E R S 19

the Greek Cypriots. I came to share that view. The basic case that he
made for a completely new start, with genuine political equality for the
Turkish Cypriots, was a compelling one. But the language he used to
describe it and the proposals he put forward to bring it about were not
even remotely negotiable, and his forthright condemnation and misrepre-
sentation of proposals designed to achieve these objectives by less direct
methods than he favoured suggested that he did not really believe them to
be attainable. Moreover the Greek Cypriot fear that his ultimate aim was
secession and permanent partition of the island was no mere figment of
their imagination. It often seemed to me that Denktash's own preferred
solution was that north Cyprus should become part of Turkey. He clearly
did not trust his successors, whoever they might be, to hold to the firm
line he had established, and he certainly did not trust Turkish govern-
ments, either present or future, to do so either. So the only way to lock
the door and throw away the key was through annexation. Unfortunately
for him this was the one solution that no Turkish government with a
concern for its international standing and aspirations to join the European
Union could contemplate. So he was forced to make do with what he
regarded as second best, although that did not stop him hankering after
his ideal solution or trying to edge his way towards it.
Another feature of Denktash's handling of the Cyprus problem, which
it took me longer to understand, was his fundamental unwillingness to
negotiate at all with the U N or with those backing its efforts. There was
never any question of his responding with some flexibility to private
probing about where areas of common ground with the Greek Cypriots
might exist. It gradually dawned on me that the only people he ever
negotiated with were the Turks themselves. With them he showed great
agility and manipulative skills. His objective was to enlist in advance the
backing of the Turkish state for whatever position he was going to take in
the negotiations and, once he had it, to camp on that position and refuse
to budge. He thus validated the views of those who said that it was only
in Ankara that a solution to the Cyprus problem could be found.
Denktash's negotiating team was as exiguous as that of Clerides but it
lacked the bureaucratic underpinning which the Greek Cypriots un-
doubtedly had and which enabled them to produce large amounts of
material for the legislation in a new Cyprus at short notice when the final
stage of the negotiations got under way. Denktash's main adviser was
Mumtaz Soysal, a Turkish academic and politician who had briefly
served as foreign minister in the early 1990s. Soysal was about as hard a
20 C Y P R U S : T H E S E A R C H I:OR \I [Link]

liner as you could get on the Cyprus issue, and was viscerally opposed to
Turkey joining the European Union, and so reinforced Denktash's preju-
dices on both these matters. In addition he was inclined to inject his own
particular brand of vitriol into joint negotiating sessions with the Greek
Cypriots. The other member of the Turkish Cypriot negotiating team
was Ergun Olgun, Denktash's under-secretary. His background was in
business and not in politics, and a spell at a university in the United States
had somewhat widened his horizons. But he was still very much his
master's voice, at least until a very late stage in the negotiations when his
involvement in the joint working group drawing up the international
obligations and domestic legislation for a reunited Cyprus began to open
his eyes to the benefits that the Turkish Cypriots could get under the
Annan Plan. Apart from those three and because of Denktash's refusal to
countenance any hint of opposition to his policies from those around him,
there was really little else that could be described as a negotiating team, as
became all too apparent when Denktash went into hospital in New York
in October 2002. Olgun remained with him and Soysal retired to Ankara,
thus leaving effectively a vacuum where the Turkish Cypriot pillar of the
negotiations was supposed to be.
Denktash had no National Council of party leaders to hobble him as
Clerides did. The prime minister, Dervish Eroglu, and his UBP party,
which had the largest number of seats in the Turkish Cypriot Assembly
but not a majority, had even more negative views on the Cyprus problem
than Denktash. Their coalition partners in the early stages of the negotia-
tion were the centre-left TKP led by the doveish Mustafa Akinci, a
former mayor of Turkish Cypriot Nicosia and a man determined to work
for a compromise settlement. But he had little influence on the govern-
ment's policy and none at all on Denktash's. When the TKP was removed
from the government following disagreement over Denktash's decision to
walk out of the negotiations in November 2000, it was replaced as junior
partner in the coalition by Denktash's party, the DP, led initially, and
again at the end of 2002, by his son Serdar. The main Turkish Cypriot
critic of Denktash's intransigence was Mehmet Ali Talat, whose centre-
left C T P was in opposition throughout the period of negotiations, and
who kept up a drum-beat of well-directed comments, but for a long time
with little impact, not least because of his uneasy relationship with An-
kara. It was only in 2002, when the establishment of a non-political
movement under the leadership of Ali Ere1 of the Turkish Cypriot
Chamber of Commerce, designed to rally support for a settlement and for
 T H E PLAYERS 21

joining the European Union, provided a focus and an umbrella for the
opposition's activity, that serious pressure on Denktash began to mount.
T h e centre-left parties did particularly well in the municipal elections that
year, winning the mayoralties in three of the largest towns in the north,
Nicosia, Famagusta and Kyrenia. This was followed at the end of the year
and early in 2003 by a series of huge (by Turkish Cypriot standards and
numbers) public demonstrations in support of the Annan Plan and mem-
bership of the European Union. For the first time in the history of the
T R N C Denktash found himself faced with a serious opposition.
This pattern was to some extent reflected in the Turkish Cypriot
media, who were in any case a good deal more deferential and submissive
than their colleagues in the south. For a long time support for Denktash's
policies in the press was general and unquestioning, with only one notable
dissenter, AVRUPA (later renamed AFRIlSA after attempts to close it
down), a courageous voice crying in the wilderness and subjected to
continuous harassment by the authorities. But, as opposition to Denk-
tash's rejectionist policies mounted in Turkish Cypriot society in general
during 2002, so too did criticism in the press, with the main daily paper
KIBRIS coming out in support of the Annan Plan, and with the whole
tone of the media becoming more critical of Denktash and Turkey.

Greece
The Greek corner of the quadrilateral was the one where the players were
the least directly and the least intensively engaged in the process of the
Cyprus negotiations. This partly reflected the desire of the Greek Cypri-
ots to avoid the impression that they were other than fully masters of
their own fate, and of the more mature nature of Greek Cypriot democ-
racy. Also, historical experience had made both Greeks and Greek
Cypriots wary of too close a Greek involvement in Cyprus affairs. But
this detachment at times reflected a calculation that Turkey was interna-
tionally at a disadvantage in a whole number of ways as long as the
Cyprus problem was unresolved, so that it was no skin off Greece's nose
if it remained that way, and that continuing deadlock would be easier to
handle than the awkward compromises that a settlement would require.
Those who took a pessimistic view of the chances of getting a settlement
tended to be in that camp. Against that view, and in complete contrast to
it, were those who believed that it was in Greece's interest to bring about
a strategic shift in the relationship with Turkey and to achieve a lasting
and solidly based rapprochement with that country. This school of
22 CYPRUS 'I'Hk SEr\RCH FOR I\ [Link]

thought was all too well aware that without a settlement of the Cyprus
problem any such rapprochement was bound to remain incomplete,
limited in scope and fragile.
The Greek prime minister throughout the period of these negotiations
was Constantinos Simitis. Very early on in his premiership, at the begin-
ning of 1996, the Imia crisis between Greece and Turkey over conflicting
claims to an uninhabited islet in the Aegean had jeopardized his hold on
power. This had reinforced his natural caution about any high-risk moves
involving Turkey, but it had also reminded him of the capacity of the
disputes between Greece and Turkey to blow off course his own prime
objective of making Greece into a modern, prosperous European state
with sound finances. His tendency, therefore, was to stand well back from
the Cyprus problem, waiting and watching to see how others fared in
their efforts towards a solution, neither hindering nor greatly helping
them. Insofar as he could, he avoided giving prominence to Cyprus in his
dealings with other European leaders and he avoided also getting too
personally involved in the rapprochement with Turkey. H e deliberately
left these issues to his two successive foreign ministers who held diamet-
rically opposite views both on Cyprus and on the relationship with
Turkey.
At the beginning of the period covered by this book the Creek foreign
minister was Theodoros Pangalos. For him Cyprus was not so much a
problem to be solved as a piece on the larger chessboard of Greek-Turk-
is11 relations to be manoeuvred for tactical advantage in this wider game
and deployed as a grievance when necessary. This approach very much
cut with the grain of traditional Greek foreign policy and the views of the
majority of Greek diplomats. Pangalos's deputy, Ioannis Ihanidiotis,
himself of Greek Cypriot origin, who continued in that position when
George Papandreou took over as foreign minister, had less clearcut views
and gradually came to appreciate that a settlement might be achievable on
terms consistent with Greek and Greek Cypriot interests. How far this
dawning support for settlement negotiations might have carried him we
shall never know, since he died tragically in a freak aeroplane accident in
1999, but he would have been a key player in the tricky interface between
Greece and the Greek Cypriots.
Papandreou, who took over as foreign minister following Pangalos's
resignation in early 1999, was no Cyprus expert at the outset, but he had
clear views about the strategic interest for Greece to have a better rela-
tionship with Turkey, and he well understood that Cyprus could be
either an obstacle or a source of momentum towards achieving that ob-
jective. Immediately he immersed himself in the subject and went to
considerable trouble to ensure that he saw all those on the Cyprus circuit
whenever they visited Athens, on one occasion even breaking into a hectic
round of electioneering in the midst of a general election to find an hour
to talk things over with me. Meetings with Papandreou were invariably
both agreeable and valuable. H e would concentrate hard on what his
visitor had to say and engaged directly with any suggestions he might
make. His own softly spoken contributions set out Greek positions in
firm, clear but conciliatory terms. There was never any doubt that he saw
a Cyprus settlement as being in Greece's interest and that he would do
what he reasonably could to bring one about. His handling of his frequent
contacts with his Turkish counterpart, Ismail Cem, and of his visits to
Cyprus both bore witness to his determination to play an active and
positive role.
Fortunately, and somewhat surprisingly given the historical record,
Cyprus remained a largely bi-partisan issue in Greece throughout this
period. I used to see either the opposition New Democracy foreign affairs
spokesperson, Dora Bakoyanni (until she became mayor of Athens), or
the leader of the opposition, Costas Karamanlis, whenever I visited Ath-
ens, to brief them on what was going on. They too were supportive of the
UN's efforts to get a solution and wary, but not critical, of the Annan
Plan as it gradually emerged and evolved. It was clear that they would
have been only too happy if the Cyprus problem had been resolved before
the next opportunity for them to regain power arose at the general elec-
tion of 2004.

Turkey
In none of the four key capitals was it more difficult for an outsider to
discover how and where the real decisions on Cyprus policy were taken
than in Ankara, and in none was it more difficult to be sure who was a
real player, who an adviser and who merely a spectator. Even well-
informed Turks had difficulty reading the runes. For much of the period
(1996-2002) the government of Turkey was in the hands of a succession
of fractious, fractured coalitions whose component parties had differing
views on almost every subject under the sun and thus had the greatest
difficulty formulating policy on any of them. In many cases, of which
Cyprus was one, this difficulty in formulating policy led to paralysis and
to falling back by default on existing policy, however inadequate that
24 C Y P R U S : T H E SEARCII FOR A S O L U T I O N

might be to the needs of the current situation. Right at the end of the
period (from November 2002 until March 2003) and during the crucial
phase of the negotiations, the new AK party, following its crushing gen-
eral election victory, was in office as a single-party government, albeit
with two successive prime ministers, Abdullah Gul and Recep Tayyip
Erdogan. But the attitude and behaviour of the Turkish 'establishment' (a
word which I think better and more neutrally conveys the complex and
interconnected structure of the military, the bureaucracy, the diplomatic
service, opinion formers in the academic and journalistic world and big
business than does the phrase 'the deep state' which is often used) was not
welcoming to the new government and this led to considerable tension
and a disconnect between what the politicians were saying and what was
actually happening in the decision-making machinery of the state.
Of the Turkish prime ministers during this period, none was at ease
with the Cyprus problem and none was prepared to engage in serious and
detailed discussion of it with their foreign visitors to Ankara or on their
own visits overseas. Necmettin Erbakan took a straight nationalist line,
Mesut Yilmaz was taciturn in the extreme, and Ecevit's view that he had
settled Cyprus in 1974 hardly offered an easy entry into a serious discus-
sion. Gul and Erdogan were different (and Gul actually had a good deal
of practical experience of grappling with the Cyprus problem from his
time as minister responsible for Cyprus in the ErbakanICiller govern-
ment). Their public posture 'no solution is no solution' and their readiness
to approach the Annan Plan with an open mind were strongly positive
developments. But they had the greatest difficulty, and received little help
from the establishment, in grappling with the complexities of the settle-
ment negotiations in the short time allowed to them after their election
victory. Every one of these prime ministers had to take account of Denk-
tash's views, which reached them both directly and through the
establishment and which were unfailingly negative and a complicating
factor.
The successive foreign ministers, Tansu Ciller, Ismail Cem, Sukru
Sina Giirel, Yasar Yakis and Abdullah Gul, were a good deal closer to the
everyday action on the Cyprus problem than were the prime ministers,
and it was their officials in the foreign ministry who provided the infor-
mation and the advice. But they too showed considerable reluctance to
engage in serious discussion with outsiders on the subject. It was just too
difficult politically, too sensitive and too complex to be easy or attractive
to handle. In the seven years I spent dealing with Cyprus, during which I
 T I I E [Link].S 25

frequently saw each of these ministers (with the exception of Yakis,

whom I did not meet in his brief tenure), I can count the occasions on
which discussion really got to grips with the essentials on the fingers of
one hand. Cem's reluctance to involve himself in the Cyprus problem
extended even to his frequent and often fruitful dealings with the Greek
foreign minister. Papandreou tried again and again to address the issues,
including those which directly concerned Greece and Turkey - for exam-
ple the number of Greek and Turkish troops that should remain in
Cyprus after a settlement - only to be systematically fended off or treated
to generalities. Giirel's brief tenure was particularly unproductive since
his views on Cyprus were those of Denktash, only more so.
So that left as interlocutors (once the military became completely
incommunicado to overseas, non-military visitors on this or any other
subject in 1997) the small group of senior officials in the foreign ministry
who dealt directly with Cyprus and Greek-Turkish relations. Through-
out the period the under-secretary at the ministry (whom in the British
system we would call the permanent under-secretary and who, in the
absence of any junior ministers, came directly underneath the foreign
minister) became more and more expected to handle Cyprus in a hands-
on, detailed way. So an intensive dialogue developed with successive
holders of that office, Onur Oymen, Korkmaz Haktanir, Faruk Logoglu
and Ugur Ziyal. Of these, the dealings with Ziyal, who was there during
the most intensive phase of the negotiations, were particularly useful. H e
was hard-hitting but straightforward and ready to look for solutions as
well as problems, but always had what was best for Turkey at the fore-
front of his mind. H e was for the U N and for all those supporting its
efforts a crucial point of contact and often the only fully authoritative
exponent of Turkish policy on Cyprus. Carrying the burden of the run-
up to the war in Iraq at the same time as the Cyprus endgame, he was
under tremendous pressure.
Below the under-secretary there was a departmental team headed by
officials at the equivalents of British deputy secretary and under-secretary
rank. Many of those who held these jobs had spent a substantial propor-
tion of their professional lives dealing with Cyprus issues, often shuttling
between postings to the Turkish embassy in north Nicosia (a massive
establishment, given the scale of the Turkish financial support pro-
gramme and military presence in the north of the island, but one cut off
from all normal diplomatic intercourse by the fact that Turkey did not
recognize the Greek Cypriot government and no one else recognized the
 CYPKUS TIIE SbAKCII I O R A [Link]'ION

T R N C to whom the Turkish embassy was accredited) and the Cyprus

section of the foreign ministry. They tended either to be faithful mouth-
pieces for Denktash's views or to have a rather short tenure of their jobs.
For a long time Cyprus was something of a non-subject in both Turk-
ish politics and the media. As a national issue government parties and the
opposition both tended to stand shoulder-to-shoulder in defence of the
status quo and of whatever formulation of it Denktash was putting for-
ward at the time. The media had concluded that nothing much was going
to come of the UN's efforts to get a solution on Cyprus and that this need
not worry Turkey too much. After earlier decades in which Cyprus had
been a prominent issue for the Turkish media they were slow to recognize
that it was about to become so again. All that changed considerably
during 2002 when the negotiations moved into a higher gear and aware-
ness began to dawn of the problematic inter-relationship between
Turkey's EU aspirations and its Cyprus policy, and even more so with
the advent of the new AKP government which seemed genuinely com-
mitted to working for a solution in Cyprus. The only parliamentary
opposition following the November 2002 elections, the CHP, who re-
garded themselves as the true heirs to the Atatiirkist tradition,
immediately became hardline critics of the government's attempts to
negotiate a solution and of the Annan Plan. The media, on the other hand,
broke out into a thoroughly pluralist debate on Turkey's interests in
Cyprus and on how best to protect and forward them, with views chal-
lenging the conventional wisdom surfacing for the first time for many
years.
 The Issues

T
hroughout the period covered by this negotiation, and indeed for
more than 20 years prior to it, there had been little dispute that
four core issues would need to be resolved if there was to be a
comprehensive settlement of the Cyprus problem. These issues - govern-
ance, security, territory and property - were at the heart of each of the
successive negotiations that took place under the aegis of the United
Nations in the period after the Greek Cypriot coup of 1974, the Turkish
military intervention that followed it, the division of the island along a
ceasefire line (the Green Line) and the subsequent transfer of populations,
with almost all the Greek Cypriots living north of the line being trans-
ferred to the south and almost all the Turkish Cypriots living south of the
line being transferred to the north. These events fundamentally changed
the parameters within which any negotiation would take place. In place of
an island where Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots had lived mingled
in close proximity in some 300 towns and villages, there was now an
island divided into two zones, each with a largely mono-ethnic popula-
tion.
In addition to these four core issues there were others to which one or
the other side attached the greatest importance and insisted they too
would need to be resolved if there was to be a settlement. For the Greek
Cypriots these included what was to be done about those Turkish citizens
who had come to the north of the island since 1974 (often referred to
disobligingly as 'settlers'), many of whom had meanwhile been granted
Turkish Cypriot citizenship. For the Turkish Cypriots the issues of the
status of their state (the TRNC), which had been unilaterally proclaimed
an independent sovereign state in 1983 but not recognized as such by any
country other than Turkey, and sovereignty were of fundamental impor-
tance. And for both, the question of continuity between any new Cyprus
and the state of affairs that had preceded it, both in the south and the
north of the island, were of extreme significance and sensitivity, the
28 CYPRUS T H E S E / \ R C H FOR A S O L U T I O N

Greek Cypriots insisting at the outset on a simple amendment of the 1960

constitution, the Turkish Cypriots demanding a legally new entity. T o
these other issues came to be added that of the accession to the European
Union of a reunited Cyprus which was clearly going to require specific
provisions going beyond the usual transitional arrangements and temporal
adjustments, if any settlement of the Cyprus problem (which would, of
necessity, contain provisions not easily reconcilable with EU law and
practice) was not going to be undermined by accession and the applica-
tion of the accluis communautaire (the body of exisiting EU legislation
which a new member state has to accept on its accession).
N o review of the main issues would, however, be complete without
reference to two intangible but nevertheless real fears, which can be
thought of as the twin nightmares of the two peoples of the island. For the
Greek Cypriots the nightmare was of a settlement that somehow enabled
the Turkish Cypriots subsequently to secede from the new Cyprus and
achieve the international recognition that had hitherto eluded them. For
the Turkish Cypriots, the nightmare was that, however carefully political
equality and balance was nailed down in the settlement itself, the Greek
Cypriots would somehow succeed in dominating the institutions of a new
Cyprus and would in effect hijack them, as the Turkish Cypriots believed
they had done successfully in 1963. No solutions to the core issues and to
the additional problems referred to above were going to be sufficient
unless it also proved possible to banish or at least to diminish these twin
nightmares.

Governance
The Cyprus that gained independence in 1960 was endowed with a
system of governance that virtually defies categorization. It could perhaps
be described as a bi-communal but unitary state, which required a high
degree of consensus to work because of the extensive veto powers given to
the minority Turkish Cypriot community. The system rapidly became
deadlocked over a fiscal issue in 1963, prompting the Greek Cypriots to
move to amend the constitution unilaterally, at which point the bi-
communal system as such ceased to operate. One of the few points about
which both sides agreed was that it made no sense to revert to this 1960
system. Two successive High-Level Agreements reached between the
two sides in the late 1970s planned to replace that system by a bi-zonal,
bi-communal federation, but the subsequent negotiations in the 1980s and
 T H E ISSUES 29

early 1990s never enabled agreement to be reached on the specifics of how

that should be done.
Despite the fact that the switch from a unitary to a federal state had
originally been a reluctant concession by the Greek Cypriots to the
Turkish Cypriots, the former stood by the concept even when the Turk-
ish Cypriots in 1998 upped their demands and insisted on a confederation.
This difference over a federal v. a confederal system was a constant
feature of the negotiations that began in 1999, with all Turkish Cypriot
proposals after that date being based on a confederal model and all Greek
Cypriot proposals rejecting that and continuing to be based on a federal
model. The terminology is arcane but important. In the language of the
Cyprus problem 'federal' came to signify a single recognized state, de-
volving a high level of autonomy to two subordinate entities, whereas
'confederal' meant two recognized states pooling 'their' sovereignty on a
limited range of issues, mainly foreign policy related. In the event this
was a less significant aspect of the negotiations than it might have been
following the tacit acceptance of the United Nations' suggestion in July
2000 that the whole question of labels be set on one side, to be addressed
only at thr end of the negotiations. In reality, while there were major
differences in the approach to governance of the two sides, there was a
strong element of semantics about the argument over labels. The 1992 Set
of Ideas, while labelled a federation, contained a number of confederal
elements in it, and the same was true of the proposals that emerged dur-
ing the 1999-2003 negotiations (the Swiss precedents, which played some
role in shaping these latter proposals, are equally ambiguous, Switzerland
having a federal government but being entitled a confederation).
The failure to reach agreement on the specifics of a bi-zonal, bi-
communal federation during the 1992 negotiations led by Boutros-Ghali
masked the fact that there was much common ground established at that
time which it was possible to carry forward into the subsequent negotia-
tions. It was not seriously disputed that the central government would
have responsibility for a rather limited number of subjects, some of which
would in any case, after EU accession, be a matter for decision at the
European rather than the national level, nor that all matters not specifi-
cally allocated to the central government in the settlement would fall to be
decided by the separate governments of the two zones, nor that any future
change in that allocation would need to be made by common agreement
of the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriots. Nor was there wide
disagreement over the actual powers to be given to the central govern-
10 CYPRUS T H E S E A R C H F O R ,\ S O L U T I O N

ment. It was also not seriously disputed that the executive would need to
be made up of an appropriate balance of Greek and Turkish Cypriots,
which would ensure that the representatives of one community could not
force decisions through against the wishes of those of the other; that there
should be a bi-camera1 legislature with an upper house split equally
between the two communities and a lower house which reflected at least
to some extent the difference in population size of the two communities;
and that there should be a supreme court on which both communities
would be equally represented.
But, apart from these areas of potential convergence, there were plenty
of others in the field of governance where the positions were sharply
divided. The Turkish Cypriots wanted an explicit veto in every institu-
tion of government - executive, legislative and judicial - and only paid lip
service to the need to reflect in some institutions the greater population of
the Greek Cypriots; the fact that the 1960 constitution had, at least in
part, been shipwrecked by excessive rigidity did not seem to concern
them. The Greek Cypriots wanted to ensure that deadlocks would not
occur, crippling the central government, and pushed for a strong reflec-
tion of their numerical superiority. The Greek Cypriots would have liked
to have had electoral arrangements that involved some cross-voting of
Greek Cypriots for Turkish Cypriot candidates and vice-versa in an
attempt to get away from a two-states mentality after a settlement. This
idea was anathema to the Turkish Cypriots who feared it could lead to
effective domination of Turkish Cypriot elections by Greek Cypriots.
The Turkish Cypriots wanted a rotating presidency in which they would
have had an equal share or alternatively a co-presidency, between their
leader and that of the Greek Cypriots. The latter considered that their
numerical superiority entitled them to the presidency, if not all the time,
at least for the greater part of it. Both sides were extremely reluctant to
envisage any non-Cypriot judges (and certainly not British ones) on the
Supreme Court, while recognizing that the equal number of Greek and
Turkish Cypriot judges which was common to all approaches was only
too likely to lead to deadlock and thus to render the Supreme Court
nugatory as a potential tie-breaking instrument when there had been
deadlock elsewhere in the system.
All these and many other issues of governance arose during the nego-
tiations and were hotly contested. But of the four core issues this was
probably the least contentious and the one over which there was the most
obvious potential for compromise. In particular, discussion of the rotating
 T H E ISSUES

presidency brought out into the open the undesirability of having a strong
executive president (and vice-president) as had been the case in the 1960
constitution. One possible solution was to have a purely honorific presi-
dent (and vice-president) with no executive authority at all, as was the
case in constitutions as diverse as those of Ireland, Israel and Germany,
but that risked replicating the problems one level down, if you then
vested strong executive authority in a prime minister (and deputy prime
minister). Another possibility was to have a collective executive with a
frequently rotating honorific presidency, as was the case in Switzerland.
O n other issues, the possibility of cross-voting, theoretically attractive
though it was in breaking down the barriers between the two sides,
gradually faded away. And the recognition of the need for non-Cypriot
judges on the Supreme Court, thus enabling that institution to work as a
tie-breaker, gained ground. In every case and in every institution the
crucial issue was the decision-making process and in particular the scope
for one or other side to block a decision it did not like. This tension be-
tween equality and rigidity ran through every discussion and was
predictably hard to resolve.
One specific decision-making process came to bulk larger as the nego-
tiations continued, that of determining the position the new reunited
Cyprus would take in European Union discussions and decisions. It was
clear that a mechanism would be needed to prepare such positions on a
daily basis and that it would need to cover matters falling under the
responsibility both of the central and of the component state govern-
ments. The possibility of disagreements over such cluestions had to be
provided for, with abstention in Brussels being a conceivable approach for
all except the very few European Union decisions that required a positive
vote from all member states. O n this issue a constructive contribution was
made by the Turkish Cypriots, advised by a group of Belgian academics
of ethnic Turkish origin, who were able to draw on the mechanisms
applied in the Belgian federal system.

Security
The special nature of the security problems of Cyprus was recognized
from the outset of its existence as an independent state. It was reflected in
the 1960 Treaties of Guarantee and Alliance. The Treaty of Guarantee
was signed by the three guarantor powers (Greece, Turkey and the
United Kingdom) and committed them to uphold the independence,
security and constitutional order of Cyprus, to consult together about any
32 C Y P R U S : ' S H E S l i t \ R C H I:C)I< 11 S O L U ' f I O N

threats to these objectives and to act together if they could agree on a

course of action; if not, each of the three had a unilateral right of inter-
vention. The Treaty of Alliance provided for the establishment of a joint
military headquarters of Cypriots, Greeks and 'l'urks and provided for set
numbers of Greek and Turkish troops to be permitted to remain on the
island. It also established a Cypriot National Guard with provisions for
Turkish Cypriot participation. The Treaty of Guarantee was invoked by
Turkey in 1974 when it intervened militarily following the Greek Cypriot
coup against Archbishop Makarios. The Treaty of Alliance remained a
dead letter, in that the joint headquarters was never established. 1;ollow-
ing the 1963 withdrawal by the Turkish Cypriots from the government,
the National Guard became mono-ethnically Greek Cypriot. Although
the Greeks and Greek Cypriots from time to time argued that the Treaty
of Guarantee was no longer in force, since Turkey had in their view
exceeded and abused the limited right of unilateral intervention, the
general opinion was that, neither treaty being time limited, both remained
in effect.
Clerides had made proposals, before and during the period covered by
this book, for the complete demilitarization of Cyprus. Under these
proposals all Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot armed forces would
have been disbanded, all Greek and Turkish troops would have been
withdrawn from the island and Cyprus's security would have been guar-
anteed either by the UN Security Council or, in some versions, by the
European Union. These proposals had been rejected both by the Turkish
Cypriots and the 'I'urks, who made it clear that any solution must include
the maintenance of the Treaty of Guarantee, including Turkey's right of
unilateral intervention, and of the Treaty of Alliance, which permitted
Turkish troops to remain in Cyprus. For the Turks and Turkish Cypriots
these treaties were a sine qua non of any settlement, the only bankable
guarantee of its political provisions. While Clerides continued for public
and political purposes to maintain his own proposals, he had, by the time
the negotiations began in 1999 (and even more so by the time they re-
sumed in earnest at the beginning of 2002), recognized that they could not
provide the basis for a solution. H e was reluctant, however, to give up
entirely the possibility of diluting or time limiting the Treaty of Guaran-
tee in some way or another, and he did not want to see any Greek or
Turkish troops on the island, being as insistent on the withdrawal of the
former as of the latter in the light of his experience of the involvement of
the Greek military in the 1974 coup.
 T H E ISSUES 33

Although security was a critical issue for the Turkish Cypriots - their
basic guarantee that the numerically superior Greek Cypriots would not
overturn the political balance contained in a settlement - it soon became
clear that this was an issue principally to be negotiated by the Turks.
Turkey had a substantial military force on the island (usually reckoned at
about 37,000, although it fluctuated around that number from time to
time). Turkish officers commanded the modest number of Turkish Cyp-
riot troops. And, while protecting the security of the Turkish Cypriots
was certainly part of their mission, it was by no means the whole of it.
Their greatest concern was the threat Cyprus could represent to Turkey's
own security if the island was ever to fall into the hands of an unfriendly
power (and for these purposes not only the Greek Cypriots but the
Greeks fell into that category). Turkish rhetoric frequently described
Cyprus as a 'floating aircraft carrier' or a 'dagger pointing at Turkey's
heart'. This Turkish sensitivity about their own security tended to grow
rather than diminish with time as the geo-political significance of Ceyhan,
the oil terminal which already exported oil from northern Iraq and which
was destined to export oil and possibly in due course gas from the Cas-
pian region, increased. While the Turks could almost certainly
contemplate a considerable reduction in their troop strength on the island
in the context of an otherwise satisfactory political settlement to the
Cyprus problem, they would not accept complete withdrawal, and they
were adamant that the Treaties of Guarantee and Alliance had to remain,
undiluted in any way. They recognized the advantage to them of the
disbandment of all Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot armed forces (the
former being much more numerous and better equipped - the Greek
Cypriot National Guard, for example, having more tanks than the British
army, although not all of them fully operational), and of a mandatory
arms embargo on military supplies to the island. One further dimension
of the security question lay in the obscure but important politico-military
nexus of relationships in Turkey. The Turkish armed forces regarded
themselves as the saviours of the Turkish Cypriots. They were certainly
not prepared to be cast at some future date in the role of having 'lost north
Cyprus'.
The firmness of the Turkish attitude on the security issue did not
leave much scope for negotiation - a fact recognized by all concerned,
including the Greek Cypriots. That left one major element of the security
equation, the question of an international military presence on the island,
its provenance, size and mandate. It had always been emphasized by the
14 CYPRUS T H E SEARCH FOR A [Link]

Greek Cypriots that if they were to make major concessions to the Turks
and Turkish Cypriots on this issue of security (as the Turks and Turkish
Cypriots would have to do over territory and property), it was essential
that there should be a robust international military presence on the island.
At first they had flirted with the idea of a N A T O force (which had the
advantage of including as members all three guarantor powers) but this
became politically impracticable for them following NA'l'O's interven-
tion in I<owvo which was deeply unpopular with the Greek Cypriots in
general and in particular with AKEL, the Greek Cypriot communist
party whose support (as it had a rock-solid 3 3 per cent of the electorate)
was important for the endorsement of any deal in a referendum. They
had also flirted with the idea of an EU force but no such force yet existed
and in any case the rapid reaction capability being earmarked by the EU
was not intended for the territorial defence of a member state. Neither of
these two options was even remotely likely to be acceptable to Turkey.
That left no alternative to the UN, but even that was not likely to be
uncontentious.
The small existing UN force was strung out across the island along the
Green Line. However, following a settlement, including as it would have
to a territorial adjustment to the line dividing the two parts of the island,
that would no longer be appropriate. A U N force would have to be de-
ployed island-wide, able to underpin a settlement wherever and whenever
necessary. This would certainly require a larger force with a quite differ-
ent mandate from the present one. The Greek Cypriot demand was for a
much larger force with a strong mandate; the Turkish Cypriots and
Turks wanted a smaller one with a weaker mandate. Although in reality
in no circumstances could such a force be expected to take a confronta-
tional role towards either Greek or Turkish troops, there are still many
gradations in even a fairly classical peacekeeping mandate. In this case, as
the mandate would be an integral part of a negotiated settlement agreed
by the parties, such gradations would need to be negotiated in detail in
advance by all concerned, not just promulgated by the Security Council.
There was also the question of a civilian police element to any
peacekeeping force which was highly desirable if, as seemed likely, there
was to be no central police force but merely two separate Greek Cypriot
and Turkish Cypriot forces operating in the two component states, per-
haps with a central 'FBI'.
 T H E ISSUES

Territory
When hostilities ceased in 1974 and the situation was stabilized along a
ceasefire line that divided the island from east to west into two zones
(with one tiny Turkish Cypriot enclave at Kokkina in the far west), the
proportion of territory under Turkish Cypriot control was a little more
than 36 per cent of the territory of the 1960 Republic of Cyprus, and the
proportion of territory under Greek Cypriot control was a little over 63
per cent of that territory. The proportions of coastline controlled by the
two sides was 57 per cent by the Turkish Cypriots against 41 per cent by
the Greek Cypriots. These figures contrasted with population figures
drawn from an earlier British census of broadly 80 per cent Greek Cypri-
ots against 18 per cent Turkish Cypriots (the remaining 2 per cent being
accounted for by minorities such as Armenians, Maronites and Latins).
Not surprisingly, in the light of these figures, it was accepted as axiomatic
by all concerned, including the Turkish Cypriots, that any settlement
would have to include a territorial adjustment to the benefit of the Greek
Cypriots.
During the negotiations for a settlement that took place in 1992 under
the aegis of the U N Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali, the U N proposed a
map setting out an adjustment that would have divided the territory in
the rough proportions of a little over 28 per cent to the Turkish Cypriots
and a little under 72 per cent to the Greek Cypriots. Neither side accepted
that map, but the United Nations Security Council endorsed it, and it
was a reasonable supposition that in any subsequent negotiations the
overall proportions would not vary significantly. The proposed 1992
boundary, like the ceasefire line itself, was an extremely irregular one,
with considerable scope for minor adjustments to take account of geo-
graphical features and pre-1974 population patterns. However, any major
shift, for example in the name of greater simplicity, risked throwing out of
kilter the overall equation. The Routros-Ghali map involved the return to
the Greek Cypriots of the town of Morphou in the west (but not of the
main part of the citrus orchards around it, which would have remained
Turkish Cypriot), and the return of the tourist ghost town of Varosha in
the east, but not of the contiguous old city of Famagusta. Those were the
only major centres of population involved in any adjustment.
The Greek Cypriot position was to push for a substantial territorial
adjustment in their favour but not to be too specific about the geographi-
cal details until the matter came to the negotiating table. They spoke of
eventual figures for the Turkish Cypriot zone as low as 25 per cent,
knowing that this was unnegotiable. ?hey let it be known that a key
parameter for them in any territorial settlement was the proportion of the
Greek Cypriot refugees expelled from the north who could be returned to
the adjusted territory, and that this would affect their attitude both to the
territorial proposals and to the property issue. They attached great im-
portance to including in the Greek Cypriot zone at least some part of the
Icarpas Peninsula, the unicorn's horn or 'pan-handle' in the north-east
corner of the island, which contained both a religious site of significance
in the monastery of Apostolos Andreas at the tip of the peninsula and also
a residual Greek Cypriot population which had remained behind after the
population transfer of the 1970s. So the Greek Cypriots very deliberately
sought to link the three related issues of territory, property and rhe right
to settle in the north, realizing that only if their people were satisfied
overall with this package would they be willing to accept any one part of
it.
As to the Turkish Cypriots they refused to contemplate even the most
informal discussion of the territorial issue until the very last stage of the
negotiations and until their preconditions on recognition and sovereignty
had been met. For Denktash the equation was simple. H e knew that he
would gain substantially from the governance and security aspects of a
settlement, both of which would be resolved on a basis which met most of
the Turkish Cypriots' longstanding demands. O n each of the other core
issues, territory, property and the linked issue of the right of Creek Cyp-
riots to reside in the Turkish Cypriot component state, he knew he would
have to make concessions. These concessions would make it clear that the
new Cyprus would not only be bi-zonal but also, to some modest extent,
hi-communal, whereas his own ideal outcome was to pocket gains on
governance and security while not conceding anything inconsistent with
his preferred two-state solution. Ilence his approach was to de-couple the
three issues dnd present unyielding positions on each (such as his proposal
for settling all property claims by compensation and allowing no Greek
Cypriot returns to the north). It was the exact opposite of, and irreconcil-
able with, the Greek Cypriot approach. And, in his unending negotiations
with Ankara, he was able to depict any concession in the worst possible
light, as likely to lead to Greek Cypriot dominance or to weaken the
Turkish military position or both.
So on territory the Turkish Cypriots did put forward some vague and
rather complex criteria for determining a territorial adjustment, but the
trouble about these criteria was that they could mean either quite a lot or
 THE ISSUES 17

nothing at all, depending on how they were interpreted and applied on

the ground; so this was not likely to prove a very useful path to pursue,
and in any case, the Greek Cypriots refused from the outset to pursue it.
There was one wild card in the territorial equation, of which all con-
cerned were in practice unaware until a very late stage in the negotiations,
and that was the British Sovereign Base Areas. These two areas, which
had been excluded under international law from the 1960 Republic of
Cyprus, occupied 99 square miles of the island. They were effectively in
the south of the island, and thus embedded in any Greek Cypriot zone,
although the Eastern Sovereign Rase Area was in fact also contiguous
with the Turkish Cypriot side of the Green Line. Should the United
Kingdom be ready to cede some of its territory, this would, modestly but
significantly, affect the overall equation and could bring some increase of
territory to both constituent states.
The proposition that the territorial issue could only be settled right at
the end of the negotiation was broadly shared by all concerned, but the
refusal of the Turkish Cypriots even to discuss the matter cast some
doubt on whether they intended ever to allow that moment to arrive. And
no one involved was in any doubt as to the difficulties of reaching agree-
ment peacefully at the negotiating table on an adjustment to boundaries
that had been established on the battlefield. This last concern was, how-
ever, considerably alleviated when the Turkish general who had
commanded the Turkish troops during the military operations in 1974
and who had gone on to become president of Turkey, General Kenan
Evren, said publicly in 2002 that it had always been clear to the Turks
that they had taken more of the island than they needed in 1974 and that
now was the time to think of giving some of it back.

Property
None of the four core issues was more complex and none was more
sensitive than the question of property - what was to be done about the
property rights and claims of Greek Cypriots displaced from the north of
the island and of Turkish Cypriots from the south. According to UN
assessments almost half of the population of Cyprus lost properties as a
result of the intercommunal strife or military action between 1963 and
1974; roughly three times as many Greek Cypriots as Turkish Cypriots
were affected. The solution to the problem had been made infinitely more
difficult by the extreme positions staked out by the politicians on either
side, with the Greek Cypriots asserting that every single Greek Cypriot
38 C Y P R U S : T H I S SISAItCIH F O R i\ SOI.U'1'ION

with a valid claim to property in the north should have the right to return
to it, and the I'urkish Cypriots asserting that no such right would be
recognized, that no returns would take place and that all claims should be
settled by global property exchange and/or financial compensation.
The technical complexity of the property issues was such that both
sides did agree on one thing, namely that individual clairns could not be
settled in the negotiations themselves and that details could not, in this
field, be spelled out. There would have to be a property board or commis-
sion to implement whatever terms were agreed in the settlement. Both
sides also recognized that part of the problem would be resolved as a
result of the territorial adjustment, since Greek Cypriots who wished to
return to their property in the area adjusted should be able to do so in ;t
reasonably straightforward manner, it being assumed that Turkish Cyp-
riots would not wish to remain in territory coming under Greek Cypriot
administration but would choose to move to the territory of the Turkish
Cypriot component state. But there was, of course, no agreement on the
size of the territorial adjustment and thus also no agreement on how much
of the property problem would be solved in this relatively painless way.
Beyond that point there was nothing but fundamental disagreement.
? -
I he Greek Cypriots did recognize that the idea of all those Greek Cypri-
ots displaced returning to the north was unrealistic and, given the large
number of Greek Cypriots who had lived in the north prior to 1974, not
really compatible with a bi-zonal solution in which the Turkish Cypriots
were masters in their own house for a wide range of policies. They be-
lieved that, in any case, relatively few Greek Cypriots from the north,
many of whom had completely rebuilt their lives over the past 30 years
and who were now reasonably prosperous and well established in their
new homes, would choose to go off and live in what would be a Turkish-
Cypriot-administered component state. They were also prepared to
contemplate a range of tight quantitative and transitional arrangements,
including a moratorium on returns in the early years after a settlement,
which would limit the number of Greek Cypriots who would be permit-
ted to return to their properties in the north. Such an approach had begun
to be discussed in the 1992 negotiations when it had been known as the
'fishing net' and they were prepared to resume that discussion. What they
would not accept was an approach that extinguished any right of return
from the outset and offered only one option, financial compensation. That
was precisely the position of the Turkish Cypriots who stated flatly that
all property claims must be settled by compensation and refused to con-
template any right of return, however tightly circumscribed. They placed
great weight on the precedent of the population transfer between Greece
and Turkey in 192 3-24 which had been conducted on this basis and were
unwilling to recognize that both the political climate and international
jurisprudence had moved on since then and that legitimizing ethnic
cleansing by force was not an approach likely to commend itself to the
international community, let alone to the Greek Cypriots. And because
the 'l'urkish Cypriots were only prepared to discuss the details of com-
pensation mecl~anislnsif it was agreed in advance that this would be the
sole method of resolving all property claims, it was not even possible to
address these highly technical issues, despite both sides being in agree-
ment that such mechanisms would be required.
There was a wild card in the property core issue too. This took the
form of a test case brought by a Greek Cypriot refugee from the north,
Mrs Titina Loizidou, before the Council of Europe's European Court of
Human Rights. Mrs 1,oizidou won her case in 1996 when the court found
that she had been wrongfully dispossessed of her property in the north by
Turkey (not by the Turkish Cypriots whom the ECHK did not recog-
nize) and in 1998 awarded her a large sum in damages with interest. As
soon as this case, in which Mrs Loizidou had had the support of the Greek
Cypriot governnlent, was won, a large number of similar cases were
instituted before the KCHK. The case had important and damaging
implications for Turkey and was also relevant to the settlement negotia-
tions. If the Turks, as for a long time they did, refused to pay damages,
they risked eventual suspension from the Council of Europe on human
rights grounds with serious collateral damage to any hope they might
have of convincing the European Union that they had fulfilled the Co-
penhagen criteria for membership. The implications for a Cyprus
settlement were less direct but no less important. It was in effect crucial
that any property settlement negotiated should be accepted by the Euro-
pean Court of Human Rights as invalidating the base for bringing
individual legal proceedings before the Court. It was a great deal less
likely that they would do this if the settlement sin~plyextinguished any
right of return and offered compensation rather than providing alternative
remedies for those who had lost their property.

Status
No issue was raised more frequently by Denktash than that of status, and
he never made any secret of the fact that he regarded getting satisfaction
40 C Y P R U S : T H E S E A R C H 1;OK t
\ SOLU'I'ION

on this matter a precondition for negotiating on the four core issues. H e

continued to take this line despite the call in Security Council Resolution
1250, on which the negotiations were based, for there to be no precondi-
tions, and he continued to take it even after receiving at least partial
satisfaction in Annan's clarificatory statement of 12 September 2000.
In the eyes of Denktash, and on this point he had full Turkish support,
a fundamental error and a grievous wrong had been perpetrated when the
United Nations, and in particular its Security Council, had continued
after 1963 to recognize the Greek Cypriot government of Cyprus as the
properly constituted representative of the 1960 Republic of Cyprus
despite the absence of any Turkish Cypriots from its counsels. And the
fact that other international organizations such as the Council of Europe
and the European Union and every member of the United Nations apart
from Turkey did likewise merely rubbed salt in the wound and com-
pounded the original error. In this view the error had to be corrected in
one way or another before there could be an even-handed negotiation on
the future of Cyprus and a settlement. Since Denktash was certainly not
offering to return the Turkish Cypriots to the positions they had held
under the 1960 constitution, there were, in theory, two ways this could
come about. Either the international community could recognize the
T R N C as an independent sovereign state, which was Denktash's and
Turkey's strong preference, or it could, as it were, derecognize the Greek
Cypriots. Neither course was even remotely likely to occur. The Turkish
government had been trying for nearly 20 years to get recognition for the
T R N C and had so far failed to find a single country ready to do so. And
although Denktash sometimes spoke of intermediate options, some form
of 'acknowledgement' of the TRNC's status stopping short of formal
recognition, or recognition for a brief moment - half an hour was some-
times mentioned - before a new reunited Cyprus came into being, his
subsequent public statements invariably undermined any confidence that
he was really seeking to find an acceptable way round the problem and
that there was any real distinction between the intermediate options and
going the whole hog.
This was in any case ground on to which neither the Greek Cypriots
nor the international community was prepared to venture, and with good
reason. For the Greek Cypriots their title to the leadership of the 1960
Republic was quite simply an existential issue on which they believed
they could not afford to compromise. For others the Turkish Cypriot case
seemed less than compelling, whatever thoughts they might have about
 'SHE I S S U E S 41

the rights and wrongs of what had happened in 1963. It ignored the fact
that the problem of recognition had been precipitated in the first place by
the Turkish Cypriots absenting themselves from the institutions of the
1960 Republic and subsequently by their decision to abandon in 1983 the
status of Turkish Cypriot Federated State (of Cyprus) and to opt for full
independence. It glossed over the fact that the TRNC, which did not have
its own currency, could not assure its own security and depended on large
subsidies from Turkey to pay its public servants, fell some way short of
the normal criteria for recognition, even if the Security Council had not
formally closed off that option which was also inconsistent with the 1960
Treaty of Guarantee. And above all, it, rightly or wrongly, conveyed
more than a suspicion that the ultimate aim was not that of preparing for
a new reunited Cyprus but rather for the subsequent secession of the
northern part of it.
That status was an issue in the negotiations could not be denied. Rut it
was one which could only be resolved in the context, and within the
framework, of a comprehensive settlement. Such a settlement would need
to anchor the political equality of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots
in practical constitutional provisions within an indissolubly reunited
Cyprus, including measures that would ensure that its two component
states could handle internationally those areas of policy for which they
were responsible.

Sovereignty
In a number of ways the question of sovereignty was one that overlapped
with that of status. The attitudes of the two sides were similarly in stark
contradiction and deeply entrenched, and for some of the same reasons.
For the Greek Cypriots sovereignty resided in the new federal state of
Cyprus alone (and before it in the 1960 Republic of Cyprus whose con-
stitution they were, however, prepared to see abrogated and replaced by a
completely different, federal one). They were not ready to contemplate
any explicit division of sovereignty between the federal state and the two
constituent states (such as can be found in the Swiss constitution where it
is stated that the cantons are sovereign insofar as their sovereignty is not
limited by the Federal Constitution) although they recognized that a
constitution that was silent on the issue of sovereignty would actually
amount to that. And they recoiled in horror from phrases such as that
sovereignty 'emaqated' from the component states to the federal state.
Their reasoning was similar to their concerns over recognition and over
 CYPRUS T H E SEARCH FOR h SOI.U'I'ION

any use of the word 'peoples' as opposed to 'communities' to describe

Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, namely that the door was being
opened to secession by the north of Cyprus from a reunited Cyprus. The
Turkish Cypriot position on the sovereignty issue was the mirror image
of the Greek Cypriot one; it was absolutely essential that the sovereignty
of the two component states be explicitly stated and that it be made clear
that any sovereignty possessed by the federal state should come from the
component states.
One possibility was to avoid any reference to sovereignty at all in the
settlement and the new constitution for a federal Cyprus (and also, neces-
sarily, in the constitutions of the component states) but that was not easy
to envisage given the importance that both sides attached to it, albeit in an
entirely contradictory manner.

Continuity
The question of continuity ran like a thread between the other two issues
of status and sovereignty and contained scope for meeting and reconciling
some, but by no means all, the positions put forward by the two sides on
those other issues. During the nearly 40 years since the original break-
down of the 1960 constitution and even more so since the hostilities in
1974, the subsequent transfer of populations and the Turkish Cypriot
unilateral declaration of independence in 1983, the two sides had lived
quite separate existences, legislating, taking executive decisions and
negotiating (in the Turkish Cypriot case almost exclusively with Turkey)
international agreements. There could be no question of simply foisting
the corpus of legislation, decisions and agreements of one side on to the
other but nor did it make sense to think of starting from scratch for the
new Cyprus. Some way had to be found of legitimizing the past acts of
both sides and of deciding what needed to be the dowry in the form of
legislation and international agreements for the new reunited Cyprus.
About the need for this there was no real disagreement between the two
sides, particularly between those on each side who understood the legal
technicalities (and both Clerides and Denktash were trained lawyers). But
even a largely technical operation of this sort was fraught with all sorts of
wider implications. Such an approach did involve a degree of recognition
(post facto only, after any settlement was agreed and ratified by referen-
dum) of the existence and legitimacy of the institutions of the TRNC, and
it also involved a recognition of the genuine equality of the two sides.
 'I'HF. I S S U E S 41

Both the technical aspects of the continuity issue and its wider impli-
cations were present in the minds of all concerned and, in particular, of
the UN team trying to assemble the elements for a comprehensive settle-
ment. It was for this reason that they rightly attached such importance to
the effort to mount a joint negotiation in a working group or groups of the
raw material needed to achieve continuity, and why they and others drew
such negative conclusions when this effort was frustrated (until October
2002), delayed (until December 2002) and eventually aborted (in March
2001) by action on the Turkish Cypriot side.

Turkish citizens in north Cyprus

In 1974 the Turkish Cypriots, roughly 18 per cent of the population of
Cyprus, found themselves in control of 17 per cent of the territory of the
1960 Republic. In the years that followed, this partial vacuum was filled
by a substantial inflow of immigrants from mainland Turkey, many of
whom were subsequently given Turkish Cypriot nationality; both ten-
dencies were actively encouraged by the Turkish Cypriot administration.
Given that the newcomers were frequently moving into property that had
previously belonged to Greek Cypriots, that they came to represent a
quite substantial demographic shift in the make-up of the population of
north Cyprus, and that those who obtained Turkish Cypriot nationality
also influenced the politics of the north, this issue, although never for-
mally categorized as one of the four core issues, was an emotional and
sensitive one on both sides, a kind of time bomb ticking away among the
other, more openly recognized issues.
O n the Greek Cypriot side, where these immigrants were pejoratively
referred to as 'settlers', the political discourse of all the main parties
encouraged an extreme approach. Most Greek Cypriot politicians would
publicly take the line that all the 'settlers' should simply be sent back,
lock, stock and barrel to Turkey. Privately they would recognize that
many of the immigrants having married Turkish Cypriot wives, now
having families born and brought up in Cyprus and having spent quite as
long in Cyprus as a normal European country would require before
naturalization could be granted, could not, in human rights terms, simply
be shipped back to Turkey. O n the Turkish Cypriot side the view taken
was that this was none of the Greek Cypriots' business; the Turkish
Cypriots should control their own nationality and citizenship laws with-
out let or hindrance. But this view masked considerable differences within
northern Cyprus, where the scale of the immigration and the social and
44 C Y P R U S . T H E S E A R C H FOR I\ SOLUTION

cultural contrasts between the immigrants and the indigenous Turkish

Cypriots gave rise to considerable tensions.
This issue was not only the object of fundamental disagreement be-
tween the two sides; its actual scope was hotly disputed. The Greek
Cypriots habitually quoted extremely high figures for the scale of immi-
gration and of the grants of Turkish Cypriot nationality, without being in
a position to validate them. Figures in excess of 100,000 immigrants, a
large proportion when it is recalled that the figure for the indigenous
Turkish Cypriot population was in the region of 180,000, were bandied
about. The Turkish Cypriots, insofar as they were prepared to discuss the
matter at all, tended to play down the problem. Denktash asserted in the
negotiations that Turkish Cypriot citizenship had been granted to only
30-35,000 immigrants, a figure that was soon admitted, even by its
author, as a substantial underestimate.
For all these reasons it was unlikely that a settlement would be
reached without this issue being addressed in some way or another, but
equally unlikely that it would be resolved in a scientific and objective
fashion. More likely was the establishment of a fairly arbitrary figure for
those who could be regarded as Turkish Cypriots and who could remain
as citizens of the new Turkish Cypriot constituent state, and some rather
tough rules about the Turkish citizens above that figure and about future
immigration from Turkey.

The European Union dimension

During the 1992 negotiations over the UN's Set of Ideas the European
Union dimension did not loom large. Although the Greek Cypriots had
by then submitted an application to join the European Union, the Com-
mission had not yet delivered its formal opinion on it, and accession
negotiations had therefore not started. The whole enlargement timetable
was still obscure. It was therefore simply assumed that it would be a
reunited Cyprus that would in due course conduct accession negotiations,
and that the outcome, if successful, would be ratified by referendums in
the two component states. Any EU problems would be ironed out in the
accession negotiations. Like every other aspect of the 1992 negotiations
none of this was ever actually agreed by the two sides.
By the time settlement negotiations resumed at the end of 1999, the
whole situation had changed quite dramatically. The Greek Cypriot
application had been endorsed by the Commission, accession negotiations
had been opened with them in 1998, and the Turkish Cypriots had re-
jected all attempts to persuade them to associate themselves with these
negotiations. Moreover the Greek Cypriots were rattling through the
accession negotiations at a steady pace; it was already clear that no serious
technical obstacles were going to arise that would impede or delay their
conclusion, and that Cyprus would be in he first wave of any accession
package or packages. And the Helsinki European Council had stated
categorically that a settlement was not a precondition for membership,
having previously fended off attempts by the Turks and Turkish Cypriots
to argue that accession by a divided island was either illegal or should be
stopped until there was a settlement. The timetable for enlargement was
also by then much clearer and any analyst could see that an end-2002 date
for the conclusion of EU accession negotiations was likely.
It was becoming evident therefore that the settlement and EU acces-
sion negotiations were no longer going to be sequential but were far more
likely to be simultaneous. This prospect posed all sorts of unprecedented
problems, both technical and political. The technical problems related to
the fact that the Commission had not had the chance to do all the prelimi-
nary work in the north of Cyprus that was necessary to prepare for actual
negotiations and for the adaptation of Turkish Cypriot legislation to the
acquis communautaire. Numerous attempts were made by the Commis-
sion to put such work in hand informally but all were rebuffed by
Denktash who would not allow European experts access to his admini-
stration without prior recognition. He persisted in believing that this gave
him a lever to secure formal recognition and refused to recognize that this
was a serious miscalculation. So the technical work in the north remained
as a kind of over-hang to the settlement negotiations which might, and
probably would, need to be completed after any agreement was reached.
The political problems were more serious. Some, including those
related to the very different levels of economic development between the
north and the south (per capita G N P in the north being somewhere
around 20-25 per cent of that in the south) were susceptible of fairly
straightforward treatment with existing European Union policies and
instruments. It was clear that north Cyprus would have to be classified
differently from the south under the structural funds and thus would
receive much higher subsidies from the EU budget. But, beyond these
relatively straightforward issues, were much trickier ones arising from the
fact that a number of the necessary elements of any negotiable settlement
package would not be in conformity with the acquis communautaire.
Measures to allay Turkish Cypriot concerns about an immediate and
46 CYPRUS: T H E SEARCH FOR A SOLUTION

irresistible influx of Greek Cypriots buying property and businesses in

the north would be necessary and would not be in conformity with full
freedom of movement of people, capital and establishment. Would the
concerns require long EU transitional periods or would they perhaps
require full derogations (much more difficult for the EU to swallow)?
One thing gradually became clear. Neither the U N nor the EU could
afford to allow these issues to be settled in one set of negotiations and
then reopened in the other. For the U N to permit that was to open itself
to accusations of bad faith, for the EU to do so was to run the risk of
being saddled with the blame for wrecking a U N settlement that had
been agreed. So the stage was set for an unprecedented level of coopera-
tion and concertation between the two organizations and the two
negotiations; but achieving that was less easy than asserting the need for
it. The handling of these issues was further complicated by a Greek
Cypriot tendency to try to use the acquis communautaire as a kind of
battering ram with which to demolish attempts to find ingenious and
flexible solutions to Turkish Cypriot concerns in the settlement negotia-
tions and have them accepted by the EU. Fortunately the Commission,
the ultimate guardians of the acquis communautaire, were alert to this
threat and proved well capable of heading it off.
In addition to all these practical aspects the European Union dimen-
sion also affected the political climate on both sides of the island quite
fundamentally and to an increasing extent as time wore on and as actual
enlargement came closer. For the Greek Cypriots, while Clerides's quite
genuine desire to reach a settlement of the Cyprus problem before he quit
the political scene in February 2003 played an important role in ensuring
some flexibility in their negotiating position, an even stronger incentive
was the need to avoid being seen as the awkward or obstructive party in
the settlement negotiations. As the European Union and its member
states signalled ever more clearly and insistently their preference for the
accession of a reunited Cyprus rather than a divided one, this factor
became more prominent. (These causal links are hard to prove, because
they are so hotly denied by those most directly concerned, but it is diffi-
cult to see why else, during the last year before their terms of accession
were settled by the European Union, the Greek Cypriots showed more
flexibility on a wider range of issues than at any previous stage of the 10
years of negotiation.) Sadly the Turks and Denktash chose to ignore all
this and even to deny it, asserting that the EU had handed the Greek
Cypriots their EU accession on a plate. They thus, yet again, passed up an
important opportunity.
On the Turkish Cypriot side, what had always been a widespread but
vague feeling in favour of joining the European Union as part of a re-
united island and following a settlement, came gradually into sharper
focus as a high proportion of Turkish Cypriots, but not unfortunately
their leaders, came to realize that the simultaneous denouements of the
settlement and the EU accession negotiations presented a once-and-for-all
opportunity to get a settlement on terms favourable to them and at the
same time to find a way out of their dead end of impoverishment, isola-
tion and economic stagnation. This was the background to the massive
Turkish Cypriot public demonstrations at the end of 2002 and early in
2003 in favour of acceptance of the Annan Plan and of joining the Euro-
pean Union.
 1996: Getting a Show on the Road

T
he beginning of 1996 marked one of the lowest points in the
international effort to find a comprehensive solution to the Cy-
prus problem, which stretched back to 1963 when the post-
colonial constitutional settlement first broke down and when the drift
towards inter-communal violence, and eventually open hostilities, began.
A UN-led attempt to negotiate a comprehensive settlement - Boutros-
Ghali's 1992 Set of Ideas - had run into a brick wall when Clerides had
won the February 1993 presidential election in the south of the island on a
platform rejecting Boutros-Ghali's proposals. A subsequent UN-led
attempt to find an oblique approach to a settlement through a number of
major Confidence-Building Measures - the most significant of which
would have led to the reopening of Nicosia Airport, stranded unused
since 1974 in the buffer zone between the ceasefire lines, and the return to
its Greek Cypriot owners of the ghost town of Varosha, a holiday resort
just south of Famagusta - had also run into the sands, wrecked by a
combination of Turkish and Turkish Cypriot obsession with the minutiae
of the policing of the areas in question and Greek Cypriot lack of enthusi-
asm for measures that they saw as giving more benefits to the other side
than to themselves and in particular as undermining the barriers to trade
between the north and the European Union.
In parallel with these two major setbacks, Cyprus's application to join
the European Union was making steady progress. Not only had the
application itself been accepted by the European Union, despite the
continuing division of the island, but the Commission had given a positive
formal opinion opening the way to accession negotiations, and the Euro-
pean Union had committed itself in 1995 to engaging in such negotiations
no later than six months after the conclusion of the Inter-Governmental
Conference then under way to prepare the European Union's institutions
for enlargement, a formula which pointed towards a date somewhere
between late 1997 and early 1998. The EU dimension of the Cyprus
 (;IS'T'I'ING A SHOW O N T H E ROAD 49

problem was thus becoming more prominent than it had ever been in the
past. And, while it was possible to hope that it would act as a catalyst
towards a comprehensive settlement, it was equally feared that it would
lead towards the definitive partition of the island, to a major crisis in the
relations between the European Union and Turkey, itself another appli-
cant for accession, albeit on a much slower track than Cyprus, and to a
sharp rise in tension in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Faced with this unpromising scene, none of the main players seemed
inclined to make much of an effort. The two Cypriot leaders, Clerides and
Denktash, had reverted, with some relief, from grappling with issues of
substance to the tactical nlanoeuvring they knew so well and which
avoided the need to make any hard choices or to reach and defend com-
promise solutions. The United States, after a failed attempt in 1995 by
Richard Beattie, the Presidential Special Representative, to broker secret
talks between the two sides and to find a formula which would park
Ilenktash's status demands and enable the EU accession negotiations to
proceed on a joint basis, had lapsed into a passive mode. The United
Nations, deeply discouraged by several years of hard slog with nothing at
the end to show for it, was extremely hesitant about undertaking any new
initiative; and in any case the UN Secretary-General's then Special
Representative, Joe Clark (former Canadian foreign and prime minister),
who had put an impressive effort into the 1991-94 negotiations over
Confidence-Building Measures, was in the process of bowing out.
In addition to these strictly Cyprus-related matters, the relationship
between the two mother countries, Greece and Turkey, was going
through a particularly rough patch. Actual hostilities had only narrowly
been avoided during a dispute in January 1996 over an uninhabited islet
(known in the different languages as Imia or Kardak), situated between
Greece's Dodecanese archipelago and the Aegean coast of Turkey. The
dispute, which had shown every sign of slipping out of the control of the
two countries and their prime ministers (in Greece the newly installed
Constantinos Simitis and in Turkey Tansu Ciller) was damped down
after some active diplomacy by outside powers, in particular by the
United States in the person of Richard I-Iolbrooke, the Assistant Secre-
tary of State for Europe; but it had demonstrated yet again how fragile
the relationship between these two NATO partners was and how real
were the threats to international peace and security in the Eastern Medi-
terranean. Moreover it led to Greece unilaterally blocking implementation
of the European Union's financial commitment to Turkey, part of the
$0 CYPRUS 1 HI3 S E A R C H F O R I\ SOLU I ION

March 1995 agreement establishing an EUITurkey Customs Union. By

thus forcing the EU collectively to renege on its commitment, the Greek
government both exacerbated its own relationship with Turkey and
seriously complicated the handling of the important links between the EU
and Turkey.
This was the picture when I was approached at the end of February
1996 by Jeremy Greenstock, the Political Director in the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office (and subsequently, from 1998 to 2003, the United
Kingdom's Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New
York) on behalf of Malcolm Rifkind, then foreign secretary, to ask
whether I would be prepared to take on a new part-time post as British
Special Representative for Cyprus. We talked the idea through at a num-
ber of meetings subsequently and I agreed to take on the appointment,
which was publicly announced by Rifkind at a press conference on 2 3
May.

The mission
The fashion for mission statements was by then getting into its swing,
although it was only to reach its full development when the Blair gov-
ernment came to power the following year. We managed to avoid one on
this occasion. But we did not duck the need to agree in advance the pa-
rameters of what I was setting out to do.
The first point firmly established was that although the decision to
appoint a British Special Representative for Cyprus marked a distinct
raising of our national profile in attempts to resolve the Cyprus problem,
there was to be no question at any stage of initiating or pursuing a solo
British or even a UK/US approach to the problem. The task was to put
more clout into the United Nations efforts. We agreed that Britain's
significant but historically fraught relationships with all concerned over
the Cyprus problem meant that any initiative with a British label on it
would be doomed from the outset, and that, in any case, only the United
Nations was likely to be acceptable to all concerned as a vehicle for set-
tlement negotiations.
Secondly, the enlargement of the European Union, the modalities of
which were not at that stage clear, was a major objective of British foreign
policy and must in no way be delayed or damaged by developments over
Cyprus. It was already obvious that, whatever approach was eventually
chosen by the Euqopean Union, Cyprus would be in the first wave of
acceding countries.
 Thirdly, while getting a settleme~ltin Cyprus before it joilled the
European Union was a clear objective, indeed the basic raiso~ld'ttre of
my appointment, it was not to be pursued in such a way as to put at risk
Britain's close and steadily developing relationships with the countries in
the region most directly involved (Cyprus, Greece and Turkey).
Apart from these three clear guidelines, which were all constraints on
the handling of the job, I was not given, nor did I at that stage seek, much
guidance. It was evident that the best way to proceed and the most
promising basis for making progress would be largely dictated by the
views of other players. It made no sense for Britain to draw up blueprints
or design negotiating fixes on its own. As to the constraints, at no stage
did I feel uncomfortable with them and on no occasion did I seek to have
them varied. I was naturally aware that both what they prescribed and
what they did not prescribe had implications for the ~legotiationof a
settlement and were in different ways unsatisfactory to one or other or
several of the regional players. The 'Turks and l'urkish Cypriots would
have preferred us to agree that it was legally and politically impossible for
a divided Cyprus to enter the European Union; the Greeks and Greek
Cypriots would have wished us to be bound to the precise letter of
whichever of the many Security Council resolutions most faithfully
reflected their own position at a given point in time. But either of those
approaches would quite simply have brought the whole attempt to get a
negotiated settlement to a standstill, so the temptation to contest the
constraints or to accept additional ones was not very compelling.

First reflections
While it certainly made no sense to settle down at the outset to devise
blueprints for a settlement or negotiating fixes, it inade equally little sense
to set off OJI a voyage of discovery to the region without having done a
good deal of background reading and reflected carefully on previous
attempts to get a settlement, the lessons to learn from them and the traps
to be avoided. The historical background was, unusually, the most diffi-
cult to grapple with. There is astonishingly little published material about
Cyprus that is not distorted by the views of the author, who tends to be
on one side or the other of a deeply conte~ltiousand embittered argument.
Even the British, the foreigners with probably the largest and deepest
experience of Cyprus and not usually short of well-trained historians,
seemed to have shied away from a scene where their experience had
perhaps been too painful and too recent to encourage objective research.
'I3ose who did tackle the issue had all too often gone the other way and
became hopelessly subjective apologists for one view or the other.
'I-lle negotiating background was a good deal easier to come to terms
with, largely thanks to the admirable reporting practices followed by the
United Nations Secretariat in their reports to the Security Council on the
different attempts they had led to achieve a settlement; large slabs of
carefully marshalled factual material, interspersed with brief and succinct
but unemotional sections of judgement, were precisely what was needed.
And of course I had actually experienced in New York as British Perma-
nent Representative to the UN, though more as a bystander than as a
participant, the two most recent rounds of negotiations on the Set of Ideas
and the Confidence-Huilding Measures, and had got to know some, but
by no means all, the principal actors with whom I would have to deal.
This preparatory phase, which lasted from March to May of 1996, left
me with some clear impressions to be tested on the ground when I began
my travels. The first of these was the high quality and continuing value of
Boutros-Ghali's 1992 Set of Ideas, painstakingly pieced together over the
preceding years by his Special Representative on the island, Oscar
Camilion, and the leading official in the U N Secretariat responsible for
Cyprus, Gustave Feissel.
The proposals had been endorsed by the Security Council soon after
the negotiations had been suspended in 1992, and established a bi-zonal,
bi-communal federation with extensive autonomy for the two component
parts, with a substantial territorial adjustment to the benefit of the Greek
Cypriots set out in a map attached to the proposals, with limited returns
of Greek Cypriot property owners to the north, and with security resting
on a continuation of the Treaty of Guarantee, a reduced Greek and
Turkish troop presence and an international peacekeeping force. Those
proposals were no mere skeleton, having been fleshed out in quite a
detailed way. While Clerides had rejected the Set of Ideas as such in his
1993 election campaign, he seemed to have fewer objections to its indi-
vidual parts. And Denktash's position was that he could accept 90 per
cent of what had been proposed, even if he was a bit coy about corning
clean 011 what matters made up the remaining 10 per cent. So the case for
ensuring that any new initiative did not just start from scratch, but rather
sought to build on what was already on the table, seemed very strong.
At the same time, the Set of Ideas appeared to have some serious
shortcomi~[Link] treatment of the important issue of the reunited island's
membership of the EU was, not unnaturally, since it had been put to-
 G E T T I N G A S H O W O N 'SHE R O A D F3

gether at a very early stage in Cyprus's candidature, rather sketchy and

increasingly inadequate as time passed and this issue came to bulk larger
both in complexity and political sensitivity. Also the Set of Ideas, al-
though it went well beyond a skeleton or framework agreement, still fell
well short of a fully operative, self-executing and comprehensive settle-
ment. Given the genesis of the breakdown of the 1960 constitution in a
dispute over the implementation of fiscal provisions, the propensity of
both parties in Cyprus to contest even the tiniest detail in an agreement or
piece of legislation and to see an unrequited benefit to the other side and
loss to themselves in the most arcane of provisions, and given also their
tendency to prevaricate and to spin out any negotiations on such points, it
did seem to me that a more comprehensive approach would be needed on
the next occasion.
Another salient point seemed equally clear and that was the impor-
tance of some external impetus and also external expertise if any progress
was to be made. That was not to suggest that a reversion to the methods
used in the late 1950s, when the original independence settlement was
effectively stitched up by the two motherlands, Greece and Turkey, and
imposed on the two Cypriot parties, was either practicable or desirable.
Time had moved on; neither motherland was prepared to play that role,
nor was either party in Cyprus prepared to accept it. But the attitudes of
the motherlands towards any settlement negotiations remained impor-
tant. Long and bitter experience, however, had shown that the two
Cypriot parties, left to themselves, would get nowhere. Their preference
for tactical manoeuvre over substantive engagement on the core issues
was longstanding. Neither had been willing, in putting forward its own
proposals, to take any real account of the interests and sensitivities of the
other side; both sides had a pathological fear of making substantive con-
cessions, which they believed would be pocketed by the other side and
then become the starting point for future negotiations and yet more
concessions. And then there was another less tangible but no less real
factor. This was the deeply held belief of most Cypriots that in the end
the outcome would not be determined by the Cypriots themselves but by
various outside forces. It was this factor that went some way towards
explaining the degree of irresponsibility that often imbued policy making
on the island. All this pointed towards the need for the United Nations to
resume the central role it had played in previous attempts to reach a
settlement, but also for the U N to be backed up by the main external
actors with experience of Cyprus and a stake in the prospects for a settle-
ment - the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union and
Russia being the most obvious but not the only ones - and for those
external actors not to allow themselves to be played off against each other,
as had often occurred in the past.
These thoughts led on to another - the need at some stage to find a
time frame that would genuinely constrain and compel the decision
mal<ingof all the main parties to the negotiation. One, but only one, of the
reasons why negotiations had already continued off and on for more than
3 0 years without any outcome was that they had been conducted in an
open-ended time frame. Not only was the current situation of each of the
Cypriot parties too comfortable to push them towards the difficult com-
promises required - the Greek Cypriots with their internationally
recognized position as the sole representative of the Republic of Cyprus,
their prosperity and their gradually advancing EU candidature; the
Turkish Cypriots with the overwhelming military superiority and secu-
rity derived from the presence of Turkish armed forces and the flow of
subsidies provided by Turkey to palliate the deficiencies of the economy
in the north of the island and the negative effect on it of the impediments
to exports to the EU - but the absence of any time line, let alone a dead-
line, meant that it was always easier to call for more time to negotiate and
to put off indefinitely tough choices or compromises. And on this point, if
none other, there had invariably in the past been an unholy alliance
between the two Cypriot parties. There was no immediate answer to this
deadline problem in 1996, although, well down the road, it was already
clear that there could be one in the form of the conclusion of the EU'b
enlargement negotiations.
All these considerations did not take account of arguably an even more
important dimension, the personal one. Was there a real prospect of
getting the two Cypriot leaders to the negotiating table; and, once there,
could they reasonably be expected to negotiate with some flexibility and
in a spirit of give and take? In neither case could a positive answer be
assumed. Clerides had won office campaigning against the Set of Ideas,
and he had, at the end of the road, played his part in ensuring that the
Confidence-Building Measures got nowhere. But since then, in a series of
informal meetings with Denktash, under the aegis of the U N Deputy
Special Representative, Feissel, in the autumn of 1995 he had pushed hard
for a framework approach based on reaching trade-offs on the most sensi-
tive core issues, leaving the detail to be filled in later. While the method
was unlikely to work, the signal was at least encouraging. From Denktash
no such encouragement had emerged. Successive UN negotiators, in-
cluding two UN secretaries-general - Pe'rez de Cue'llar, who had himself
done a stint as Special Representative for Cyprus before becoming secre-
tary-general, and Boutros-Ghali - had despaired at Denktash's
inflexibility and had effectively concluded that he was not interested in a
settlement, from which he had decided that he had more to lose than to
gain. There was no reason to hope for a fundamental change or help from
that quarter. This meant that, as so often in the past, the key was likely to
be in Ankara and not in the north of the island.

A f ~ s tround of contacts
Within a month of my appointment I was able to make visits to Cyprus
and then to Athens and Ankara and thus to begin to build u p at first hand
a picture of the challenges and opportunities that accompanied any effort
to mount a new negotiation for a settlement. 'l'he challenges comfortably
outnumbered the opportunities.
As my Cyprus Airways flight came in to land at Larnaca, I realized,
with some trepidation, that the waiting press, about whose cannibalistic
tendencies I had been liberally warned in advance, might latch on to the
fact that I had never previously set foot in the island. I decided I was
certainly not going to start off by obfuscating. I need not have worried.
T h e Cyprus press accused me of any number of crimes and conspiracies
over the next seven years, but they missed this glorious opportunity to
suggest that here was another in a string of ignorant foreigners set on
telling them how to handle their affairs. Driving up through the some-
what lunar landscape that separates Larnaca from Nicosia I was able to
grasp the division of the island, with the northern Kyrenia Range,
adorned with Turkish and Turkish Cypriot flags and the obligatory
quotation from Mustafa Kemal Atatiirk, looming out of the heat haze on
the right and on the left, less easily visible, the Troodos Mountains and
the ugly but burgeoning sprawl of Creek Cypriot Nicosia. A later walk
along the Green I h e , where it runs through Nicosia, with the ruined
shops and caf& left as they were when the shooting stopped in 1974,
made the point even more cogently.
My arrival was greeted with two auguries. It rained. That, on a day
celebrated by the Greek Orthodox Church as the anniversary of Noah's
flood, was apparently an auspicious sign. The second was a good deal less
so. A Greek Cypriot conscript was shot dead by a Turkish sentry in the
dried-up river bed that formed the ceasefire line between the two sides,
(6 CYPKUb T H E S l i A R C H [.OR A SO1,U.I I O N

quite near the offices of the British High Commission. Later in the sum-
mer there were some ugly incidents at the Famagusta end of the ceasefire
line when Greek Cypriot protesters broke through their own police
cordon and brushed aside the U N troops in the buffer zone, leading to
some shooting by Turkish Cypriots and two Greek Cypriot fatalities. All
this was a timely reminder, if one was needed, that the situation was not
quite as comfortably stable as it was often depicted. And the incidents
were of course grist to the mill of the extremists on both sides who were
quick to point out how foolish it was even to contemplate a settlement.
My meetings in Nicosia fell into what was to become a scarcely vary-
ing pattern of my visits there. A working breakfast with Glafcos Clerides
and his close advisers at the presidential palace (formerly the British
colonial governor's residence but hardly recognizable from those days as a
result of the damage done to it in 1974 by the tanks of the Greek Cypriot
National Guard in support of the coup against President Makarios), then
a meeting with the foreign minister, then a call on the president of the
National Assembly, and contacts with other party leaders, who together
made up the National Council, which advised the president on the con-
duct of negotiations on the Cyprus problem. O n the Turkish Cypriot
side, after crossing the Green Line at the old Ledra Palace Hotel check-
point, there was a meeting and working lunch with Rauf Denktash in his
presidential palace (formerly the residence of the British district commis-
sioner for colonial Nicosia, also hardly recognizable, although not for the
same reason, having been greatly extended to accommodate the centre of
Turkish Cypriot governance). This was followed by contacts, either social
or working, with party leaders, some in government, some in opposition,
and with civil society and activists on both sides. This required some
fairly careful navigation round a complex protocol course reflecting the
fact that while the British government recognized and dealt with Denk-
tash as the leader of the Turkish Cypriot community (but not as president
of the TRNC), we did not have official dealings with his government and
ministers, and could not therefore call on them in their offices. This
caused irritation but no major problems. The routine programme was
usually completed by a bi-communal press conference at the Ledra Palace
Hotel until a much later stage, when the UN's news blackout on the
settlement negotiations made that undesirable.
South Nicosia
Rather as I had expected, I found no great enthusiasm anywhere in the
south for initiating a new effort to reach a negotiated settlement. Clerides
argued that there must first be a greater degree of common ground estab-
lished on the main issues before it made sense to launch any serious
negotiations, and he was not prepared to respond positively to Denktash's
current objective, the holding of a face-to-face meeting between the two
of them, clearly designed to boost his own status. (In the years ahead
these two negotiating ploys, the prior establishment of 'common ground'
and the holding of face-to-face talks, emerged several times and then
faded away, and they were swapped between the two sides in a discon-
certing way that did much to justify the cynicism of outside observers -
in the period 2001-3 it was Denktash who was calling for common
ground as a precondition to negotiation and Clerides who wanted face-to-
face talks.) But Clerides was quite flexible in private on many of the
component parts of what had been in 1992 the UN Set of Ideas. He was
prepared to go a considerable way to meet Turkish and Turkish Cypriot
security concerns and in particular did not contest the need to preserve
the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee which had been the basis of the Turkish
military intervention in 1974. In those early contacts I floated past him,
without provoking much of a reaction either positive or negative, the
possibility that the rotation between Greek Cypriots and 'Turkish Cypri-
ots of the posts of president and vice-president in a reunited Cyprus - one
of the issues that had remained unresolved and hotly contested at the end
of the 1992 negotiations - might be easier to handle if one worked within
the framework of a parliamentary rather than a presidential system, with
the posts of president and vice-president being purely honorific and
possessing no substantial executive powers, as was the case in countries
such as Ireland and Israel (but not in the 1960 Cyprus constitution).
In a theme that would become familiar over the years, Clerides argued
that Denktash's approach was fundamentally negative and that the key to
any negotiation lay in Ankara and a shift in the Turkish government's
attitude. I could not, and never tried to, fault that analysis, which I shared
anyway. But I noticed that it was accompanied by a deliberately pessi-
mistic and not terribly well-informed view of the prospects for bringing
about a shift in Turkish policy. Over the years it was brought home to me
what a major handicap it was that the main Greek Cypriot players and
their Turkish counterparts never met (other than the occasional content-
free handshake at a multilateral meeting such as an OSCE Summit or,
later, at EU meetings) and that there was therefore no opportunity to
break down the barriers of suspicion and mutual misunderstanding, let
alone to discuss the core issues of a Cyprus settlement. And neither had a
diplomatic mission in the other's capital. So instead each side appeared to
rely on an interpretation of the other's position based on reading press
summaries and speeches, with the most extreme and populist expression
of the situation being invariably assumed to be true. Worse still, all four of
the main regional players (Greece, Turkey, Creek Cyprus and Turkish
Cyprus) spent the largest part of almost any meeting telling you about the
defects of the other side's position and explaining why these ruled out any
chance of a successful negotiation, and tended to avoid to the maximum
degree possible any discussion of their own position.

North Nicosia
A mere ten-minute drive across the city, through the zigzag barbed wire
barriers of the Green Line, past pictures of Greek Cypriot martyrs, past
too the bullet-pocked fasade of the 1,edra Palace Hotel, now adorned with
the drying underwear of British UNFICYP troops quartered there, I
settled down to what was to be the unvarying fare of my early meetings
with Iknktash: the history lesson. (After a few years I must have been
considered an old enough hand to have graduated from this, although,
when accompanying a new visitor, for example Joyce Q ~ l i nwhen she was
minister for Europe at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, there was
no escaping it. In her case I timed it at 49 minutes before Denktash drew
breath and allowed his visitor to speak for the first time.)
The history lesson usually began in about 1878 when Cyprus ex-
changed Ottoman for British rule. It was filled with bitter complaints of
British betrayals, leaving the minority Turkish Cypriot community to the
tender mercies of the Greek Cypriots. It continued with a long history of
Greek Cypriot perfidy, focusing in particular on Archbishop Makarios's
hijacking of the 1960 constitution when the Turkish Cypriots walked out
of the government in 1963, and on the folly of the international commu-
nity thereafter in accepting the Greek Cypriots as the sole representatives
of the Kepublic of Cyprus. There would be some vivid passages on the
atrocities committed against the Turkish Cypriots from 1963 to 1974 and
a rather insistent invitation to visit the mass graves outside Famagusta.
The inner circle of the inferno was then completed with an onslaught on
the European Union and the illegality and iniquity of its decision to treat
as valid the Greek Cypriot application for membership. The purpose of
the history lesson was not just to let off steam, though it certainly had that
effect, but it was also designed to bring home to the visitor the view that
the Turkish Cypriots had been the victims of an unparalleled series of
historic blunders and that there was not the slightest chance of a settle-
ment to the Cyprus problem until those blunders were reversed and the
wrongs righted. Only when the Turkish Cypriot state was recognized as
such (a slightly softer version used the word 'acknowledged', but probing
tended to reveal that there was no real difference between the two for-
mulae), when all property claims on either side had been eliminated and
handled through compensation alone, and when a new Cyprus based on
the absolute equality of the two communities reflected in a right of veto
over every decision, however minor, had been agreed, would it be possi-
ble to address such issues as a territorial adjnstment and the question of
security.
I did my best, without making much of a dent on my interlocutor, to
explain that whatever one's view of the historic rights and wrongs - and
not all of Denktash's analysis was wide of the mark; for example his
strictures on the way Turkish Cypriots had been treated in the first
decade of Cypriot independence - it was not within my power or my
remit to reverse decisions taken by the international community over the
recognition of the continuing legitimacy of the Republic of Cyprus, and
anyway, as it was simply not going to happen, waiting for it to do so
meant never finding a solution that would improve the Turkish Cypriots'
lot. On a more positive note I tried to get it across to him that Cyprus's
EU application offered a real opportunity to negotiate a comprehensive
settlement that would fill in the disagreed parts of the 1992 Set of Ideas in
ways consistent with the Turkish Cypriots' vital interests and that the
very strong desire of the EU member states to see a reunited rather than a
divided Cyprus join the Union offered considerable possibilities if only
the Turkish Cypriots would come to the negotiating table and, once
there, show some degree of flexibility.

Athens
My early visits to Athens were to some extent handicapped by the deci-
sion of the Greek foreign minister, Theodoros Pangalos, to have nothing
to do with me. This decision was rooted in some rather sharp disagree-
ments between us over Europe's relationships with Turkey and Cyprus
during the period (1985-90) when I had been Permanent Representative
to the European Union and thus often, towards the end of Council meet-
60 C Y P R U S : 'I'HE S E A K C I I F O R I\ SOLU'I'ION

ings, left by the foreign secretary to hold the fort. As a result my talks in
Athens were with the secretary-general of the foreign ministry, an old
friend, Alecos Filon, and with the able and very experienced junior min-
ister Ioannis Kranidiotis. Ihanidiotis was in fact of Cypriot origin, his
father having been the first Cypriot ambassador to Athens following
independence. Not surprisingly his knowledge of the Cyprus problem
was encyclopaedic, and, while at the outset he was far from convinced of
the case for making another serious attempt to reach a settlement, as time
passed he became more and more committed to such an effort.
The Greek position at this stage was to pay lip service to the need to
resume negotiations for a Cyprus settlement and to the central role of the
United Nations, but to avoid making any major effort to bring that about
and, above all, to avoid getting at cross-purposes with Clerides who, as we
have seen, was similarly unenthusiastic. They too cast doubt on the
readiness of Denktash and the Turks to engage in good faith in such a
negotiation or to be ready to make the necessary compromises if they did
so. Greek-Turkish relations were in poor shape following the crisis at the
beginning of the year over Imia, and there was absolutely no give in the
Greek blockage of the funds which the EU had committed itself to dis-
bursing to Turkey as part of the deal over a customs union reached in
1995. Pangalos himself was much given to periodic intemperate rhetorical
onslaughts on Turkey which poisoned the atmosphere, and he clearly
preferred to have Cyprus as an additional grievance to nurse rather than
to put any effort into having its problems resolved.

Ankara
My first visit to Ankara in late June coincided with the latest in a series of
governmental crises that had arisen since the leaders of the two centre-
right parties, Mesut Yilmaz and Tansu Ciller, had decided to take turns as
prime minister. While the deal had not quite yet been stitched up, Ciller
was known to be contemplating what the whole of the Ankara establish-
ment regarded as a diabolical alliance with the leader of the then largest
Islamist party, Necmettin Erbakan. It was hardly the best moment to get
the Turks to concentrate on the problem of Cyprus, a subject which in
any case invariably caused them a great deal of difficulty if there was to
be any question of moving away from a stalwart defence of the status quo.
It nevertheless proved possible to have some useful and interesting
contacts. The top official in the foreign ministry dealing with Cyprus and
Greece, Inal Batu, had been Turkish ambassador to the U N when I had
 G E T T I N G A S H O W O N 'THE. R O I \ D 61

been in New York and we knew each other well. Over a private dinner he
expressed extreme pessimism about the prospect of getting any likely
government in Ankara to negotiate a settlement on Cyprus, and he clearly
had the greatest doubts about Denktash's willingness to do so. H e asked
whether there was any chance of trading a unilateral Turkish Cypriot
ceding of territory in return for international recognition of the Turkish
Cypriot state. I said I did not really think so. The idea was just the old
scheme for partition that had been rejected so often in the past and which
was in any case not consistent with Security Council resolutions and the
1960 Treaty of Guarantee. Moreover any attempt to achieve such a trade-
off would inevitably lead into a discussion of other issues such as property
claims and the return of refugees. Would it not make more sense to deal
with all this in a comprehensive settlement, which would in addition
support rather than undermine Turkey's ambition to become a member
of the EU?
When I saw the foreign minister, Imre Gonensay (destined in fact to
be out of office within a week), we discussed Cyprus's application to join
the European Union, which the Turks argued was illegal under the terms
of the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee (a view not shared by us or other mem-
bers of the European Union). I decided that if I was not to be accused
later of misleading them, I needed to be frank about Cyprus's EU pros-
pects. So I said that, in my view, if Denktash and the Turks continued to
take a negative attitude towards negotiating a Cyprus settlement, then it
was pretty well certain that a divided Cyprus would in due course be
admitted to the Union. This caused some turmoil at the meeting. No one
else in Europe had told them that. I emphasized in reply that this was not
an outcome that the British government favoured. Quite the reverse.
Indeed my appointment had been made precisely with the objective of
trying to ensure that a reunited not a divided Cyprus entered the Union.
But the commitment given by the member states in 1995, at the time the
EUITurkey Customs Union Agreement was sealed, had been pretty
unambiguous. And, if the blame for failing to negotiate a Cyprus settle-
ment was seen to lie principally with Denktash and the Turks, then I
believed, on the basis of a good deal of experience of Brussels and in the
knowledge that enlargement of the European Union mattered more to
most member states than the question of Cyprus, that a divided island
would be accepted. We left it there. They were not happy. But an impor-
tant penny had been left to drop. It was to take a long time to do so.
I'
 CYPRUS T H E SEAKCH FOR A SOLUTION

It also proved possible during these early visits to Ankara, although

not later on, after 1997, when a conscious decision was taken somewhere
in the Turkish governmental machine to refuse all meetings between their
military and visiting diplomats, to have some contact with the Turkish
general staff. This was valuable not only because the influence of the
military in Turkey on political decision making remained considerable, if
singularly obscure in its precise significance, but because there were a
number of issues relating to any settlement of the Cyprus problem - the
future of the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee, the nature and scale of any con-
tinuing Turkish troop presence on the island, the configuration of any
territorial adjustment reducing the Turkish-Cypriot-controlled part of the
island to the benefit of the Greek Cypriots - that directly concerned the
Turkish general staff in its purely military functions. My interlocutor was
General Cevik Bir, the deputy chief of the Turkish general staff, whom I
had met in New York in 1993 when he commanded the ill-fated UN
peacekeeping forces in Somalia. Our discussions, although never even
approaching negotiation, were useful. Bir made it clear that while he
could certainly conceive of circumstances in which Turkey's and the
Turkish Cypriots' vital security interests could be assured with a sub-
stantially reduced Turkish troop presence on the island, the Treaty of
Guarantee must remain in force, undiluted; and a necessary precondition
of even contemplating a reduced troop presence was prior agreement on a
political settlement that gave the Turkish Cypriots proper political equal-
ity.
O n the Treaty of Guarantee I was able to assure I3ir that in the view of
the British government its continuation was an essential component of
any settlement. And I also assured him that we saw no future in pursuing
a 'security first' approach to the negotiations, which had temporarily
found favour in Washington and London in 1995. But I warned him that
there was equally no future in an approach that envisaged a political
settlement being reached ahead of Turkey making any commitments on
security, including the removal of a substantial proportion of their troops
from the island. All the issues would need to be dealt with in a single,
comprehensive settlement if there was to be the balance required by all
concerned. Clearly, with no actual negotiating process under way at that
stage, there was not much more to be said. But the fact that, when a
negotiating process did get under way, and most particularly in the later
stages of that process in 2002-3 when actual settlement proposals were on
the table, there was absolutely no direct contact between the UN nego-
tiators and the Turkish military, must have undermined the chances of an
agreement. Above all it meant that every aspect of the UN-led negotiation
only reached the Turkish military through a filter controlled by Denktash
or by Turkish foreign ministry officials.
One other meeting during that first visit to Ankara was worthy of
note. O n the British ambassador's sunny terrace, I had a long, agreeable
but completely unproductive lunchtime discussion of Cyprus with Bulent
Ecevit, who had been prime minister of Turkey in 1974 when the Turk-
ish military interventions in Cyprus took place. Ecevit at this time was
simply a backbench member of parliament, his party (DSP) being out of
office and thought likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. Ecevit's
view, which he continued to repeat when he was catapulted back into the
prime minister's office in 1999, was that the Cyprus problem had been
settled by him in 1974 and that nothing remained to be done except for
the rest of us to come to terms with that. 1 tried to explain why this
approach was a little simplistic: that hecause the best efforts of Turkish
diplomacy over the preceding 15 years had not produced a single country
that recognized the Turkish Cypriot state and because there had mean-
while been a large number of Secririty Council resolutions saying that the
status iluo was unacceptable and contrary to international law, it was a
little unrealistic to argue that the matter was settled, and that a number of
developments over the next few years, particularly in regard to Cyprus's
EU candidature, were likely to evolve in a way that would not be to the
benefit of Turkey or the Turkish Cypriots unless a serious effort were
made to reach a settlement. T o no avail. Ecevit's own view did not shift
much, if at all, during the period from 1999 to 2002 when he was again
prime minister.

Constructing a network
T o stand even the remotest chance of achieving a comprehensive settle-
ment there needed to be a robust and effective network of international
organizations and of the states that counted for something in the regional
capitals (Nicosia, Ankara and Athens). If the U N (both the secretary-
general and his special representative) was not functioning fully there
would simply be no settlement to negotiate, since the two Cypriot parties
never had and were clearly not going to provide the negotiable material
that would be needed. If the United States was not fully on board, there
would be no movement in Ankara; if the EU was not supportive, the
Greek Cypriots were likely to focus exclusively on completing their
64 C Y P R U S . T H E S I O \ R C I I I.'OR A SOLU'I'ION

accession negotiations before a settlement and there was also the risk of
mismatch between the terms of a Cyprus settlement and those agreed for
Cyprus to join the EU; if the Russians were not at least acquiescent there
would be trouble every time the matter came back to the Security Coun-
cil. While there was apparently no major conflict of interest between all
these parties and while all were signed up in principle to supporting an
effort to get a settlement, their cooperation could certainly not be taken
for granted. It was not long since the EU and the U N had stopped be-
having as if the two of them lived on separate planets. US support in
Ankara had on occasion been lacking in the past. Most EU member states
knew little and cared less about the Cypnis problem and rated it as of low
priority.
It was clear from the outset that the UN was not going to be easily
persuaded that the time was approaching for another attempt to get a
comprehensive settlement on Cyprus. The memories of setbacks over the
Set of Ideas (1992) and the package of Confidence-Building Measurea
(1994) were relatively fresh. The secretary-general, Boutros Boutros-
Ghali, had in particular found his dealings with Denktash a bruising
experience (the feeling was mutual) and was convinced that as long as he
was in power there was little if any chance of a solution. Boutros-Ghali
was in any case at that stage deeply preoccupied with his own unavailing
campaign to avoid an American veto and secure a second term of office as
secretary-general.
The new UN Special Representative for Cyprus, IIan Sung Joo, a
former foreign minister of South Korea had been appointed about the
same time as I had. H e met Denktash's basic requirements of all new
appointees to the office (in view of the fact that this was a Good Offices
Mission, the agreement of both Clerides and Denktash was required
before any appointment could be made) of not being a European and of
having no previous experience of Cyprus. We met in July and again in
December, when he came to London to see the foreign secretary. We met
also in Brussels when I engineered a first contact with Hans van den
Hroek, the comn~issionerresponsible for thc enlargement negotiations and
thus for Cyprus. Han was charming, intelligent and knowledgeable but he
had some real handicaps for this particular job, the most serious of which
was being based on the other side of the world in Seoul and only inter-
mittently available for short periods in the Eastern Mediterranean region.
H e was also somewhat overawed by the waves of negativism and hostility
habitually purveyed by the parties. I began to doubt whether he would be
able to manage the job if ever we reached the point of launching a new
initiative. Clearly he did too, because he stood down in the spring of 1997
when it was clear that an initiative was in the offing. All this meant that
we could certainly not count on a proactive UN at the outset and that it
would be up to the leading member states to press for action and to con-
vince the U N Secretariat that this time they would put their own backs
into it.
The US was as keen as Britain to get things moving again, not out of
any exaggerated expectations of early results but because a negotiating
vacuum in Cyprus tended to lead to an increase in tension throughout the
region and because it could already see in the EU's enlargement agenda,
which it strongly supported, both an opportunity and a risk of a major
confrontation between two NATO allies, Greece and Turkey. So in July,
on the first of many visits I was to make to Washington, I established the
very close working relationship that was essential and was given firm
commitments of high-level interest and support.
That the European Union was an important part of any negotiating
equation was not in doubt but it was not entirely obvious how best its
undoubted influence could be harnessed and deployed. The problem was
complicated by the fact that the attitude of the then Greek foreign minis-
ter, Pangalos, made any calm, sensible, collective EU discussion of either
Cyprus or Turkey impossible. So such collective discussion as did take
place had to be managed in ad hoc groupings of the member states princi-
pally concerned (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK). The
common view in this group was that we all needed to be pressing the
parties to come back to the negotiating table; that we should encourage
the U N to begin shaping up a new initiative; that we should do what we
could to find a way round the Greek veto on the EU's financial commit-
ment to Turkey and try to keep Turkey's relationship with the EU
moving forward; and that we should not be lured down the path of pro-
moting the EU as a mediator in Cyprus, a favourite ploy of both Greeks
and Greek Cypriots, given that, with Greece's membership and with
Cyprus's application accepted, the EU was clearly not acceptable in that
role to either Turkish Cypriots or Turks. At this stage, with the enlarge-
ment negotiations not yet started, there seemed no particular role for the
Commission.
 CYPRUS I H b Sbt\lICH FOR A [Link] I O N

Enter the foreign secretary

At the time of my appointment in May, Malcolm Rifkind had made it
clear that he would like to get involved personally in the effort to get
negotiations for a comprehensive settlement under way again. Both he
and the prime minister, John Major, had ensured that my appointment
was properly understood and welcomed where it needed to be (in the
region, at the UN, in Washington and in the main EU capitals). Now,
that autumn, after two complete rounds of visits to Nicosia, Athens and
Ankara and numerous contacts with the other main players, it seemed to
me time to take stock and consider how best to take forward the foreign
secretary's offer.
A visit to Cyprus by a British foreign secretary was by no means as
straightforward or as routine a matter as bilateral official visits normally
are in this age of jet travel. Oddly enough there had been no such visits in
the recent past, although Douglas Hurd had visited the island when the
Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting was held there in 1994,
and he had had a working lunch with Clerides and Denktash at the U N
Deputy Special Representative's house in the buffer zone to discuss
progress, or rather the lack of it. Prior to that a whole series of foreign
secretaries had decided that visiting Cyprus was a high-risk, low-gain
venture and had left it to their ministers for Europe.
Among the complications in mounting such a visit was the matter of
seeing Denktash. For the visit to be worthwhile at all there had to be a
proper discussion with him, but this needed to be achieved within the
framework of our (and others') position on recognition, that we regarded
him as the elected leader of the Turkish Cypriot community but not (as
he regarded himself) as the president of the Turkish Republic of North
Cyprus. Then there was the more interesting and risky question of what
we should try to achieve. Should we try to bring Clerides and Denktash
together and, if so, with what desired outcome? Should we try to get
agreement on the broad issue of resuming negotiations for a settlement
and, if so, on what basis? And, if we did neither of the above, how were
we to avoid the visit being just a flash in the pan with no follow up or
influence on events? It was decided that trying to get Clerides and Denk-
tash together was unwise and as likely to set back the process in which we
were engaged (of gradually building up the case for resuming negotia-
tions) as to advance it. Denktash would be delighted by a photo-
opportunity meeting to enhance his status but would set out his case in
unnegotiable terms; Clerides, if he agreed to such a meeting at all, which
he might well not, would push back and not thank us for bringing matters
prematurely to such a point. Reaching agreement with the two sides on a
communique' or statement, however bland, was also judged likely to end
in failure. The capacity of the two leaders, with their training at the
London bar, to haggle over words and formulae until they were ground to
dust was well proven.
So in the end an approach was chosen which would avoid these pit-
falls, but still, we hoped, advance the cause for which we were working.
Following the foreign secretary's meetings with the two leaders, and
assuming their outcome was not totally negative, Rifkind would set nut in
his bi-communal press conference at the end of the visit a number of
points that, together, could be said to indicate that there was a good deal
more common ground than many believed there to be and therefore a
good case for resuming negotiations for a settlement. While no attempt
would be made to agree the wording of these points in advance with the
two leaders, Rilkind would send them the text shortly before the press
conference and would urge each of them to respond positively.
The visit, on 15-16 December, duly went off without a hitch. The
meetings with Clerides and Denktash in fact went rather better than I had
feared. Clerides, no doubt conscious that crucial decisions on Cyprus's
EU candidacy were due to be taken in 1997, made it clear that he still
hoped for a framework negotiation in which he and Denktash could agree
on the key, substantive trade-offs, leaving the detailed legal drafting to
follow. And Denktash, after the obligatory history lesson, managed to
sound as if he regarded the resumption of settlement negotiations as
pretty well inevitable and indeed said that he would enter such negotia-
tions in a spirit of give and take. The reactions to the press conference by
each side were relatively muted and limited to one or two detailed points
of drafting which, since no one intended to use the text for negotiating
purposes, were neither here nor there.
Moreover at separate meetings in London with the Turkish foreign
minister, by now Ciller, (on 5 December) and with the Greek foreign
minister, Pangalos, (on 18 December) the discussion of Cyprus was
relatively positive. Ciller in particular showed a considerable grasp of the
main issues, with which she had had to deal in detail when she had been
prime minister during the negotiations over Confidence-Building Meas-
ures. While her approach was distinctly robust, she also listened carefully
to Rifkind's analysis of why a settlement on Cyprus could be of real
benefit to Turkey and the lurkish Cypriots.
 CYPRUS: T H E SEARCH FOR A SO1,UTION

So, as 1996 ended, it seemed as if some progress back to the negotiat-

ing table was being made. T h e ten points for Rifkind's press conference
indicated a broad framework within which a resumed negotiation could
be situated and were as follows:

(i) The aim should be a comprehensive settlement covering all aspects of

the Cyprus problem which will be based on a bi-zonal, bi-communal fed-
eration in conformity with the High-Level Agreements and Security
Council Resolutions;

(ii) The federation and its constitution will reflect the principle of political
equality of the two communities, as defined by the U N Secretary-
General:

(i) The federation will have a single international personality. Its exis-
tence and powers will derive from separate referenda in the two
communities.
(ii) There will be no right of partition or secession, nor will there be
domination of the federation by either side.
(iii) The security of each of the two communities and of the settlement
as a whole will be achieved by means of international guarantees and
by such measures of international collective security as may be agreed
by the parties.
(iv) The boundary of the two federated zones will not conform to the
present ceasefire line. The adjustment should contribute to a solution
of the problem of refugees.
(v) Before the end of the first half of 1997, there should be an open-
ended session of face-to-face negotiations under the aegis of the Unite i
Nations aimed at securing a comprehensive settlement to the Cyprus
problem. The further preparation of these face-to-face negotiations by
an intensified process will start early in 1997.
(vi) The success of these negotiations will depend on the creation of
genuine mutual confidence between the two sides. It will therefore be
important for both sides to encourage steps designed to achieve that
and to avoid any actions which will increase tension over the coming
months. In particular they will work to ensure the success of U N ef-
forts on unmanning, unloading and rulcs of military conduct.
(vii) EU membership should be of benefit to all the people of the island
and the terms of accession will need to take account of the basic inter-
ests of each of the two communities.
(viii) The negotiation of the terms of accession of Cyprus to the EU
will, if a political settlement can be reached 111 1997, be conducted on
behalf of the bi-zonal, bi-communal fcderation, taking account of the
European Union's agreement to start such negotiations six months af-
ter the conclusion of its Inter-Governmental Conference.
 1997: Missiles and Missed
Opportunities

T
he year 1997 did not start well. Within a few days of the begin-
ning of the year it was announced that the Greek Cypriots had
signed a contract with Russia to purchase S300 surface-to-air
missiles. This was only the latest in a series of arms purchases by the
government of Cyprus which, together with mounting Turkish deploy-
ments, had resulted in the island being one of the most heavily armed
places on earth. But this latest purchase was qualitatively rather different
from previous ones and potentially more destabilizing. The missiles in
question had a range sufficient to shoot down Turkish aircraft taking off
from their bases in southern Turkey from where the Turks provided air
cover for their troops on the island (neither they nor the Greeks stationed
military aircraft in Cyprus). They therefore represented a challenge to
Turkish air supremacy in the event of hostilities. And so did a further
Greek Cypriot decision to construct a military airbase at Paphos in the
west of the island, with hardened shelters for aircraft, which would enable
Greek planes to be deployed in a time of tension.
The effect of these developments on the prospects for settlement
negotiations were entirely negative and were not much mitigated by an
assurance immediately given to a US envoy by Clerides that the missiles
would not arrive on the island before the end of 1997 at the earliest (this
was in fact no concession at all, since the missiles had not yet begun to be
manufactured). The reaction in the north of the island and in Ankara was
strong, and the Turkish foreign minister in particular made some ex-
tremely bellicose statements which implied, although they did not state it
in terms, that force might be used either to prevent the delivery of the
missiles from Russia or against them once deployed. Whlle there were
some indications that the Turkish general staff, who were no fans of the
Erbakan/Ciller government, were unhappy about the strength and speci-
 MlSSILES AND MISSED OPPORTUNITIILS 71

ficity of the threats made by their government, it was clear that compla-
cency about what might happen if deployment went ahead would not be
justified. Meanwhile one of the centrepieces of the Greek Cypriot negoti-
ating position for a settlement, a proposal that the whole island be
demilitarized, was left looking distinctly forlorn, if not positively hypo-
critical. Other consequences were that the Greek Cypriots lost the moral
high ground on which they had been comfortably encamped and that
many of the diplomatic efforts of the United States, Britain and the other
European countries over the next two years had to be diverted to avoiding
deployment of the missiles rather than being focused on persuading the
Turks and Turkish Cypriots to show more flexibility at the negotiating
table.
Discussion of these unfortunate developments with the Greek Cypri-
ots was not easy, nor, for a long time, particularly fruitful. They argued
with some emotion that they had the right to defend themselves against
the very substantial Turkish military presence in the north of the island
and on the mainland opposite Cyprus. They brushed aside the suggestion
that they were in any way acting in a manner inconsistent with the nu-
merous Security Council resolutions that had urged all parties to avoid a
military build-up on the island. And in private Clerides was prone to
suggest that the missile purchase was a kind of negotiating ploy designed
to bring Denktash and the Turks to the negotiating table. The trouble
was that none of these arguments were either valid or particularly con-
vincing. Acquiring these missiles neither increased the security of the
Greek Cypriots nor did it make the Turks and Turkish Cypriots more
likely to negotiate a settlement. On the first aspect, powerful though the
missiles were, they could not hope to undermine the massive Turkish air
superiority nor did they change the facts of geography. And it was those
facts - the distance of Cyprus from Greece and its proximity to Turkey,
and the consequent impossibility for Greece to resupply or to reinforce
Cyprus in a time of hostilities, which had been amply demonstrated in
1974 - that remained unaltered by the latest arms purchase and meant
that the best form of security for the Greek Cypriots was an internation-
ally guaranteed settlement and not the acquisition of additional weapons
systems. Moreover the nature of the new weapons system ensured that if
there ever was a Greek-Turkish military confrontation, there would be
no hope of avoiding its spilling over into Cyprus, since the Turks would
not be likely to leave such a threat to their mainland airbases untouched.
As to making the Turks more inclined to negotiate with flexibility, the
72 C Y P R U S . 'I'HE S E A R C H F O R A [Link]'ION

opposite was the case. Not only did the rather febrile atmosphere in
Ankara mean that there was a premium on an aggressively nationalistic
response, but even cooler Turkish heads were quite capable of working
out that if an arms purchase such as this could be shown or be believed to
have softened up their negotiating position, then there would be no end to
further such purchases.
Nor did attempts by the Americans and the British to persuade the
Kussians to cancel or at least to delay delivery of the missiles bear any
fruit. When I spoke to Vladimir Chizov, the Russian Special Representa-
tive, on a visit to London in February I got no change at all. Chizov was a
well-informed and sophisticated operator and there was no reason to
doubt Russian support for a new UN-led effort to get a settlement. But
that support did not include reining in arms supplies in the meanwhile,
and the argument that these were contrary to the spirit, if not the letter, of
Security Council resolutions was met with a degree of obfuscation wor-
thy of Soviet diplomacy at the height of the Cold War. In effect Russia
had a two-track policy - support for settlement negotiations and selling
any weapons the Greek Cypriots would buy - and they pursued both
tracks without admitting any inconsistency between them throughout the
whole period of the negotiations. This was some improvement on their
Cold War policy of using the Cyprus problem politically to stir up trouble
within NATO, but not much.
So there matters stood on the missiles all through 1997, and, with a
presidential election looming in Cyprus in February 1998, it became clear
that the missiles would neither be delivered nor cancelled ahead of that.
But they hung heavily over the first attempt to get a new negotiation
under way.

Another shoe drops

By the end of 1996, and following the Rifkind visit to Nicosia, it had
become relatively clear that a resumption of negotiations was on the cards
in 1997. But the Turkish attitude to this had not yet been clarified and
that was a crucial element. In mid-February I was able to have a long
discussion over a working breakfast in London with Onur Oymen, at that
time the under-secretary (PUS in our parlance) in the Turkish foreign
ministry. It was never very easy to understand precisely where in Ankara
policy on Cyprus was made and where the decision-taking buck stopped.
But it became steadily clearer as the years went by that the under-
secretary was on this issue the focal point where all the threads came
 M I S 5 I L E S >\NI> bIISSISl> O P P O I I 7 U N I 7 I C S 7;

together. Our talk on that occasion over breakfast, although far from a
meeting of minds, went quite well and Oymen said he would do his best
to ensure that the foreign minister (Ciller) cleared her mind on the subject
before I visited Ankara a week later and that she would see me on that
occasion (as she had not done when I had last visited Ankara the previous
October). H e was as good as his word on both points.
Getting to see Ciller was no straightforward matter. She did not
transact business at the foreign ministry but from the official residence
that she had occupied when she was prime minister and where she was
still installed. Nor did she see foreign ministry officials to prepare for
meetings with visitors; all that was handled by Oymen, who alone ap-
peared to have access to the residence, thus ensuring a considerable
bottleneck and much delay. So we kicked our heels for some time in the
Ciller anteroom before Oymen finally appeared to say that all was ready.
I-Ie asked rather nervously that I should remember that she was a strong-
willed person who did not like being contradicted. I said that, having
worked for Margaret Thatcher for some 11 years, I did have some experi-
ence of that phenomenon. We were then ushered in, accompanied by a
substantial portion of the Ankara press corps, television cameras and all.
The whole meeting was conducted in their presence. Ciller said straight-
away that Turkey believed that the time had come for Cyprus
negotiations to resume and that it would support a U N initiative to that
effect. She fired off some remarks about the need for the EU to unblock
its financial commitlnents to Turkey and for the Russian missiles not to
be deployed on the island. There was not a great deal for me to do but to
agree on all these points while pointing out that none of them were in our
gift.
I was also able to see in Ankara on that occasion the junior minister
responsible for day-to-day relations with north Cyprus and in particular
for the extensive Turkish aid programme there (thought to be running at
about $200 million a year and rising, although no official figures were ever
published and that did not include the cost of military support). Abdullah
Giil (who became prime minister following the November ZOO2 general
election and then deputy prime minister and foreign minister when the
political impediments on his party leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, were
lifted in March 2003) made an immediately positive impression. Smiling,
intelligent and well informed, he had studied in Britain. He readily ac-
cepted that the status quo in Cyprus was neither ideal nor easily
sustainable in the long term. H e set out Turkey's requirements for politi-
74 C Y P R U S : T H E SEARCH FOR A SO1.U'I'ION

cal equality and security guarantees in a firm but conciliatory manner.

And he clearly understood that Denktash was likely to be an obstacle to
reaching a negotiated settlement. The political scene in Ankara, with the
army increasing pressure all the time on the Erbakan/Ciller government
to step down, meant that Giil's views were not, however, likely to be of
much direct relevance in the period immediately ahead.

A change of cast at the UN

At the beginning of 1997 Boutros-Ghali stepped down as U N secretary-
general and was succeeded by Kofi Annan. This move had implications
for the handling of the Cyprus problem. Although Boutros-Ghali had
responded positively to representations made to him by the US, Britain
and other European countries the previous year to appoint a new Special
Representative for Cyprus and to explore whether it was time to renew
attempts to negotiate a settlement, it was hard to believe that his heart
was in it. He had put a lot of effort into the two previous negotiations (in
1992 and in 1993-94) and had been left empty handed; and he had no
confidence in Denktash's good faith, even if he did not actually block a
renewed attempt. Moreover Boutros-Ghali had come to be seen by the
Turks and Denktash as in some way prejudiced against them (a familiar
cycle in Cyprus negotiations, which neither the Turks nor Denktash ever
seemed to attribute to Denktash's own behaviour); this meant that he
would not have been well placed for the periods of personal involvement
in the negotiations without which no solutions would be found. Annan,
on the other hand was not so marked. As a long-serving U N official, most
recently as under-secretary-general for peacekeeping operations - and
thus responsible for UNFICYP, the U N peacekeeping operation in
Cyprus - he was reasonably familiar with the subject matter at issue, but
he did not have a track record in the eyes of any of the parties.
As Annan moved towards a decision to launch an effort to resume
negotiations for a settlement, he realized that he would need a special
representative somewhat closer to the action and to himself than Seoul. In
place of Han, he chose Diego Cordovez, an Ecuadorian with long experi-
ence at the U N during the 1980s and subsequently foreign minister of
Ecuador in the early 1990s. Cordovez had played an important role in
brokering the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan when he had
acted as a go-between for the Soviet Union, the United States and Paki-
stan. I did not myself know Cordovez well, having only met him briefly
when Ecuador served on the Security Council in 1991-92, but our first
contacts on Cyprus were encouraging. I naturally argued the case for an
early resumption of negotiations, but I cautioned against excessive ex-
pectations of rapid progress, which seemed to me highly unlikely. T h e
crucial thing, once some kind of process was under way, was not to drop
the thread but rather to keep on following it where it would lead; experi-
ence had shown that when the thread snapped, or when the U N dropped
it, it could take a frustratingly long time to pick it up again.
I also argued for a comprehensive approach, seeking to resolve all the
issues definitively, in written texts; again experience had shown that a
partial or interim agreement, even one as elaborate as the 1992 Set of
Ideas, risked becoming stuck in mid-stream, with the well-established
Cypriot proclivity for arguing the toss on even the smallest issues, then
ensuring that the negotiator never actually reached the far bank of the
river. Rut to get to a fully self-executing, comprehensive agreement would
require a major technical input by the UN, including the drafting of a
new constitution, of arrangements on property and security and many
other matters. That would require a UN team of experts of which there
was as yet no trace; and I undertook to see whether we could find a
constitutional lawyer to help in this work, which indeed we did in the
form of Henry Steel, a former member of the Foreign Office's legal staff
who had worked on the constitution of Zimbabwe. And I urged Cordovez
to develop his links with the E U Commission, which was now moving
closer to the centre of the stage as the Union approached a decision to
open accession negotiations with a first group of applicant countries
which was bound to include Cyprus.

Holbrooke ex machina
So far the US contribution to resuming negotiations for a Cyprus settle-
ment had t ~ e e nsupportive but low key. 'I'he previous Presidential Special
Representative, Richard Beattie, had been much involved in the attempt
to set up confidential talks between the two sides in 1995 but subse-
quently had not had much time to devote to Cyprus, given the demands
of his law firm in New York and of a number of additional tasks in the
State Department given to him by the new secretary of state, Madeleine
Albright. T h e appoint~nentin June 1997 of Richard Holbrooke as Presi-
dential Special Representative for Cyprus came out of the blue and, given
the reputation IIolbroolte had gained as the architect of the Dayton
agreement ending the Bosnian crisis, it caused plcnty of ripples. Quite by
chance Holbrooke l~appenedto be in London immediately after the
76 CYPRUS T H E S I C A R C H F O R ,\ S O I . U T I O N

announcement of his appointment, holed up in the house of the US

deputy chief of mission which he had comnlandeered to enable him to
finish the book he was writing about Romia and Dayton. So we were able
to spend the better part of two days going over the ground in detail and
discussing the way ahead. I had known Holbrooke from the 1970s and we
had met frequently during the Bosnian crisis, although I had left the scene
before the denouement at Dayton. We did not therefore start from
scratch.
Most of our lengthy discussions over these two days were taken up by
my briefing him His immediate reactions were interesting, perceptive
and revealing. EIe quickly saw that a key factor in the Turkish position
would be where they stood so far as their own longstanding application to
join the European Union was concerned. If that was showing signs of
making progress, the motivation to focus on Cyprus and to look for ways
of resolving that problem would be powerf~ilbecause it was so obvious
that there was a fundanlental inconsistency between Turkey's ambition to
join the European Union and the status quo in Cyprus. But, if Turkey's
EU candidacy was getting nowhere, then the Turks were likely to camp
on the status quo in Cyprus and to see no reason why they should strike
the difficult compronlises that a Cyprus settlement would require.
I was not able to offer much comfort. The EU Commission's mind
was on other things than Turkey as they put the finishing touches to their
Agenda 2000 proposals for the handling of the enlargement negotiations.
The Greek government was an obstacle to making any progress with
Turkey's candidacy, not even being prepared to release the customs union
funds. And the incoming Luxembourg presidency of the EU was about as
bad as one could get, with no particular motivation to smooth Turkey's
path, and a long tradition of taking an aggressively tough line on 'I'urkey's
human rights record. In that c a e , Holbrooke said, we must either change
the EU attitude or recognize that we were getting the component ele-
ments of the negotiation in the wrong order, trying to make progress on
Cyprus itself before the Turks would be ready for it. I could not fault the
reasoning. Holbrooke was also somewhat impatient with my description
of the complexities of the various aspects of the impending negotiation
and of the need to fit various multilateral wheels (the U N and the EU in
particular) together so that they meshed and did not clash, or simply did
not engage. I was, he said, obsessed with process. There must be some
way of cutting through all this, of getting the key players to take the big
decisions and to focus on the politics of the problem, not its technicalities.
 1\.[Link] A N D M I S S E D OPPOK'1'UNI1'IliS 77

I said I doubted if this sort of approach would work for Cyprus. It never
had done in the past. The main protagonists were lawyers who knew
every nook and cranny of every aspect of the problem and they were
deeply distrustful of each other. I did not think there was any alternative
to a painstakingly detailed approach. My private conclusion was that
while Nolbrooke's arrival on the scene could be a major asset in terms of
negotiating clout and imaginative tactical handling, there was not likely to
be a lot of teamwork involved, and keeping the U N centre stage was not
something to which he was deeply committed.

Troutbeck and Glion

The new team at the U N now moved to the first stage of a new negotia-
tion without much preparation and without much consultation with the
main players. There was always a dilemma to be faced. Time spent in
preparatory contacts with the parties and the two motherlands tended to
be frustrating and to yield few results. No one was prepared to show their
cards, as they saw it, prematurely. Instead discussion tended to focus on
extraneous matters (missiles, Cyprus's EU application) and to go round in
circles. Han had shown how going round the circuit, 'in a listening mode'
as he described it, could after a certain time simply undermine the credi-
bility of the whole process. So the decision to move immediately to face-
to-face meetings was entirely justified. What was less so was to do that
without preparing any detailed material for the follow-up to the initial
meetings and without a clear idea of how the negotiations were to be
pursued thereafter. Moreover it began to become evident that Cordovei
was strongly imbued with the U N house culture that it was important to
keep governments, including those like the US and the UK whose pri-
mary role was to give the U N effective diplomatic support, at arms'
length, telling them little of what the U N was up to. In many cases this
U N culture was quite understandable and indeed necessary. But in the
case of Cyprus, where previous U N efforts had tended to falter because of
the lack of strong back-up from member states and where the roles of the
US and the UK had always been an essential factor for all the main
regional players, it did not make sense and it did not produce good results.
Annan therefore invited the two Cypriot leaders to a meeting in mid-
July at Troutbeck, a kind of country club in the rolling hills to the east of
the Hudson River about an hour and a halfs drive north of New York
City. He followed that up with a further meeting in mid-August at Glion,
a small resort perched among the vineyards at the far end of Lake Geneva,
78 CYPRUS '1 I l k S E > \ R C H F O R A S O I . U T I O N

high above Montreux (the proximity of Glion to Montreux and Lausanne,

sacred names in the diplomatic history of modern Turkey, was a source of
some fascination to the Turks at least). The UN encouraged the presence
of Greek and Turkish delegations, which was in any case unavoidable and
therefore wise, but made it as difficult as possible for all others - and they
made no attempt at all to enlist Holbrooke's presence or support.
The Troutbeck meeting started reasonably promisingly. Annan im-
mediately struck up a good working relationship with the two leaders
which he was to maintain through thick and thin over the next seven
years. Clerides and Denktash, whose personal relationship dated back to
their time practising law in colonial Cyprus and had survived all vicissi-
tudes since, appeared relaxed and friendly. But Denktash quickly began
to push his own personal agenda, seeking recognition of his separate and
equal status not only in the negotiations themselves which had been
agreed from the outset of attempts to settle the Cyprus problem many
years earlier (and which was reflected in the fact that the UN negotiations
were, formally, between the leader of the Greek Cypriot community and
the leader of the Turkish Cypriot community) but outside the negotia-
tions too. He asked Clerides to concede that he did not represent the
Turkish Cypriots in any way, which implied that Clerides had no right to
be called the president of Cyprus. Clerides, not surprisingly, declined to
do anything that would undermine his legitimacy, although he made it
clear that within the settlement negotiations he spoke for no one other
than the Greek Cypriots.
The scene was thus set for many weary repetitions of this same dia-
logue of the deaf. And neither side showed any great appetite for getting
to grips with the core issues, although Clerides reiterated his view that the
two principals should focus on the main political trade-offs and should
leave the details to be followed up later by their teams. Into this rather
stagnant pool there dropped news of the publication of the EU Commis-
sion's Agenda 2000 proposals on the opening of EU accession negotiations
with a number of countries including Cyprus and dealing only cursorily
and in a dilatory manner with Turkey's own EU application. Both the
Turks and 'Turkish Cypriots took this development extremely badly,
although the inclusion of Cyprus within the first wave of applicants had
been a foregone conclusion since 1995 when the EU's commitment to that
had formed part of the deal with Turkey to move to a full customs union.
Whether their reaction would have been less negative if Agenda 2000 had
been more constructive about the future handling of Turkey's candidacy
 M I S S I L E S r\ND MISSED OPPORTUNI'I'ICS 79

it is impossible to say. What is certain was that the Troutbeck meetings

ended on a sour note, with no reason for optimism about the sequel at
Glion.
When Cordovez debriefed to a group of special representatives at
Troutbeck at the end of the meeting, he said that he and Annan had been
struck by the fact that since the conclusion of the High-Level Agreements
of 1977 and 1979 and through the whole long series of UN-led negotia-
tions thereafter, the two Cypriot parties had not reached agreement on a
single piece of paper. The U N felt that that sequence must be broken and
that the first priority was to get agreement on a document, however brief
and unsubstantial that might be. That was what they would be trying to
achieve at Glion. I questioned this approach, doubting whether a largely
procedural piece of paper would prove of much value and querying
whether in any case it was likely to be possible to achieve agreement
given the Turkish Cypriots' determination to push the issue of status
before all others. I said, as did the US representative, that the most im-
portant objective in our view, now that the UN had the negotiating
thread again in its hands, was not to let that drop or be broken. So if the
attempt to reach agreement on a piece of paper did not prosper at Glion,
we hoped that at least the U N would ensure that a process of negotiation
would continue and that it would thus prove possible to get to grips with
the core issues in the months ahead. As became clear afterwards, we
might as well have been talking to the wall.
When the same cast assembled at Glion a month later, it soon became
clear that the negotiating climate was not going to match the dazzling
sunlight of a Swiss August. A private dinner with the Turkish delegation
revealed Inal Batu gloomier even than when we had last talked in Ankara
in June. It was evident that the new and fragile Turkish coalition govern-
ment of Mesut Yilmaz, which had been formed after the military had
nudged out the ErbakanICiller government, was in no mood to engage in
a serious negotiation about Cyprus and had effectively given Denktash his
head. Denktash was never a man to miss such an opportunity. From the
outset of the meeting he pressed his points aggressively, in particular
insisting that Cyprus's EU application must be frozen, something to
which Clerides was never going to agree. Clerides himself was by this
time in a very nervous state, being criticized by the Greek Cypriot press
for not responding robustly enough to Denktash's rumbustious press
briefings, which totally ignored Annan's plea for a press blackout while
the meeting was going on. It took some private reassurance from the US
80 CYPRUS I HI< SI<i\IICH F O R A SO1,U'I'ION

and the UK to avoid a walk-out by Clerides. In the midst of all this the
U N not only failed to get agreement on the piece of paper they had
drafted but also made no serious attempt to salvage a follow-up process to
the two meetings, apparently assuming that the atmosphere was so bad
that there was no point in trying. And they did not put on the table any
material relating to the core issues that might have provided a rationale
for such follow-up meetings, despite considerable prompting, for the
simple reason that Cordovez's team, which consisted of a single lugubri-
ous Belgian official who knew very little about Cyprus, had not prepared
anything. So there we were, back at square one. It was to take more than
two years before tlie negotiating thread was picked up again.

European manoeuvres
T h e failure of the Glion meeting and the absence of any attempt to pro-
vide for a follow-up left something of a vacuum in the UN-led effort to
get a settlement, a vacuum that was only partially filled by sporadic visits
to the region by Cordovez. Cordovez was by now based more in Quito
than New York, which meant that for most of the time he was completely
removed from the scene of action, rather as his predecessor Han had been,
based in Seoul. In any case the U N had decided to wait and see how
Turkey's relationship with the European Union developed in the months
ahead before deciding what to do next.
The European Union was faced with two tricky decisions which
would have to be taken at the European Council meeting in 1,uxembourg
in December. The first related to Cyprus. There was never any real
doubt that the Luxembourg meeting would agree to the opening of acces-
sion negotiations with a number of countries and that Cyprus would
figure among that number. 'l'his was not simply, as the 'l'urks believed,
because Greece was blackmailing her EU partners with the threat that
they would block the whole enl'irgement negotiation if Cyprus was
excluded from the first group, although that eventuality was a real possi-
bility which weighed on the minds of EU governments; it was because in
1995 the European Union had, as part of the deal over concluding a
customs union with Turkey, committed itself to opening accession nego-
tiations with Cyprus six months after the conclusion of the Inter-
Governmental Conference set up to agree on the institutional changes to
take account of enlargement and that conference had been concluded in
Amsterdam in June 1996. Much can be said in criticism of the European
Union, but its track record in sticking to commitments of that sort is
 M I S S I L L ~ SA N D M I S S E D O P P O R T U N I T I E S 81

good. And the Turks had been unwise to doubt it. Moreover the circum-
stances under which the Cyprus negotiations had collapsed at Glion, with
most of the blame accruing to Denktash and his failed attempt to block
Cyprus's EU accession, were not likely to encourage any EU member
state to reopen the commitment to Cyprus. So the question for Luxem-
bourg was not whether to agree to open accession negotiations with
Cyprus but how to do so in a way that did not preclude the Turkish
Cypriots being brought into the accession negotiations and, above all, in a
way that did not presume already that the Cyprus joining the European
Union would be a divided rather than a united one.
The second issue facing the European Union was what to say at
Luxembourg about the Turkish application. The original preference of
the Luxembourg EU presidency, and perhaps also of the Commission, to
say nothing at all about Turkey, was by October seen to be sheer fantasy.
Not only was the Turkish government itself now, somewhat belatedly,
beating on every door in Europe, but it was not realistic to think that
silence on Turkey's application, when other applicants whose bids for
membership had come in after Turkey's and which were even poorer and
less ready economically than Turkey for membership were being given
preference, would be seen as other than an outright rejection of Turkey.
Unfortunately for Turkey the circumstances were far from propitious. It
was only a few months since the ErbakanICiller government had been
ousted, more by the efforts of the Turkish military than by any demo-
cratic developments in the Turkish parliament, in what was seen by most
observers as a kind of 'soft' coup. Relieved though many European gov-
ernments might be by the departure of a partly Islamist government,
there was no way in which these events could be fitted within what were
called the 'Copenhagen criteria' for EU membership. So the EU was
bound to say something between 'Yes, but ...' and 'Not yet'. Much
thought was also being given to the calling of a European Conference,
originally a French idea but now being backed with some enthusiasm by
Britain too, which would bring together all the applicant countries, in-
cluding those with whom accession negotiations were not going to be
started straightaway, and provide for pan-European discussion of issues
such as the environment, drugs, illegal immigration and security. The
Conference was intended to be a kind of anteroom for EU membership,
but one of its defects was that it was never very clear how easy it was
going to be to use the door from the anteroom to full membership.
 The Turkish lobbying campaign did not prosper. As Yilmaz wound
his way round the capitals of the European Union, the traditional Turkish
over-bidding, with requests for the early opening of accession negotia-
tions, was met with increasingly negative responses. Nor did discussion of
the Cyprus problem reveal any inclination by Turkey to press Denktash
to work for a settlement. A heavy-handed attempt by the United States,
led and orchestrated by Holbrooke, to support the campaign did not go
down well. The hostility of the Luxembourg presidency was revealed in a
reference by Jean-Claude Juncker, the Luxembourg prime minister, at a
press conference during Yilmaz's visit there, to the 'barbarity' of Turkish
police practices. By the time Yilmaz reached London on 9 December
immediately before the meeting of the European Council, his usual taci-
turnity had lapsed into almost complete silence. H e had clearly given up
hope of eliciting anything useful from the EU as a whole, and the rela-
tively positive response from Tony Blair, who made it clear that Britain
believed Turkey's place was in Europe and would work to bring that
about, did little to lighten the atmosphere.
The outcome at Luxembourg was a good deal better on the first issue
(Cyprus) than on the second (Turkey). Having agreed to open negotia-
tions with Cyprus in March 1998, the EU said that the objective was to
benefit all communities and help to bring peace and reconciliation and to
contribute positively to the search for a political solution to the Cyprus
problem through the talks under the aegis of the United Nations which
must continue. The European Council requested that the willingness of
the government of Cyprus to include representatives of the Turkish
Cypriot comn~unityin the accession-~legotiating delegation be acted
upon, and mandated the presidency (for the next six months the UK) and
the Comn~issionto undertake the necessary contacts to achieve this.
O n Turkey a text was adopted which, while it recognized Turkey's
eligibility for accession and made it clear that it would be judged on the
basis of the same criteria as the other applicants, did nothing at all to
advance its candidature. Moreover it linked progress to the resolution of
the disputes with Greece in the Aegean over the continental shelf and air
and sea boundaries, to Turkey's treatment of its minorities (a coded
reference to the Kurds) and to support for the UN-led negotiations on a
Cyprus settlement. The assumption was that this remarkably 'Greek' text
had been smuggled in by the Luxembourg presidency, and no one had
chosen to take issue with it.
 I\.IISSII.E:S A N D MISSI<I) O P P O R T U N I T I E S 83

T h e Turkish reaction was immediate and violently negative. Yilmaz

publicly denounced the European Union as biased and hostile and said
Turkey would freeze its relations with the Union, dealing only with the
individual member states. H e had no intention of accepting the invitation
to the European Conference. The Turkish press took up the cry and there
was some talk of withdrawing Turkey's EU application or of reneging on
the provisions of the Customs Union Agreement, but none of that tran-
spired. The only person who looked highly content was Denktash who,
despite the supposed humiliation of his motherland, clearly enjoyed the
opportunity to give full rein to his Euro-scepticism. H e rubbished the
offer to associate the Turkish Cypriots with the accession negotiations as
implying their subordination to the Greek Cypriots and their acceptance
of an illegal membership application.
Could this crisis in EUITurkey relations have been avoided? Possibly,
but more likely the unavoidable decision to open accession negotiations
with Cyprus, with which the Turks had not yet begun to come to terms,
and the difficulty of taking any concrete steps forward on Turkey's
candidature, would have meant that, however bland the words the EU
had chosen, there would still have been a row. The formulas employed
simply rubbed salt in some very open wounds. As to Denktash the row
was grist to his mill. He was only too well aware that progress on Tur-
key's EU candidature represented the greatest threat to his own
domination of Turkey's Cyprus policy and to holding that policy to a
hardline defence of the status quo. Anything that damaged Turkey's EU
candidature was good news for him. And there was the added benefit that
the row could help to cool the ardour to join the EU of many ordinary
Turkish Cypriots and of the centre-left opposition parties in north Cy-
prus who were already beginning to scent a popular cause, on which
Denktash was in an increasingly small minority among his people.
 1998: Damage Limitation

F
or the first half of 1998 Britain held the EU presidency under the
rotating arrangements then in force. My own role as the British
Special Representative for Cyprus had had added to it the not very
well defined job of EU Presidency Special Representative for Cyprus,
which then continued for the second half of 1998 when the Austrians,
who followed Rritain in the presidency, asked me to carry on during their
presidency. '1-he prime minister, Tony Blair, also asked me to take on a
temporary mission as his personal envoy to Turkey in an attempt to iron
out some of the misunderstandings that had arisen between the EU and
Turkey following the 1,uxembourg European Council in December 1997.
None of these tasks looked likely to be easy; all were closely inter-linked
and all were likely to affect the prospects for getting settlement negotia-
tions under way.
In Cyprus itself the situation was complicated by two developments.
The first was the latest in the regular quinquennial elections for the
presidency in the south of the island, which was due to take place in
February. The front runners were Clerides, who was standing for a
second term, and George Iacovou, an independent, who had been George
Vassiliou's foreign minister from 1988 to 1993 and who had the support
of the Cypriot communist party (AKEL), which virtually assured him of
a third of the votes even before campaigning began. Fortunately the
Cyprus problem did not figure prominently in the campaign - as it had
done in 1993 when Clerides had beaten Vassiliou by opposing the UN
Set of Ideas - because there was so little happening and thus no obvious
target at which to aim. But enough was said by both candidates about the
determil~ationof each, if elected, to proceed with the deployment of the
S300 missiles to signal that that was not going to be one of the easiest of
matters to deal with later in the year. In the end Clerides won, again by a
whisker as he had done in 1991. One consequence of the presidential
election was that it was not possible immedidtely to take up the sensitive
issue of the offer to be made to the Turkish Cypriots of involvement in
the EU accession negotiations due to begin at the end of March. The
second development was that Denktash, as usual both mimicking and
going one step further than Ankara, announced that he intended to have
nothing further to do with anyone representing the EU, thus ruling out
any contact with me for the whole of the year and also with the EU
Commission.

EUITurkey: picking up the pieces

The general view around the EU was that the Turks had over-reacted to
the Luxembourg European Council but that they needed to be helped out
of the hole into which they had thrown themselves. There was some
awareness that thc text of the conclusions of 1,uxembourg had been rather
provocative, and a continuing feeling of guilt, everywhere except in
Athens, that the EU had not been able to honour its commitment to
provide financial aid under the 1995 Customs Union Agreement. All were
only too well aware that there would be no progress in solving the Cyprus
problem as long as Turkey was so deeply disenchanted with the interna-
tional community.
'l'he first priority, for Britain as the EU presidency in particular, was
to see whether Turkey could be persuaded to change its position and
attend the first summit meeting of the European Conference which was
being planned for early March, before the accession negotiations began.
So, having conferred with Hans van den Broek, the EU commissioner
responsible for enlargement and for relations with Turkey, on 2 1 January,
I set off the next day for Ankara. Getting to see the 'Turkish prime min-
ister would not have been easy at the best of times but, armed with a
message from Tony Blair and my new title as the prime minister's per-
sonal envoy for Turkey (the EU presidency part of that title being not too
much emphasized for the moment), it was achieved after much bureau-
cratic struggle. Some flavour of the general atnlosphere can be drawn
from the ruling of Turkish protocol that, since I was travelling as the
prime minister's personal representative, it would not be appropriate for
me to see the foreign minister or anyone in the foreign ministry. One
sometimes needed to remind oneself that one was visiting the capital of a
NATO ally, representing the European country most favourable to
Turkey's European aspirations, and was not going to Moscow at the
height of the Cold War.
86 CYPRUS T H E SEARC1-I F O R A S O L U T I O N

In the event the discussion with Yilmaz was calm and thoughtful. H e
was a great deal less taciturn than he had been in Downing Street in
December. H e explained with dignity why Turkey had been so angered
by the Luxembourg conclusions. I had decided before the meeting that I
would try to avoid getting from him a direct answer about attendance at
the European Conference in London in March, since this was almost
certain to be negative. Instead I set out the case for attending a meeting
that would include all the other candidate countries, that would discuss a
wide range of pan-European issues of common interest and at which
Tony Blair personally very much hoped he would be present. I said we
hoped he would think carefully about all this. I would return for his
definitive answer in a few weeks. H e agreed to reflect, without however
giving even the slightest hint that h s response might be positive. I-Ie
continued to speak with great bitterness about the way Turkey's EU
candidature was being handled. I said that much depended on Turkey
itself. It was clear that, as of that moment, Turkey did not fulfil the Co-
penhagen criteria and that there was therefore no early prospect of
opening accession negotiations. But Turkey's friends in the EU, of whom
Britain was among the closest, wanted to work in cooperation with Tur-
key to help her meet the criteria. I added that my own personal
experience of Britain's first two, unsuccessful, efforts to join the European
Community was that the only people who were happy if the applicant
reacted angrily were the people who did not want the applicant to join in
the first place. What was needed was perseverance and determination. O n
Cyprus I concentrated on the desirability of Denktash responding posi-
tively if we could get a worthwhile offer out of the Greek Cypriots of
involvement in the accession negotiations, which we believed we would
do, and on the case for resuming the UN-led process for a comprehensive
settlement. Yilmaz lapsed into something close to his London taciturnity
on a subject he clearly did not enjoy discussing.
When I returned to Ankara in mid-February, the answer about atten-
dance at the European Conference was indeed negative, but it was a polite
'no' and not any longer an angry one. It was agreed that neither side
would either criticize or extol Turkey's absence from the meeting, which
would be treated as purely temporary. And that was how it was handled.
Neither the Conference itself nor the opening of accession negotiations
with Cyprus shortly afterwards led to any further deterioration of Tur-
key's relationship with the EU. And some time later, when relations had
much improved, Turkey slipped quietly into the meetings of the Euro-
 DAMAGE: I~IMI'I'A'I'ION 87

pean Conference. In reality it had always been something of a forlorn

hope trying to get Turkey to come to London in March. Not only were
the wounds of Luxembourg too deep and too fresh to have healed, but the
Turks in any case suspected that the European Conference was that
alternative destination to which many Europeans who did not want
Turkey in the Union were trying to direct them and which they were
determined to reject. This was one of those tasks that EU presidencies
have to take on, like it or not.
We were thus still left with the need to find a way to get Turkey and
the EU working together again. The next opportunity for that was the
regular six-monthly meeting of the EUITurkey Association Council
which was due to take place in May and which, if successful, could pro-
vide a basis for the Cardiff European Council in June to move on from
Luxembourg. Together with the Commission we were beginning to think
of ways in which the technical preparatory work to subsequent accession
negotiations could be speeded up and intensified, thus giving Turkey an
incentive to introduce the domestic reforms that would be required if she
was to meet the Copenhagen criteria. And we were also thinking of ways
of working around the roadblock over the customs union funds by con-
centrating on completely separate pre-accession aid funds which could be
put to the same uses. Unfortunately, despite a major effort to put the May
Association Council to good use, including a visit to Ankara by the for-
eign secretary Robin Cook as president of the Council, the Turks in the
end declined to come to a Council meeting. Ismail Cem, at that stage a
relatively new foreign minister, would have liked to have attended, but he
was bludgeoned into submission by his senior officials, in front of the
somewhat startled gaze of the visiting British team. As so often, the
establishment in Ankara, that 'deep state' about which so much has been
written, was determinedly looking at a half empty glass, not a half full
one. It was not to be the last such occasion. So we had to do the best we
could at the Cardiff European Council without the springboard of a
successful Association Council, and in the face of a pretty negative Greek
attitude, which remained committed to making life as difficult as possible
for the Turkish candidature. A few small steps forwards were registered
but it was not until 1999 that real progress on Turkey's relationship with
the EU began to be made.
88 C Y P R U S : 'I'IIE S E A R C I I I;OR r\ SOT.U~I'ION

EUICyprus: a joint approach?

The other task handed to the British EU presidency at Luxembourg of
working up arrangements for joint Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot
involvement in the accession negotiations due to start at the end of March
was very nearly as poisoned a chalice as the one relating to the European
Conference. The Greek Cypriots had made lots of positive noises about
such involvement. But they had all so far been short on specificity and
long on various 'red lines' that must not be crossed. From the Greek
Cypriot point of view, while the desirability of Turkish Cypriot involve-
ment was evident, the modalities were sure to touch on some of the issues
most sensitive to them - the legitimacy, or rather lack of it, of the Turkish
Cypriot state, their own right to aspire to EU membership whether or not
the Turkish Cypriots went along, and the need to avoid Cyprus's applica-
tion in any way being treated differently from that of the other applicants.
Nevertheless they knew that the European Union had meant what it said
at ~,uxembourg,and its members, especially those wary of migrating the
Cyprus problem into the Union, would not be at all content if the offer
they were being asked to make turned out to be couched in terms which
the Turlush Cypriots would be bound to refuse. The Turkish Cypriots,
on the other hand, were being offered an opportunity that their deeply
Ikro-sceptical leadership hardly recognized as being one at all and which
involved, in their eyes, many heavy sacrifices in subordinating themselves
to the Greek Cypriots and legiti~nizingtheir EU application.
As soon as the Greek Cypriot presidential elections were over I went
to the island at the end of February and then returned there again a week
later with van den Broek as part of a presidency/Commission duo. On
neither occasion were the Greek Cypriots prepared to reveal their hand in
detail, and there was little doubt they were having some difficulty in
deciding how far to go. From the European side we concentrated on a
number of key issues. Press leaks had suggested that the Greek Cypriots
might opt for a system under which the 'Turkish Cypriots to be involved
in the accession negotiations would be drawn from some non-
governmental organization in the north such as the Turkish Cypriot
Chamber of Commerce, or that the Greek Cypriots would seek some say
in the choice to avoid having people who represented Denktash directly.
We made it clear that neither of these approaches would be viable nor
would be seen as the sort of non-prejudicial offer for which the Europeans
were looking. Unpalatable though it might be to the Greek Cypriots, the
choice of whom to appoint must be left to the Turkish Cypriots them-
selves, which of course meant that Denktash would have the final say. We
also emphasized the need to demonstrate in the terms of the offer that the
Turkish Cypriots were not simply being asked to join a Greek Cypriot
bandwagon over whose direction they had no control, but that provision
was being made for the eventualities that would certainly arise in the
negotiations, when Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot interests would
not be identical and when special arrangements would need to be made
for the north of the island, whether to take account of the huge gap in
economic development between the north and the south or of the fears in
the north that they would, immediately after accession, be flooded with
Greek Cypriot investment and Greek Cypriot property owners and
developers. Again these points produced more pensive looks than positive
reactions. But they clearly registered.
As to the north, Denktash refused to have any contact with either
myself or van den Broek, sheltering behind the supposed Turkish deci-
sion to that effect -by then looking a little skimpy, as I had twice seen the
Turkish prime minister - and we were limited in our contacts with the
Turkish Cypriots to opposition politicians and businessmen whose hopes
were pinned on involvement in the EU accession negotiations but whose
influence on decision taking in the north was at that stage close to zero.
Van den Broek was able, however, in a bi-communal press conference to
set out clearly the advantages of participation in the accession negotia-
tions.
The next stage was to bring the Greek Cypriots to a decision point on
the offer they would be ready to make and to ensure that Denktash re-
sponded to it. T o try to avoid a predictably knee-jerk reaction to anything
coming directly to him from the Greek Cypriots it was decided that any
Greek Cypriot offer would be made to the EU presidency and, if the EU
considered it was a fair and viable one, would be passed on by them to the
Turkish Cypriots. Robin Cook invited Clerides and Denktash to London
for separate talks on the issue. Clerides accepted the invitation but Denk-
tash promptly declined, which meant that we would have to rely on
communications with him through diplomatic channels. Clerides saw
Blair on 11 March and Cook on 12 March and at the latter meeting pro-
duced the offer. This did indeed leave it entirely up to the Turkish
Cypriots themselves to choose their representatives in the negotiating
team, and it hinted that, where a common position could not be agreed
between the two parts of the Cypriot negotiating team, the issue in ques-
tion would be dealt with at a later stage in the negotiations. In our view
and that of the Commission this was indeed a valid offer, which, though it
was unliltely to be accepted as such by the Turkish Cypriots, provided
them with some very clear opportunities for improvement if, for example,
they were to respond with detailed questions on how the arrangements
would actually work in practice. That was the view of the other EU
members when they were consulted. In addition we had been offered by
Clerides a very clear statement that agreeing to these arrangements in no
sense prejudiced the position of either side in any settlement negotiations
nor committed the Turkish Cypriots to accepting terms for EU member-
ship that might emerge frorn the accession negotiations.
Perhaps of even greater value, Clerides authorized us to convey on his
behalf to Denktash his readiness, in the event of Turkish Cypriots being
nominated to the negotiating team and of agreement being reached on the
modalities of the joint negotiating team, to discuss with the EU Commis-
sion steps to make possible the resumption of preferential trade to the EU
from the northern part of Cyprus and to facilitate the disbursement of EU
funds there. This offer to contemplate finding a way round the European
Court of Justice ruling that had brought direct preferential trade between
the Turkish Cypriots and the EU to an end (always called, incorrectly,
the 'embargo') and to find ways of committing EU aid to the north ad-
dressed two of the most important grievances that Denktash raised
against the EU. All this we conveyed to Denktash, who rejected it out of
hand. H e had in fact already done so in press statements even before the
details of what the Greek Cypriots were prepared to offer were known - a
classic case of preemptive diplomacy, but not one likely to convince
European Union member states that he was trying very hard to reach
common ground. A week later a Greek Cypriot delegation opened the
negotiations for their accession to the European Union.
Even at the time it was evident that the Turl&h Cypriots and their
Turkish backers, who seemed to have no qualms about the line they wcrc
taking, were making an egregious error and missing an important oppor-
tunity. The sighs of relief on the Greek Cypriot side that the offer was not
taken up should have convinced them of that if nothing else did. Elad the
Turkish Cypriots taken up the offer, or at least explored it in detail, they
would have greatly complicated the earlier stages of the accession nego-
tiations, and there would have been a lot of pressure frorn the European
side to clarify the details in ways that made it earier for the Turkish
Cypriots to accept,. In the longer run they would have increased their
leverage over the terms of accession being negotiated, and they would
 IIAMAGE LIMITATION 9I

have ensured that, if and when settlement negotiations did get under way,
European pressure to reach agreement would have been deployed even-
handedly on both sides. And if EU trade and aid had been resumed with
the north that would have begun to narrow the massive prosperity gap
between the two parts of the island and given both a stake in moving on to
the full membership of a reunited island. All these advantages were
sacrificed for what? For the ability to go on saying that the Greek Cypriot
application was illegal and that the only basis on which the Turkish
Cypriots would come to the table with the EU was if they were recog-
nized as an independent state in their own right allowed to negotiate their
own terms of accession. Neither of these were cards likely to take many
tricks.

Holbrooke's throw
Richard Holbrooke had not played a particularly active role in the months
following his appointment as President Clinton's Special Representative
for Cyprus. He had stood well back from the Troutbeck and Glion talks,
clearly believing that they would get nowhere. He had weighed in in EU
capitals in support of getting a better deal for Turkey at the Luxembourg
Summit. And he was inclined, following his experience in Bosnia and
over the Imia crisis between Greece and Turkey in early 1996, to take a
critical view of EU policy and to sympathize with Turkey's predicament.
H e had begun with some hopes of using an existing bi-communal busi-
ness forum which brought together not only Greek and Turkish Cypriots
but also some leading Turkish and Greek businessmen to build up mo-
mentum for a settlement and had put considerable effort into organizing
meetings in Brussels in November 1997 (and later in Istanbul in Decem-
ber 1998). But the results of this Track 2 activity had been disappointing,
in good measure because of the reluctance of some of the leading Turkish
Cypriot businessmen to take any line that differed from that of Denktash
and because experience showed that neither Turkish nor Greek busi-
nessmen had much influence on their respective governments' Cyprus
policies. So he had been compelled to recognize that this route did not
offer an alternative, nor even much of a supplement, to the more classical
approach of negotiations between the two leaders.
It was to that classical approach that he now turned in May 1998 when
he visited the island, accompanied by the State Department's energetic
and able Special Cyprus Coordinator, Tom Miller, who was effectively
his deputy. There was no evidence of elaborate preparation nor, not to
92 C Y P R U S T H E S E A K C H [Link] I\ S O L U 1ION

my surprise, of any advance consultation with the UN or with any of the

other players. The objective appeared to be to crack the main procedural
stumbling blocks to a resumption of the settlement negotiations and to
Turkish Cypriot involvement in the EU accession negotiations. It was to
be a quick and short effort, with all substantive negotiation being left to a
later stage. Holbrooke did manage to get Clerides and Denktash together
and he put a major effort, including much high-pressure contact with
Ankara and, to a lesser extent, with Athens, into getting them to agree,
but he could not get them to agree to anything of substance. H e seems
even to have flirted with the concept of 'acknowledgement' by the Greek
Cypriots of the Turkish Cypriots' separate status. But even that did not
move Denktash. And although Holbrooke in his press conference before
leaving the island took a carefully even-handed approach, within days of
his return to the United States he made it clear publicly that the main
obstacle to his making any progress had been Denktash, who, he said, had
wanted the main fruits of the negotiation to be delivered to him in ad-
vance without ever sitting down at the negotiating table. 'The Turkish
Cypriot side took a series of positions which amounted to making as
preconditions for negotiations things which the negotiation was supposed
to be about. Well that effectively freezes negotiations. You can't negotiate
if the preconditions for a negotiation are the outcome itself.'
This episode really marked the end of Holbrooke's active personal
involvement in the Cyprus problem, although he remained Presidential
Special Representative for another year, during which time he was much
more involved in the Kosovo crisis and also in the Congressional manoeu-
vring required to get confirmation of his appointment as the United
States' U N ambassador. It also marked the end of attempts to kick-start
the negotiation by getting Clerides and Denktash together to agree on the
way ahead. From now on a more laborious and painstaking approach was
adopted. I set out the case for negotiations on the core substantive issues
without any preconditions about status in a speech I gave to the Turkish
Cypriot Chamber of Commerce in July. Reaction from Denktash (who
was still refusing to see me) was a good deal more muted than I had
expected, which convinced me even more firmly that this was the way we
would have to proceed. In the same speech I set out to dissipate some of
the myths about EU membership that had been put about by Denktash
and those Turkish Cypriots who were arguing that Cyprus must be kept
out of the EU until Turkey itself was accepted and ready to join and by
those Greek Cypriots who wanted to make the EU seem as unattractive as
 Ui\i?li\C:li. L I M I ' I A'I I O N 91

possible in the north. There was no incompatibility between continuation

of the Treaty of Guarantee and joining the EU; nor would E U member-
ship destroy the very close links between Turkey and north Cyprus even
if the latter was in the EU and the former had not yet joined; nor would
E U legislation simply be imposed on the north irrespective of the prob-
lems that might cause, the E U having a long tradition of finding
imaginative solutions to such problems. Having cleared the speech in
advance with van den Broek I felt on firm ground, and so indeed it was to
prove in later years when the U N and the E U worked closely together to
find just such imaginative solutions.
Denktash's muted reaction to this speech in no way, however, indi-
cated that he was going to make the path towards negotiations without
preconditions an easy one. At the end of August he launched a new
initiative for a lasting solution in Cyprus, described wishfully as 'a final
effort'. This initiative abandoned the hard-won Turkish Cypriot demand
of the previous three decades for a federated Cyprus to replace the 1960
unitary, bi-communal state, and opted instead for a confederation, pro-
posing:

1. A special relationship between Turkey and the 'TRNC' on the basis of

agreements to be concluded.
2. A similar special relationship between Greece and the Greek Cypriot
administration on the basis of symmetrical agreements to be concluded.
3. Establishment of a Cyprus Confederation between the 'TRNC' and the
GCA (Greek Cypriot Administration).
4. The 1960 Guarantee System shall continue.
5. The Cyprus Confederation may, if parties agree, pursue a policy of ac-
cession to the EU, a special relationship will provide Turkey with the full
rights and obligations of an EU member with regard to thc Cyprus Con-
federation.

Quite apart from the fact that the new proposal could by no stretch of the
imagination be fitted into the framework specified by the U N Security
Council, it was clearly not going to be negotiable for a number of other
reasons. It had more than a whiff of the partition policies of earlier years.
Its basic objective was not so much the finer points of distinction between
federations and confederations - the 1992 Set of Ideas had been named a
federation but in reality it included a number of confederal concepts - but
rather to achieve from the outset Denktash's basic demand that the
T R N C as such be recognized as a sovereign and equal state. T h e only
new point with some positive implications was the fifth one, which regis-
94 CYPRUS I'HE SkARCH FOR A [Link]

tered the first occasion when the Turkish Cypriots (and by implication
the Turks) accepted the possibility that north Cyprus might be part of the
EU before Turkey was. And while the initiative as such was dead on
arrival, the Turks were later to regret allowing Denktash to nail his (and
their) colours to the confederation mast, thus greatly complicating the
conduct of the settlement negotiations when they eventually got under
way.

The missiles diverted

By the autumn of 1998 the question of the S300 missiles was again be-
coming acute and it was clear that their deployment to the island could
not be much longer fudged or delayed. For one thing the missiles them-
selves were ready for shipment and the Russians were agitating for
payment; for another, Clerides had been re-elected in February on a
platform of commitment to deployment, and his coalition partners, led by
Vasos Lyssarides, had made it clear that they would only remain in the
government if the missiles were deployed. The press was contributing to
a noticeable increase in tension, with speculation in the Turkish press that
action, even the use of force, might be taken to prevent their delivery
from Russia. The pressure on Clerides from the US, the UK and the
other Europeans to cancel or suspend deployment mounted steadily and
began to have some effect. Clerides began to try out half-and-half ap-
proaches. Perhaps the missiles could be shipped to Cyprus but kept in
hangars and not deployed. It was pointed out that this would not help
much and would create a situation whereby any subsequent decision to
deploy during a time of crisis would risk being seen by the Turks as a
clear step towards actual hostilities. In addition to messages from the US
president and the UK prime minister, Wolfgang Schiissel, the Austrian
foreign minister, weighed in in his capacity as president of the EU Coun-
cil. He explained very frankly that the EU and its member states would
simply not understand it if Clerides proceeded with deployment when
accession negotiations were under way and efforts were being made to
achieve a Cyprus settlement before accession. The implications of this last
message were very clear and they were not missed either in Nicosia or in
Athens.
At this stage the Greek government reached a clear conclusion that
they did not want to run the risk of a full-scale Greek-Turkish confron-
tation, which could well occur if deployment of the missiles went ahead.
They began to discuss with the Greek Cypriots the possibility of divert-
ing the missiles to Crete and possibly replacing them with shorter-range
missiles already in the Greek inventory. This alternative plan rapidly took
shape during December 1998. While the Turks continued to grumble a
good deal, it became clear that the switch to Crete (which was considera-
bly further from the Turkish mainland than Cyprus and put Turkish
airbases out of range) and the fact that the missiles would no longer be
under Greek Cypriot control, made a substantial difference and that
diversion in this way would in fact mark the end of the crisis. There
remained serious political problems for Clerides whose U-turn had pro-
voked outrage in the press and the resignation of several ministers.
Clerides let it be known at this stage that it was essential for him to be
able to say that diversion of the missiles had been decided in order to give
a new opportunity for negotiations for a settlement. In response to this
appeal the US president and the British prime minister issued statements
committing themselves to a 'major, sustained effort towards securing a
just, comprehensive and lasting settlement in Cyprus' and to give 'com-
plete and wholehearted backing to this effort'. In this way the scene was
set for 1999. But everything remained to be done. And there was as yet no
Turkish or Turkish Cypriot commitment to this objective.
 1999: Getting the Show
on the Road Again

'ith the diversion of the S300 missiles to Crete and a slow thaw
beginning in the EU/Turkey relationship, the strength of some
of the extraneous factors impeding a Cyprus settlement nego-
tiation was beginning to abate. But the barometer was certainly not set
fair. For one thing the mood in Cyprus itself remained distinctly sour. On
the Greek Cypriot side there was considerable bitterness over the whole
missile episode, seen as yet another occasion when Cyprus was manoeu-
vred around like a pawn by external forces over which it had no control.
The possibility that acquiring the missiles could have been an expensive
mistake, providing not increased security but instead more tension and
risk, was hardly contemplated by anyone on any part of the political
spectrum. O n the other side of the island Denktash continued his boycott
of any contact with the EU. So, when I visited the island in late January
for an annual Heads of Mission conference with the British ambassadors
from Ankara and Athens and the British high commissioner in Nicosia, I
ran into a steady drizzle of Cypriot negativism. Arriving at Larnaca
Airport I met by chance the Greek deputy foreign minister, Kranidiotis,
on his way out. He warned me that Clerides was feeling bruised and that
he himself had just been given an extremely rough ride by the Greek
Cypriot press, an unusual occurrence for a Greek minister and one of
Cypriot origin. This warning was soon borne out when a passing answer I
gave the press about the possible relevance of the Swiss constitution to
arrangements for a reunited Cyprus was blown up out of all proportion
and led to Clerides refusing to see me, as had earlier been agreed. The
same day Denktash declined to pay any attention to the fact that I no
longer (with the end of the Austrian EU presidency and the advent of the
German one) had any EU function, and also refused to see me. So any
idea that carrying out the prime minister's and President Clinton's recent
 G E T ' I ' I N G 1'HL.. S H O W O N T H E R O A D A G A I N 97

commitments to launch a new drive for a settlement - the same drive that
Clerides had begged for when diverting the SiOOs - would be simple or
easy was rapidly dissipated.
The question of how to proceed with these commitments had in fact
already been discussed between the UK, the Americans and the UN.
Miller, who by now was effectively in charge of day-to-day Cyprus policy
in Washington, had come to London early in January, as had Dame Ann
Hercus, the New Zealander who was running the UNFICYP operation
on the island. We and the Americans were clear that we would have to
give a lead in the next phase. It was evident that the Cypriots would not
do so. There was no sign of help from the two motherlands, and the U N
seemed bereft of ideas and unwilling to put in a real effort until they
could see that the door was at least partly ajar. We were equally clear that
failure to follow up on the US/UK commitments was a poor option in the
medium and longer term. The Greek Cypriot feeling of alienation would
increase, as would the risk of further destabilizing arms purchases. And
the steady progress of Cyprus's EU accession negotiations brought closer
a possible confrontation with Turkey over accession by a divided island.
We also agreed that this time we should be aiming not simply at a
CleridesIDenktash one-off meeting with an uncertain follow-up, but
rather at a structured process that would involve the two sides, under U N
aegis, becoming involved in serious negotiations on the core issues. Miller
floated the idea of using the annual G8 Summit, due in June, as a launch
pad for such a process and from then on the US and the UK, as two of the
participants, began to work systematically to achieve that.

Three earthquakes: a transformation of Greek-Turkish relations

The first of the three 1999 earthquakes was not of the seismic variety,
although the latter two were. Nor did any of them have much to do with
Cyprus, although their indirect impact on the Cyprus problem was con-
siderable.
The first earthquake occurred in February when Abdullah Ocalan, the
fugitive leader of the Kurdish PKK terrorist movement was, following his
capture in Kenya and return to Turkey, found to have been being shel-
tered in the Greek embassy in Nairobi and to have travelled on the
passport of a Greek Cypriot journalist. This led, not unnaturally, to a
major diplomatic row between Greece and Turkey and then to the resig-
nation of Greek foreign minister Pangalos and a number of the other
Greek ministers concerned and finally to Pangalos's replacement as
98 C Y P R U S . T H E S E A R C H F O K A SOIAU'I'ION

foreign minister by George Papandreou, the son of Andreas Papandreou,

Sirnitis's predecessor as prime minister. The policy implications of Pa-
pandreou's appointment were not immediately apparent. The turbulence
caused in Greek-Turkish relations by the Ocalan affair took some time to
subside. But by the spring, at least a change of style was becoming visible.
In place of the exchanges of angry rhetoric by press communique', which
had characterized relations between Greece and 'Turkey for a number of
years, Papandreou and his Turkish opposite number, Ismail Cem, began
to pick up the telephone to each other and to reduce the scratchiness in
the relationship. Then, by the summer, they began to give thought to
ways of talking about some of the less sensitive bilateral topics - tourism,
trade, investment and culture. It gradually became clear that Papandreou
had a different strategic view of Greece's relationship with Turkey from
that of his predecessor and that this view was to some extent shared by
Cem. For Papandreou, bad relations with Turkey damaged Greece,
necessitating a high rate of defence spending and sacrificing many com-
mercial and economic opportunities in Turkey's large and rapidly
growing market. Moreover he saw that the alienation of Turkey from the
EU was contrary to Greece's interest, since it was liable in the long run to
destabilize Turkey and leave Greece with an erratic, unpredictable but
still powerful neighbour.
At this point nature took a hand. In August a massive earthquake
struck a heavily populated region of Turkey on the Sea of Marmara.
There was considerable loss of life and huge material damage with which
the Turkish government's emergency services were ill equipped to deal.
Papandreou immediately helped to organize a high-profile Greek re-
sponse in the form of emergency aid and relief teams, which in turn
triggered a major outpouring of popular sentiment in both countries,
contrasting sharply with the habitually chauvinistic tone of media com-
ment about each other. In September a much smaller earthquake
occurred on the outskirts of Athens, and Turkey reciprocated. The out-
come, in political terms, of all this was to enable the two ministers and
their respective governments to pursue a policy of rapprochement, to-
wards which they had already been edging cautiously, with much more
confidence and with less likelihood that it would be derailed by a nation-
alist backlash on either or both sides as had so often occurred in the past.
Not only were they able to negotiate a number of agreements and under-
standings on some of the less sensitive aspects of their mutual relations,
but Greek policy towards Turkey in Brussels began to change. The
provision of EU financial assistance for dealing with the consequences of
the earthquake went ahead with no difficulty and it became clear that
there would no longer be problems about Greece agreeing to the EU
providing substantial sums of money to programmes designed to promote
Turkey's EU candidature.
So, while the vexed issue of the EU's unimplemented financial com-
mitment to Turkey at the time the Customs Union Agreement was
concluded was never in fact resolved, having become inextricably linked
in Greek domestic politics with the issue of possible Turkish claims to
various uninhabited roclcs and islets off the Aegean coast of Turkey, it
gradually ceased to signify more than a formal grievance, as substantial
EU fi~mlcialco~nmitmentsbegan to be made in the context of helping
Turkey prepare for EU acccssion. Indeed Greece's whole attitude to-
wards Turkey's candidature was transformed. From being the member
state t l m had invariably thrown grit into any discussion of the subject
and thus provided an excuse for other member states to shelter behind,
Greece became one of the foremost protagonists within the EU of even-
tual Turkish membership.
None of this directly related to Cyprus but it did have important
implications for the handling of the Cyprus problem. Few issues were as
difficult to discuss in each of the capitals concerned as the inter-
relationship between three crucial inter-locking issues - the Greek-Turk-
ish relationship, the Cyprus problem and the EUITurkey and EUICyprus
accession prospects - but none was more important to understand. The
word 'linkage' was taboo in each capital, although for entirely different
reasons. In Ankara it was unacceptable because it implied that Turkish
Cypriot vital interests and those of Turkey in Cyprus might be sacrificed
on the altar of Turkey's EU candidature and of better relations with
Greece; in Athens it implied that Greece was weakening in the national
cause of supporting the Greek Cypriots and might be allowing Cyprus's
EU candidature to become dependent on other factors; with the Greek
Cypriots it implied that the Cyprus problem might be left unresolved
while Greece and Turkey made up and Turkey moved towards the
European Union; with the Turkish Cypriots it implied that they might
lose control of Turkey's Cyprus policy and be sacrificed as a pawn in
wider negotiations. Those sensitivities meant that the one thing everyone
agreed about, as did the main external players, was that it made no sense
at all to aim for a single, grand negotiation designed to find solutions to all
three sets of issues at thc same time - an approach k~lownas 'one ball of
100 C Y P R U S : T H E SISl\l<CH F O R I\ SOLU'I'ION

wax', so called, it was said, by IIenry IGssinger who had once flirted with
the idea. But that negative consensus did not in any way dispose of the
fact that the issues genuinely were inter-related and that they impacted on
each other, either positively or negatively. So on the diplomatic circuit it
was readily agreed not to use the word 'linkage', but also to recognize that
these inter-relationships were real and needed to be understood and
explored.
The immediate consequences of the Greek-Turkish rapprochement
for the Cyprus problem were entirely positive but they were modest. The
positive implications for the EUITurkey relationship meant that that key
part of any Cyprus equation began to look more promising and thus
motivate the Turks to think a little more positively about Cyprus. But the
effects should not be exaggerated and their limits were already visible.
The Turks seemed no more willing than they had ever been to discuss
Cyprus directly with the Greeks, and numerous attempts by Papandreou
to get into a serious discussion of the core Cyprus issues with Cem were
fended off. The Greeks on their side were soon brought up against the
reality that too rapid progress on bilateral issues would put strain on their
important relationship with the Greek Cypriots and give rise to criticism
that Cyprus was being forgotten. And both Greeks and Turks were well
aware that decisions important to both of them were likely to be taken at
the meeting of the European Council in Helsinki in December 1999 and
that the balance there between progress in the EU's relationships with
Cyprus and with Turkey would raise sensitive issues and could easily go
wrong, with damaging implications also for their bilateral rapprochement.

Laying the foundations for a negotiation: the G8 Summit

The tactical approach for which the US and Britain had opted, of starting
with the G 8 Summit scheduled for June in Bonn, proved to be the right
one. The preparations of G8 Sunmits by the personal representatives of
their heads of state and government (known as 'Sherpas') were much
more discreet and therefore less exposed to frenzied lobbying by the
parties and their motherlands than any negotiation of a resolution at the
Security Council in New York could ever be. None of the G8 participants
had an axe to grind over Cyprus, with the possible exception of Russia,
which habitually took a straight Greek Cypriot brief for any U N discus-
sions. But on this occasion, perhaps because their usual 'Cyprus' experts
were less directly involved, there was not too much difficulty over reach-
ing an agreed text. The objectives that the Americans and the British
 GETTING T H E SHOW O N T H E ROAD AGAIN 101

were pursuing required us to steer a narrow path between two ap-

proaches, neither of which would get anywhere at the negotiating table.
T h e first of these, favoured by the Greeks and Greek Cypriots, would
have involved explicitly reaffirming every Security Council pronounce-
ment on the Cyprus problem, going back to the 1960s, and tying the
secretary-general's hands in respect of the conduct of any future negotia-
tions to the precise wording of these sacred texts. T h e alternative
approach, favoured by the Turks and Turkish Cypriots, would have
involved jettisoning everything which had emerged from the previous
UN processes and negotiations and leaving Denktash free to pursue his
own agenda of recognition of the T R N C and confederation. We also
needed a text that was sufficiently firm and clear to propel the UN back
into an active negotiating process and to give them a reasonable basis from
which to begin. T h e text finally agreed by the heads of state and govern-
ment in Bonn was as follows:

The Cyprus Problem has gone unresolved for too long. Resolution of this
problem would not only benefit all the people of Cyprus, but would also
have a positive impact on peace and stability in the region.

Both parties to the dispute have legitimate concerns that can and must be
addressed. The members of the G8 are convinced that only comprehen-
sive negotiations covering all relevant issues can do this.

The members of the G8, therefore, urgc the UN Secretary-General in ac-

cordance with relevant UN Security Council resolutions to invite the
leaders of the two parties to negotiations in autumn 1999. They call upon
the two leaders to give their full support to such a comprehensive nego-
tiation, under the auspices of the U N Secretary-General.

In accepting this invitation, the two parties/leaders should commit them-

selves to the following principles:

No preconditions;
All issues on the table;
Commitment in good faith to continue to negotiate until a settle-
ment is reached;
Full consideration of relevant U N resolutions and treaties.

The members of the G8 undertake to give their full and sustained backing
to the negotiating process and hope that it will prove possible for its out-
come to be reported to the meetings of Heads of Statc and Government at
the OSCE Summit this November.
102 CYPRUS: T H E SEARCH FOR A SOLUTION

Laying the foundations for a negotiation: Security Council

Resolution 1250
T h e G8 text achieved precisely the objectives that had been set for it. But
in itself it was insufficient, since none of the parties had accepted it and
the G8 had no decision-making authority. The need for this led us within
ten days to the Security Council in New York where one of the bi-annual
renewals of the mandate of the UN's peacekeeping force in Cyprus
(UNFICYP) was due to take place before the end of June. The negotia-
tions there were inevitably less straightforward than those in the G8. The
Greek Cypriots in particular were deeply unhappy about the wording of
the G8 text and its avoidance of the precise parameters of previous U N
documents. And the Turks and Turkish Cypriots, who might have been
expected to welcome the quite unusual degree of flexibility in the G8 text,
instead, as usual, concentrated on the parts they did not like, in particular
the reference to no preconditions and the time factor introduced for the
first time of a report back to the Summit meeting of the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe which Turkey would be chairing in
November in Istanbul. A further, New York, complication was the prac-
tice which had grown up over the years of mixing up in the same
resolution elements relating to the U N secretary-general's Good Offices
Mission to negotiate a comprehensive settlement and those more properly
belonging to the renewal of the peacekeeping mission. Any such confu-
sion on this occasion would inevitably lead to a loss of the flexibility in
the G8 text and a complication in the secretary-general's task of thereafter
getting the parties to the negotiating table. After a lengthy diplomatic
tussle of a classical kind in New York, the G8 text, and in particular its
four clear guidelines for the future negotiations, was preserved intact and
relatively uncluttered in Security Council Resolution 1250. In parallel the
preamble of the renewal of the peacekeeping mandate in Security Council
Resolution 1251 was expanded to accommodate much of the subject
matter from earlier Security Council resolutions. The text of Security
Council Resolution 1250, which was adopted unanimously, was as fol-
lows:

The Security Council,

Reaffirming all its earlier resolutions on Cyprus, particularly resolution

1218 (1998) of 22 December 1998,
Reiterating its grave concern at the lack of progress towards an overall po-
litical settlement on Cyprus,
Appreciating the statement of the Heads of State and Government of
Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Russian Federation, the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United
States of America on 20 June 1999 (S/1999/7 11, annex) calling for com-
prehensive negotiations in the autumn of 1999 under the auspices of the
Secretary-General,

1. Expresses its appreciation for the report of the Secretary-General of 2 2

June 1999 (S/1999/707) on his mission of Good Offices in Cyprus;
2. Stresses its full support for the Sccrctary-General's mission of Good
Offices as decided by the Security Council and, in this context, for the
efforts of the Secretary-General and his Special Representative;
3. Reiterates its endorsement of the initiative of the Secretary-General an-
nounced on 30 September 1998, within the framework of his mission of
Good Offices, with the goal of reducing tensions and promoting progress
towards a just and lasting settlement in Cyprus;
4. Notes that the discussions between the Secretary-General's Special
Representative and the two sides are continuing, and urges both sidcs to
participate constructively;
5. Expresses the view that both sidcs have legitimate concerns that should
be addressed through comprchcnsive negotiations covering all relevant
issues;
6. Requests the Secretary-General, in accordance with the relevant United
Nations Security Council resolutions, to invite the leaders of the two sides
to negotiations in the autumn of 1999;
7. Calls upon the two leaders, in this context, to give their full support to
such a comprehensive negotiation, under the auspices of the Secretary-
General, and to commit themselves to the following principles:
N o preconditions;
All issues on the table;
Commitment in good faith to continue to negotiate until a settlement
is reached;
Full consideration of relevant United Nations rcsolutions and treaties;
8. Requests the two sides on Cyprus, including military authorities on
both sides, to work constructively with the Secretary-General and his
Special Representative to create a positive climate on the island that will
pave the way for negotiations in the autumn of 1999;
104 C Y P R U S : T H E S E A R C H F01< A S O L U ' S I O N

9. Also requests the Secretary-General to keep the Security Council in-

formed of progress towards the implementation of this resolution and to
submit a report to the Council by 1 December 1999;
10. Decides to remain actively seized of the matter.

This resolution remained from beginning to end the basis for the negotia-
tions over the next three and a half years. The secretary-general and his
special adviser reported from time to time orally to the Security Council
and received from it, through carefully crafted declarations to the press,
the support and encouragement that they needed to proceed with the
negotiations. But at no stage did Kofi Annan report in writing to the
Council until after the breakdown of the negotiations in March 2003, and
there was therefore no requirement for a new resolution on the Good
Offices Mission which might have superseded, or muddied the clarity of,
Resolution 1250. Despite one or two fraught moments it also proved
possible to keep the negotiations entirely separate from the unavoidable
bi-annual negotiations on resolutions to prolong the mandate of
UNFICYP.

Laying the foundations for a negotiation: changes in the network

As progress began laboriously to be made towards a resumption of nego-
tiations, it became steadily clearer that the main U N negotiator could not
be, as Cordovez was, based in Ecuador, and only infrequently visiting
New York and the region. It was inevitably going to become a full-time
job. Nor could it be done by a single diplomatic troubleshooter, without
any back-up beyond one desk officer in the U N Secretariat. So, in the late
spring of 1999, Annan asked Cordovez to step down and began what
turned out to be a rather lengthy search for a replacement. His first choice
was Ann Hercus who had been in charge of the UNFICYP operations on
the island for more than a year and had proved herself energetic and
competent in that post and, of course, had thereby acquired a good deal of
knowledge of the subject matter and the main players. Her appointment
caused no problems with Clerides and Denktash. But within a couple of
weeks of taking over she resigned for personal, family reasons. Annan's
next candidate was Jan Egeland, a Norwegian with considerable experi-
ence of international negotiation as part of the team that had worked on
the Oslo Arab-Israel peace process and who had also participated in
Holbrooke's Track 2 activities, trying to bring together Greek Cypriot
and Turkish Cypriot businessmen. Whether because of this last involve-
ment - Denktash was deeply irritated by Track 2 meetings, which he saw
 GETTING T H E SHOW O N T H E ROAD AGAIN 105

as a challenge to his own iron grip on the Turkish Cypriot negotiating

position - or simply because Egeland was a European, albeit one from a
country which was not a member of the European Union, Denktash
vetoed the new appointment. In what was to prove a third time very
lucky indeed, Annan chose Alvaro de Soto, a Peruvian diplomat and
former close adviser to UN secretaries-general Pe'rez de Cue'llar and
Boutros-Ghali and currently assistant secretary-general in the UN's
Department of Political Affairs. This appointment caused no problem to
the parties.
Although de Soto had only been very slightly involved with Cyprus in
his previous U N Secretariat posts, he did, inevitably, know a good deal
about a task that had been on the UN's plate for almost longer than any
other. Moreover, as the main negotiator in the El Salvador peace process,
he had acquired experience in multi-faceted and complexly multicultural
settlement negotiations, which, for all the many differences between El
Salvador and Cyprus, was to stand him in good stead during the next few
years. Among his many qualities, imperturbability and precision were
outstanding.
With the arrival of de Soto on the scene in the autumn of 1999 a num-
ber of aspects of the negotiating pattern changed for the better. Annan
had told me at the time he appointed de Soto that he was aware of the
need for the U N to cooperate as closely as possible with the US and the
UK in the forthcoming negotiations, recognizing the weakness of the
UN's earlier approach at Troutbeck and Glion, but he also asked most
particularly that we respect the UN's independence and impartiality and
that we accept at every stage that the U N was in the lead. I replied that,
as far as the UK was concerned, I could give him an absolute commitment
on these points; that was exactly how we saw any negotiation with a
chance of success developing. He and de Soto could count on our full
support and could be sure we would not pursue a national agenda or take
solo initiatives.
As soon as de Soto had picked up the threads, he began to assemble a
small but effective negotiating team, with an experienced and competent
legal adviser, Didier Pfirter, on secondment from the Swiss foreign min-
istry, a young Australian, Robert Dann, as his jack of all trades, and
experts on property issues and peacekeeping. Thus, as the negotiations
wore on, de Soto had a competent in-house capacity to work on every
aspect of the core issues, from map making to constitution drafting. If
there was one gap, it was in EU expertise but that proved remediable
thanks to the increasing cooperation with the EU Commission. It was also
possible to come to a much clearer understanding of the respective roles
on the one hand of the U N and on the other of the US, the UK and other
European partners. Up till then every discussion with the U N had been
bedevilled by U N requests for others, the US in particular, to do what
was described as the 'heavy lifting' in Ankara, it being suggested that in
the past this had been lacking and that the U N had been left high and
dry. The US and UK response had been that in order to do heavy lifting,
one had to have something to lift, and that required the U N to put to-
gether the main elements of a settlement which we and others could then
try to get all concerned, including Turkey, to accept. Without these
elements there would be no leverage. In any case, the clear public com-
mitment of Clinton and Blair showed that our two governments did
intend to put their backs into it.
In parallel with the changes in the U N team, there was a complete
change also in the US team. Holbrooke's appointment as the United
States' U N ambassador having finally received Senate confirmation, he
bowed out. And Miller left to become US ambassador to Bosnia and
Herzegovina in Sarajevo. In their places were appointed Ambassador
Alfred Moses as the President's Special Representative and Ambassador
Thomas Weston as Special Cyprus Coordinator. Moses had worked as a
legal counsel in the White House in previous Democrat administrations
and, more recently, had been ambassador to Romania. What he lacked in
Cyprus expertise, he made up for in forcefulness and determination, and
he worked effectively full time, although that was not his remit. Weston
brought a wealth of diplomatic experience and in particular a knowledge
of the European Union and how it worked, a commodity not always in
ready supply in the State Department. With the installation of this team
died any question of there being a separate US track to the negotiations.
Although it took the regional players, particularly the Turks, a long time
to grasp and to accept that point, it did immeasurably strengthen the
UN's negotiating hand.
Also the role of the EU in any Cyprus settlement negotiations began
to come into much sharper focus. There too there had been significant
changes in personnel. Javier Solana had been appointed to the newly
created post of IIigh Representative for the Common Foreign and Secu-
rity Policy, and, as a former secretary-general of NATO, he arrived with
considerable knowledge of Greek-Turkish relations. At the EU Commis-
sion, following the resignation of the Santer Commission and the
installation of Romano Prodi, Gunther Verheugen, formerly the German
minister for Europe, took over responsibility for the enlargement negotia-
tions. H e was well aware from the outset that among the difficult political
obstacles to the successful conclusion of those negotiations, the Cyprus
problem, with all its inter-relationships with other problems, was going to
be one of the trickiest to handle. It had always been difficult, and it re-
mained so, to distinguish between, on the one hand, the European Union
as a major diplomatic player in what was after all an issue with substantial
foreign policy implications on its doorstep in the Eastern Mediterranean
region, and, on the other, the European Union which both Cyprus, re-
united or not, and Turkey were seeking to join and with which the whole
paraphernalia of accession negotiations was either under way or in pros-
pect. And yet it was important to distinguish these two roles. Back in
1996, the former was predominant but not particularly effective; as time
passed the second role became the predominant one. At every stage it was
essential to ensure that the two roles were played in harmony and did not
cut across each other. Given the proclivity of international organizations,
or even of different parts of the same international organization, to get at
cross purposes and indulge in turf fighting, it was little short of the mi-
raculous, and greatly to the credit of all concerned, that that did not occur
over Cyprus.
The European Union's role as a diplomatic player was significant but
not easy to articulate. This was not just because of the usual dichotomy
between the as yet nascent Common Foreign and Security Policy and the
policies of the principal member states, although that did play a relatively
modest part. For member states such as France and Cernuny, their
relationship with Turkey and their distinctly ambivalent attitude towards
its possible accession to the EU were of infinitely greater importance than
any Cyprus considerations; for them Cyprus was essentially a side-show
and they were not prepared to allow the Cyprus tail to wag the
EUITurkey dog. For the UK, Cyprus itself mattered a good deal both for
historical reasons and the continuing presence of the Sovereign Base
Areas in the island; we did not have the same hang-ups about Turkish
membership, indeed firmly supported it.
But beyond these differences of emphasis and interest between mem-
ber states, there was a more pervasive problem. With Greece as a member
state, the EU could not either be, or be seen to be, impartial and even-
handed on an issue that involved a fundamental conflict of interests
between Greece and Turkey. So, hard as it tried to give the UN strong
108 C Y P R U S : ?'HI< S E A R C H F O R I\ SOLU'I'ION

diplomatic support in the settlement negotiations, the effect was always

less impressive than one would have hoped. The European Union's other
role, as potential bride of all the main regional players in an economic and
political union, moved from the extremely theoretical to the highly prac-
tical and operational as both sets of negotiations - those for EU accession
and those for a Cyprus settlement - gradually came to a head. With
Denktash interested only in using the EU as a surrogate for his sover-
eignty and status objectives and insisting therefore that any negotiation of
Turkish Cypriot terms of accession could only be conducted separately
with him as if the TRNC was an independent European state, it became
clear that there was no classical way of handling the various problems
posed for northern Cyprus by EU accession. And it also became clear that
while some of these problems, such as the very considerable gap in terms
of prosperity and economic development between the north and south of
the island, could be handled through existing EU instruments and poli-
cies, the same could not be said for some of the issues at the heart of the
settlement negotiations, where solutions could only be reconcilable with
the acquis communautaire if considerable imagination and flexibility were
displayed, involving possibly even some derogations, that is to say de-
partures, from those sacred texts. For the EU to play this second role
effectively, the very closest cooperation between the Commission and the
UN would be required, and it was towards achieving this that de Soto
and Verheugen and their staff, with my own pretty active encourage-
ment, now began to set themselves.

Squaring the circle of settlement negotiations

With the G8 text, and its endorsement in Resolution 1250, the founda-
tions for a settlement negotiation were well laid, but the consent of all the
parties was still not achieved. The Greek government was supportive, and
the Greek Cypriots were likely to agree, although they were sure to look
at any terms of reference put forward by Annan with a beady eye, given
their qualms about the amount of flexibility built in to the Security
Council resolution. Denktash could be expected to be difficult, to try to
advance his own recognition agenda and also to try to avoid the UN
getting too expansive a mandate and playing too proactive a role in any
negotiations that ensued. But in the last resort and despite his very strong
influence over those who took decisions on Cyprus policy in Ankara, he
was not a free agent. The decision would be taken in Ankara, and the new
Turkish government of Bulent Ecevit was playing hard to catch, indeed
 G E T T I N G T H E S H O W O N T H E ROAD AGAIN 109

did not very much want to be caught. 'This government, which had
emerged from the general election at the beginning of the year, was
somewhat less precarious than the ones that had preceded it and had a
substantial majority in parliament. However, it was a coalition of three
parties that had little in common and its sole raison d'stre was to keep out
the Islamic parties who had been briefly let into government by Ciller.
Ecevit's party, the DSP, which had done unexpectedly well in the elec-
tions following the kudos derived from the capture of Ocalan, was a left-
wing nationalist party, a combination not often found elsewhere in
Europe, with a leader who believed the Cyprus problem had been settled
by him in 1974 with the Turkish military operation, but with a foreign
minister in Ismail Cem who was a liberal internationalist. The second
biggest party, the MHP, was a new ultra-nationalist party which was
certainly not going to allow itself to be out-flanked on the right over
Cyprus. The third coalition party, Yilmaz's ANAP, had emerged much
weakened from the elections, so its policy of giving absolute priority to
EU membership was not strongly represented in the counsels of govern-
ment. It was this somewhat unpromising combination, as far as Cyprus
was concerned, that the US set about turning around.
The first move by the US was to invite Ecevit on an official visit to
Washington, a rite of passage that meant as much, if not more, to an
incoming Turkish prime minister as it did to his other European col-
leagues. While the talks in Washington in late September were by no
means all about Cyprus, Clinton made it very clear that the US wanted
settlement negotiations to begin, and, when he got a predictably negative
reaction, that he was not prepared to take no for an answer. In the weeks
following the visit to Washington, the US made much use of Clinton's
possible attendance at the approaching OSCE Summit in Istanbul in
November and the possibility, to which the Turks attached the greatest
importance, of a bilateral visit to Turkey by Clinton immediately before
it. The Americans let it be understood that both depended to a consider-
able extent on the Turks agreeing beforehand to terms of reference for
UN-led Cyprus negotiations. The US president, it was said, would not
want to be rejected again over Cyprus and it was surely not in Turkey's
interest that any talks in November should be dominated by unresolved
issues on Cyprus.
Gradually the pressure began to work and by the end of October there
were signs of a many-sided negotiation on those terms of reference getting
under way. The denouement, which could hardly have taken place under
110 C Y P R U S : T H E SI(AI<CH FOR A SOLU'I'ION

more confused circumstances, was reached just as the US president

boarded his plane for the bilateral visit to Turkey and the subsequent
OSCE Summit. Annan was on an official visit to Japan - in Tokyo and
Kyoto - while de Soto was in New York. Moses was in Washington.
Clerides and Kasoulides were in South Africa for the Commonwealth
Heads of Government Meeting, divided between Durban and George
(the weekend retreat of heads of government). The British prime minister
and foreign secretary were also in South Africa for the same purpose and
were in frequent touch there with the Greek Cypriots. Denktash was in
Cyprus, but most of the contacts with him passed through the Turkish
government. I was in London. All communication was by telephone over
open lines; the difference in time zones of the various participants did not
make life any easier. The outcome, announced late on 1 3 November, was
a statement by Annan:

I have spoken to President Clerides and he has agrccd to start proximity

talks in New York on 3 December in order to prepare the ground for
meaningful negotiations leading to a cornprehensivc settlement of thc Cy-
prus Problem. I have also spoken to Mr Denktash who has also agreed and
I will welcome the partics to New York on 3 December.
This somewhat meagre result, following a bit of traditional scrapping
between the UN, Denktash and Clerides over the way the two Cypriot
leaders were referred to (under UN practice the two leaders were nor-
mally referred to as the leaders of their two communities, not as president
or not president), became the basis for the talks that followed.
The Greek Cypriots had taken a good deal of persuading to accept this
text, which was not at all what they would have chosen, and its reception
in their domestic press was stormy. I was invited at short notice to Zu-
rich, where Clerides and Kasoulides were stopping on their way from the
Commonwealth Ileads of Govcrnrnent Meeting in South Africa to the
OSCE Summit in Istanbul, and found them decidedly nervous. I did my
best to reassure them that, for all its inadequacies, the text was a lot better
than nothing. None of the participants, Annan in particular, intended to
allow the talks to focus exclusively on procedure, nor did they intend to
let Denktash use it simply to advance his own agenda. The talks would be
about the core issues for a settlement.
In reality Denktash and the Turks had gained a number of procedural
points, none of wkich were of great value as time went on. They had
refused to allow any mention of Resolution 1250 with its four guidelines
and a proactive role for the secretary-general, but nothing they could do
could prevent Annan operating on that basis, as he was bound to do.
They had declined to permit face-to-face talks since Clerides would not
agree to deal with Denktash as president of the TRNC and they had
therefore insisted that the talks should be in a proximity format. In the
event it was by no means clear that this was to their advantage, since
Iknktash was a forceful advocate of his own position and lost the oppor-
tunity to address anyone other than Annan and de Soto. The distinction
between talks to 'prepare the ground' for a subsequent phase of 'mean-
ingful negotiations' could have been more serious. It was part of
Denktash's unvarying tactical approach to ensure that there was always at
least one further decision-making process which he could veto between
the present time and the moment when he (and the Turks) would have to
say yes or no to the substance of a settlement. In practice the distinction
proved impossible to sustain and ceased to be of any practical significance.
But the least that could be said was that while the Turks had persuaded
Denktash to come to the water, he and they were as yet showing no signs
of wanting to drink it.

The other shoe drops: EUITurkey

The Turkish general election and the subsequent formation of a coalition
government with a large majority in the National Assembly might not
have done much for the prospects of a Cyprus settlement, but it trans-
formed the relationship with the EU. The new government was firmly
committed to pursuing 'Turkey's EU application - Ecevit's DSP and
Yilmaz's ANAP enthusiastically so, Bahceli's MHP much less so. Within
days of Ecevit taking over as the head of the new government he had
written formally to Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in his capacity as
president of the European Council asking the EU to take forward Tur-
key's application and making it clear that 'l'urkey accepted that accession
negotiations could not actually start until they had been deemed to have
fulfilled the political dimensions of the Copenhagen criteria. This was an
important clarification. Up till then successive Turkish governments had
either maintained that they already met the Copenhagen criteria (which
was evidently not the case) or that the criteria could be met during the no
doubt lengthy accession negotiations (which the EU was never going to
concede, having long before decided that they were a precondition for the
major step of opening accession negotiations, which necessarily required
the country being able to fulfil the basic political requirements for mem-
112 CYI'IIUS: T H E SE/\RCI-I F O K h S O 1 , U T I O N

bership) or that they were just a discriminatory sham, an excuse to enable

the E U to say no to Turkey. T h e Ecevit/Schroeder letter meant the two
parties were at last on the same wavelength and at least implied that the
new Turkish government was ready to introduce domestic legislation to
bring Turkey into confornlity with the Copenhagen criteria. T h e letter,
arriving as it did just before the Cologne European Council, did not,
however, immediately unlock the door; the Greek government, which had
not yet completed the reassessment of its attitude towards Turkey's E U
application which followed Papandreou's taking over as foreign mimster,
asked for more time to consider and this was agreed. But, as earthquake
diplomacy kicked in and Greek-Turkish relations improved markedly, it
became clear that important decisions about Turkey's E U application
would be made at the Helsinlu European Council in December and that
Greece would not be the main obstacle to their being taken.
There did, however, remain one specifically Greek (or rather Greek
and Greek Cypriot) problem in the run-up to Helsinki, which was made
more acute by the progress being made in parallel to get Cyprus settle-
ment negotiations under way again. This was the need, as the Greeks and
Greek Cypriots saw it, to temper any E U support for Annan's efforts
with a clear statement that a Cyprus political settlement was not an
absolute precondition for Cyprus joining the EU. While the other mem-
ber states had no intention of allowing Denktash and the Turks to
frustrate Cyprus's E U application by filibustering the settlement talks,
they equally did not want to give the Greek Cypriots carte blanche in
their accession negotiations and had an extremely strong preference for a
reunited rather than a divided Cyprus joining. 'The conundru~nof how to
capture these different priorities in a few short sentences preoccupied the
member states right up to and at the I-Ielsinki meeting, with much hyper-
active Greek diplomacy and the peddling by them of a number of
unacceptable formulae. In the end the formula agreed on 10 December
was as follows:

9(a) The European Council welcomes the launch of the talks aiming at a
comprehensive settlement of the Cyprus Problem on 3 December in New
York and expresses its strong support for the UN Secretary-General's ef-
forts to bring the process to a successful conclusion.

(b) The European Council underlincc that a political settlement will fa-
cilitatc the accession of Cyprus to the European Union. If no settlement
has been reached by the conlpletion of the accession negotiations, the
 Council's decision on accession will 11c made without the above being a
prccondition. In this the Council will takc account of all relevant factors.

This masterpiece of constructive ambiguity was regarded by the Turks

and Turkish Cypriots as giving the Greek Cypriots far too clear a com-
mitment over accession, and indeed the initial Greek Cypriot reaction was
one of euphoria, but for the Greek Cypriots the sting in the tail (the last
sentence was always referred to as 'the Helsinki tail' in the frequent
denunciations by the Greek Cypriot press) was all too obvious.
As to the handling of the Turkish application itself, this too gave rise
to plenty of feverish intra-EU negotiation, not least because of the need to
move away from the offending conclusions of the 1997 Luxembourg
European Council without actually saying so. But no major issues of
principle were at stake, because the position being set out, admittedly
much more clearly and precisely than ever before, had been the EU's
position all along. T h e crucial decision to open accession negotiations
with Turkey was evidently still several years away. T o be ungenerous to
Turkey at this stage, when the Helsinki Council was opting for a big-bang
enlargement, with ten candidates including Cyprus heading for accession
in the first wave and with only Bulgaria and Romania left over for a later
date, would have precipitated a major and unnecessary row with Turkey.
S o in the end the following text was agreed without too much contro-
versy:

The European Council reaffirms the inclusive nature of the accession pro-
cess, which now comprises 1 3 candidatc states within a single framework.
The candidate states are participating in the accession process on an equal
footing. They must share the values and objectives of the European Union
as set out in the Treaties. In this rcspcct the European Council stresses the
principle of peaceful settlement of disputes in accordance with the U N
Charter and urges candidate states to make every effort to resolve any out-
standing border disputes and other relating issues. Failing this they should
within a reasonable time bring the dispute to the International Court of
Justice. 'I'he European Council will review the situation relating to any
outstanding disputes, in particular concerning the repercussions on the
accession process and in order to promote their settlement through the
ICJ, at the latest by the end of 2004. Moreover, the European Council re-
calls that compliance with the political criteria laid down at the
Copenhagen European Council is a prerequisite for the opening of acces-
sion negotiations and that compliance with all the Copenhagen criteria is
thc basis for accession to the Union.
 CYPRUS. THE SE,\RCH FOR A SOLU'I'ION

The European Council welcomes recent positive developments in Turkey

as noted in the Commission's progress report, as well as its intention to
continue its reforms towards complying with the Copenhagen criteria.
Turkey is a candidate State destined to join the Union on the basis of the
same criteria as applied to the other candidate States. Building on the ex-
isting European strategy, Turkey, like other candidate States, will benefit
from a pre-accession strategy to stimulate and support its reforms. This
will include enhanced political dialogue, with emphasis on progressing
towards fulfilling the political criteria for accession with particular refer-
ence to the issue of human rights, as well as on the issues referred to in
paragraphs 4 and 9(a). Turkey will also have the opportunity to partici-
pate in Community programmes and agencies and in meetings between
candidate States and the Union in the context of the accession process. An
accession partnership will be drawn up on the basis of previous European
Council conclusions while containing priorities on which accession prepa-
rations must concentrate in the light of the political and economic criteria
and the obligations of a Member State, combined with a national pro-
gramme for the adoption of the acquis. Appropriate monitoring
mechanisms will be established. With a view to intensifying the harmoni-
sation of Turkey's legislation and practice with the acquis, the
Commission is invited to prepare a process of analytical examination of
the acquis. The European Council asks the Commission to present a sin-
gle framework for coordinating all sources of EU financial assistance for
pre-accession.
r -
I his was immediately transmitted to Ankara in the hope that Ecevit
would come to Helsinki, along with the other leaders of the candidate
countries, thus showing that it was no longer 1 2 +
1 but 13 candidates
whose applications were being processed.
Experience should have warned that nothing could be taken for
granted in Ankara, and the first reaction was indeed somewhere between
hesitant and hostile. Particular exception was taken to the references to
the Greek-Turkish disputes in the Aegean and to the UN negotiations for
a Cyprus settlement, neither of which were in fact cast in the terms of
conditions for making progress on Turkey's EU application. Rather than
conducting a long-distance dialogue of the deaf, the European Council
sent a mission composed of Solana and representatives of the presidency
and the Commission overnight to Ankara, armed with an explanatory
letter from the Finnish prime minister in his capacity as president of the
European Council which read as follows:
 Mr Prime Minister.

Today, the European Union has set out on a new course in its relations
with the Republic of Turkey. I am very pleased to inform you officially of
our unanimous decision to confer Turkey the status of candidate State, on
the same footing as any other candidate.

When, in the European Council, we discussed the draft conclusions an-

nexed to this letter, I said, without being challenged, that in 312 of the
conclusions there was no new criteria added to those of Copenhagen and
that the reference to $4 and 9a was not in relation to the critcria for acces-
sion but only to the political dialogue. The accession partnership will be
drawn up on the basis of today's Council decisions.

In 34 the date of 2004 is not a deadline for the settlemcnt of disputes

through the ICJ but the date at which the European Council will review
the situation relating to any outstanding dispute.

Regarding Cyprus, a political settlement remains the aim of the EU. Con-
cerning the accession of Cyprus, all relevant factors will be taken into
account when the Council takes thc decision.

In the light of this, I invite you with the other candidate States to our
working lunch in IHelsinki tomorrow.

Paavo Lipponen

T h e mission and the message did the trick, and for once the Turks de-
cided the glass was half full and not half empty. There was subsequently
a considerable row with the Greeks when it transpired that Lipponen's
explanatory letter had not been cleared with any of his colleagues in the
European Council. But, although the letter somewhat weakened the force
of the Council conclusions, it in no sense contradicted them. S o the
matter was smoothed over.

The New York side-show: the first round of proximity talks

T h e first round of proximity talks took place in N e w York from 2 to 14
December. For the most part they could well have been described as
'waiting for Helsinki'. Clerides and Denktash and their large entourages
took turns to see Annan and to say not very much, and certainly nothing
new, about their attitudes towards the core issues and (in Denktash's case)
their own agenda. It was tacitly understood that the outcome of Helsinki
would crucially affect the continuation of the Cyprus proximity talks.
1 16 C Y P R U S : 'I'HE S E A K C 1 4 F O R A S O I . U T l O N

Indeed Denktash managed to fire off a belligerent public salvo in the brief
period when it looked as if the Turks were going to take issue with the
I-Ielsinki outcome, but, thereafter, when it became clear that they would
treat it as acceptable and welcome, he was persuaded to fall into sullen
silence. Clerides, after threatening to attend the candidate countries'
session in IIelsinki the day after the European Council meeting, which
would have been remarkably provocative towards Denktash who, of
course, was not invited, was persuaded not to go and to send his foreign
minister instead. So, as the delegations left New York, there was, after
more than a two-year gap, a show on the road, albeit a show that had not
yet left the start line.

European Security and Defence Policy: a wild card

T h e European Council meeting in Helsinki took another set of decisions,
ostensibly not directly concerned with either Turkey or Cyprus but in
the event fraught with implications for them and with tricky complica-
tions arising from those other relationships. The members of the
European Union decided that by the end of 2003 they would acquire the
capability to put into the field a force of up to 60,000 men able to be
deployed for peacekeeping and humanitarian interventions (the so-called
'Petersberg' tasks) should N A T O as such not wish to be involved. The
most immediate complications arose from the need for the European
Union both to define the position in the European Security and Defence
Policy (ESDP) of European countries not yet members but already
applicants for membership and also to work out with NATO the precise
EU/NATO inter-relationship of the new ESDP machinery they had
decided to create. The first of these tasks necessarily involved defining
Turkey's relationship with ESDP in the period of indefinite length while
it was still not a member of the European Union. The second gave 'Tur-
key, as a member of NATO, a veto over E U N A T O arrangements
(known as the 'Berlin-plus' arrangements) and in particular over giving
the EU assured access to NATO machinery in the event of N A T O not
deciding to mount an operation and the EU deciding to do so. Beyond
these complications with Turkey lurked some equally tricky ones with
respect to Cyprus, a candidate for membership of the EU and, as such,
another country whose relationship with ESDP needed to be clarified.
The Turks were unhappy about the ESDP decision, not because they
were opposed to the policy - if they had been a member of the European
Union they would almost certainly have supported it - but because it
 G E T T I N G T H E S H O M ' O N 'I'HE KOAII AGAIN 117

upset the delicate balance in their relationship with European security

and defence developments which had been established some years earlier
through their Associate Membership of the Western European Union (a
body that was institutionally totally separate from the EU), which effec-
tively gave them the status of member in all but name. The Helsinki
decisions implied the demise of the Western European Union and its
replacement by the European Union's new Security and Defence Policy,
and the Turks knew, although they were unwilling to admit it, that they
could not simply become a member of the European Union in all but
name. So they were determined to use their veto in NATO to get an ad
hoc set of arrangements governing their relationship with and participa-
tion in ESDP of an extremely elaborate and advanced kind. In the course
of the long and tortuous negotiations over this, which lasted three years
(and were only finally settled at the time of the Copenhagen European
Council in December 2002), the Turks not only tried the patience of their
European partners extremely hard, but they managed, probably inadver-
tently, to turn a problem between the EU and Turkey into a problem also
between Greece and Turkey, with the Greeks taking strong exception to
some of the elaborate consultative and cooperative procedures designed to
meet Turkish requirements.
If the Turks were unhappy about ESDP in general, they were even
more unhappy about the thought of Cyprus (divided) becoming a mem-
ber of it, as it would if and when it joined the European Union. In the
event of a Cyprus settlement preceding EU membership there was
probably not much of a problem, since Turkish Cyprus would be in the
European Union with a degree of control over Cypriot foreign and secu-
rity policy, and in any case the reunited Cyprus was to be demilitarized of
local Cypriot forces, leaving Cyprus in a position analogous to that of
Iceland in NATO. But could one rely on things turning out that way?
Obviously not. And if they did not, the prospect of a militarily ambitious
southern Cyprus participating in ESDP was one that disturbed the Turks
deeply. These concerns were complicated by the Greek Cypriots them-
selves (and to some extent the Greeks too) at every turn treating ESDP as
if it involved a commitment to the territorial defence of its members
(which it did not, most of them being members of NATO which already
provided that guarantee, and 'Petersberg' tasks having nothing to do with
the defence of EU member states), and also by the Greek Cypriots ig-
noring the urging of EU members to make any declarations of practical
and operational support for ESDP solely in the hypothesis of a demilita-
118 C Y P R U S : T I I E SEl\IICII FOR A S O L U T ' I O N

rized Cyprus, that is to say one following a settlement and admission to

the E:U of a reunited island. l'he Turkish solution to all this, that Cyprus,
even as an EU member, should simply be excluded from ISSIIP, was not
negotiable, given the nature of the European Union's institutional struc-
tures and Greek and Greek Cypriot views. The idea that a country which
was going to be in the European Union (Cyprus) should be excluded from
ESDP, while a country that was not necessarily even going to be a mem-
ber (Turkey) should be given a privileged position within ESDP, did not
make a lot of political sense.
The one thing that all concerned with this imbroglio were agreed
about was that there was nothing to be gained and much to be lost by
allowing these ESDP complications and their resolution to be linked in
any formal way with the various other negotiations going on - Cyprus's
accession to the EU, the UN's efforts to get a Cyprus settlement, Tur-
key's relationship to the EU. And so, kept apart they were, from
beginning to end, although the inter-relationships between them un-
doubtedly weighed on the minds of all the participants, usually in a
negative and unhelpful way.
 2000: Proximity, Equality,
Walk-Out

T
he first round of proximity talks took place at the end of 1999, but
as has been recorded in the previous chapter, barely got to grips
with the subject matter, all eyes being turned on Helsinki and on
the Turlush government's reaction to what happened there. The next
round of proximity talks took place in Geneva from 30 January to 8
February. There was then a long gap, necessitated by presidential elec-
tions in the north of Cyprus and by Clerides's need for surgery. The next
round, broken in two to allow Denktash to celebrate the anniversary of
the 1974 hostilities, again took place in Geneva from 4 to 12 July and from
2 3 July to 4 August. There was another round in New York from 10 to 26
September. And the last round of the year, and, as it turned out, the last
round at all, of proximity talks took place in Geneva from 3 1 October to
10 November.
The proximity format of these talks, on which the Turks and Turkish
Cypriots had insisted and from which they refused to budge, was ex-
tremely cumbersome. Kofi Annan, who was present for part of each
round but not for their entirety, or de Soto saw Clerides and Denktash
and their negotiating teams on most days for separate working sessions.
The U N declined at this stage to pass on to the one what the other was
saying, which at least hampered the normal Cypriot practice of concen-
trating on vigorous, intemperate critiques of the position of the other side
and avoiding to the greatest extent possible any development of its own
negotiating position. In order in part to counter this tendency Annan had
requested the sides to respect a news blackout on what was being said at
the talks. Both sides honoured this request more in the breach than the
observance, and an assiduous reading of the more extreme positions
reflected in each other's press provided plenty of raw material for tradi-
tional jousting.
1 I!,
120 C Y P R U S . T H E S E A R C H FOR A [Link]

In between the formal sessions de Soto fitted in as many private

meetings with the two leaders as he could manage, with the aim of getting
a better understanding of their bottom-line positions. In addition both
Greece and Turkey were represented by delegations, led respectively by
Alecos Sandhis and Korkmaz Haktanir who during the course of 2000
became their countries' ambassadors to London but continued their roles
as representatives to the Cyprus negotiations. These two delegations
naturally spent much time in conclave with the Greek and Turkish Cyp-
riots. Beyond that there was what could be called the penumbra of the
talks: the Cypriot party political leaders on each side, the Greek Cypriots
meeting almost daily as the National Council, the Turkish Cypriots less
systematically organized and more clearly discriminated between those
who supported Denktash and those who did not. The US and UK dele-
gations who met with de Soto on a daily basis compared notes and
concerted the contacts they were having with the other players: a number
of other special representatives, including increasingly often some officials
from the EU Commission, and the press, frustrated by the lack of news
and of progress and ever ready to give credence and currency to any
rumour that either side or the Cypriot politicians accompanying them
might choose to plant on them. There was much socializing but, and this
was both striking and sad, I am not aware of one single contact, however
discreet or innocent, across the Greek-Turkish, Greek Cypriot-Turkish
Cypriot divide. I did manage to bring the Turkish Cypriots and Turks
into fairly systematic contact with the Commission in the person of
Leopold Maurer, the Austrian who was leading the Cyprus accession
negotiations at the official level. But an attempt to get the Cyprus foreign
minister, Kasoulides, who was not part of the official negotiating team,
together with Haktanir, who was not either, foundered on the latter's
unwillingness even to sit down at a lunch-table with an official represen-
tative of a country that Turkey did not recognize.

The early rounds of proximity talks

The December 1999, the January-February and the first half of July 2000
sessions of proximity talks fitted into a similar pattern: the UN listened,
questioned and prompted, but did not put forward any suggestions, let
alone any proposals. They did their best to cover the four main core
issues - governance, security, territorial adjustment and property - as
fully as possible, with varying success, and to avoid the flow of the talks
being side-tracked on to other less tangible and less manageable subjects
 P R O X I M I T Y , [Link], Wi\LI<-OUI' 121

such as status and sovereignty. Not altogether surprisingly, given that the
press reporting reflected, on the Greek Cypriot side, the view that noth-
ing had changed, that no real negotiation was going on and that Denktash
was operating outside the scope of Security Council resolutions, and on
the Turkish Cypriot side an impression of adamantine determination to
defend Denktash's confederation proposals of 1998 and to re-establish as
preconditions for any real negotiation his basic requirements on status
and sovereignty, neither side was prepared to reveal many of its cards
during these early rounds. These preliminaries were necessary, as they
always are at the beginning of any long and complex negotiation, if only
to enable each side to empty their pockets of their carefully constructed
opening positions, but they were not very fruitful.
Clerides was not particularly forthcoming during this period. H e did
not see anything useful coming out of such a laborious process, and
continued himself to favour face-to-face talks designed to enable the main
substantive trade-offs to be identified and deals on them to be struck. FIe
was being criticized at home and in the National Council for having
agreed to talks on such a flexible and imprecise basis. H e was worried lest
the UN should give ground to Denktash on some aspect of the status and
sovereignty issues that would call in question his government's title to
represent the Republic of Cyprus as constituted in 1960 and its right to
join the European Union. Nevertheless, despite those rather negative
constraints, he set out an approach that indicated a willingness to negoti-
ate with reasonable flexibility on all aspects of the core issues. O n
territory he made it clear that there would have to be a substantial ad-
justment to the benefit of the Greek Cypriots (as Boutros-Ghali had
proposed in 1992 when he had tabled a map which would have reduced
the Turlush Cypriot controlled zone from the current 37 per cent of the
island to 28.2 per cent). But he was careful not to make any specific terri-
torial claims, thus leaving the details for negotiation at a later stage and
thus also avoiding staking out a position from which he would find it
difficult to resile if he crossed one of the other side's red lines. And he
began to hint that his attitude on the return of property would be materi-
ally affected by the scale of the territorial adjustment.
O n security issues he plugged his own, by now fairly old, proposals
for the total demilitarization of the new Cyprus, i.e. the removal of all
Turkish and Greek troops as well as the disbanding of all Greek Cypriot
and Turkish Cypriot ones. But he indicated that if those proposals were
not negotiable with Turkey, he would be prepared to contemplate not
122 C Y P R U S : T H E S E A R C H 1:OR A SOLUTION

only the continuation of the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee with its unilateral
right of intervention in the last resort for each of the guarantor powers
(Greece, Turkey and the UK) but also some modest (numbers not speci-
fied) continuing Turkish troop presence on the island. In that context he
placed great emphasis on an international troop presence, on which he
had shifted away from his early flirtation with the idea of a N A T O force
(the Kosovo war in 1999 having made N A T O a dirty word in Cyprus,
and in particular with the communist party (AKEL), whose support for
any settlement was essential) or even an EU one - neither of which were
even remotely negotiable with Turkey - back towards a reshaped UN
force, which, coincidentally, was likely to be less objectionable to Turkey.
As to governance, it was clear that, without actually saying so, he could
live with the approach in the 1992 Set of Ideas: a federal government with
a relatively limited range of powers and no residual powers, everything
else remaining with the two zones, Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot,
over which the two communities would exercise full autonomy. H e was
unwilling to go too far into sensitive details such as a rotating presidency
and the extent of the right of veto of one community over the other until
he got intc actual negotiation with Denktash. Clerides's views on prop-
erty were not spelled out in detail, being to some extent linked to
territory, but in no circumstances would he accept an outcome such as
that Denktash was putting forward under which all claims would be
settled by compensation and no Greek Cypriot would have a right to
return to the north.
Denktash was, if anything, even less forthcoming, the even less being
because he did not even hint at any possible flexibility beyond his stated
position. As usual with Denktash what you saw was what you got. H e
said flatly that he was not prepared to talk about a specific territorial
adjustment until the very end of the negotiation, a position it would have
been easier to sympathize with if one had been sure that he would ever
admit that that criterion had been met (he did not in fact do so by the
time the negotiations broke down). Meanwhile he was prepared to talk
about criteria for determining such an adjustment, but, when tabled, these
turned out to be fully capable of producing a zero adjustment. O n secu-
rity he simply said that Turkey would have to be satisfied, and it was not
for him to talk about the specifics. His views on governance were set out
extensively but exclusively on the basis of a confederation. And when he
tabled the worked-out version of his thinking on this it basically
amounted to two separate states linked by little more than a permanent
diplomatic conference in which each side had a veto on any decision of
substance or procedure. H e insisted that all property claims must be
settled by compensation and that no Greek Cypriots (or Turkish Cypriots
for that matter) should have the right of return. When it was pointed out
that, during the 1992 negotiations he had been prepared to contemplate a
limited right of return, known in the jargon as the 'fishing net' approach,
he simply said that that was then and this was now.
Denktash also focused heavily on other issues: status and sovereignty
and the EU. H e insisted that whatever the outcome of the negotiations,
this must include the recognition of the sovereignty of the TRNC, sug-
gesting disingenuously that it might be only for half an hour before the
signature of the agreement (thus effectively at that point extinguishing the
claim of the Greek Cypriots to represent the Republic of Cyprus) and that
sovereignty belonged to the two founding states of the new Cyprus, being
partially allocated by them to whatever unified institutions they estab-
lished. O n the European Union he appeared to be reneging even on his
proposals of 1998, because he no longer spoke of the possibility of the
north of Cyprus entering with the south and ahead of Turkey but rather
of what was described as the 'synchronization' of the accession of Turkey
and of the north of Cyprus, although it has to be admitted that the practi-
cal implications of that Greek-rooted word were often left a little obscure.
The least that could be said of these early exchanges was that they
revealed two mutually incompatible positions on many points, including
some that had appeared close to agreement or provisionally settled in
1992. And they demonstrated rather clearly that the two parties were not
likely, spontaneously, to develop positions that were compatible or at least
negotiable. By mid-July, therefore, it was obvious that the UN would
have to begin to reveal some thinking of its own if the talks were to move
forward.

A presidential election
The proximity talks were suspended after the February round to allow
for the quinquennial presidential elections in the north, due at the end of
April. Denktash stood for what was effectively a sixth five-year term as
president (the first two occasions pre-dated the unilateral declaration of
independence of the TIINC). His principal opponent, as at the previous
election in 1995, was Dervish Eroglu, the leader of the largest party in the
Assembly (the UBP) and prime minister. Denktash won 43.7 per cent of
the votes in the first round (slightly better in fact than in 1995 when he
had only won 40.4 per cent in the first round, followed by 62.5 per cent in
the second), and on this occasion there was no second round, as Eroglu
withdrew under strong pressure from the Turkish government. Denktash
was therefore elected unopposed. As in previous presidential elections the
votes of the centre-left parties, which were generally more favourable to a
settlement than either Denktash or Eroglu, were split, as both party
leaders, Mustafa Akinci (TKP) and Mehmet Ali 'I'alat (CTP), stood in the
first round and were eliminated; moreover one of the centre-left doveish
parties (TKP) was still cohabiting uneasily with Eroglu's hawkish UUP in
a coalition government.
The outcome of the election thus gave no indication of the rise in
dissatisfaction with Denkt;uhls leadership, provoked by the prolonged
econon~iccrisis in the north which began with Turkey's own economic
woes and the IMF bail-out in 2001, peaked with his conduct of the settle-
ment talks in 2002 and was reflected in the mass demonstrations at the
end of that year. If there was a fault-line at all visible at this stage, it was
in attitudes towards accession to the European Union. Opinion polls
showed overwhelming support among Turkish Cypriots for EU acces-
sion, accompanied, quite reasonably, by the view that this needed to be
preceded by a settlement of the Cyprus problem. Denktash's vigorously
Euro-sceptical views were thus out of line with the majority of his conl-
patriots (and with those of most mainland Turks too) but with settlement
talks at an early stage and the end of Cyprus's EU accession negotiations
not yet in sight, these differences remained masked, and Denktash was
able to keep anger focused on the EU for ever accepting an application
from a divided Cyprus, let alone agreeing that a divided island could one
day join, as it had done at Helsinki.

The UN speaks up
The view that it was time for the U N to break its silence in the negotia-
tions and to try to nudge things forward was shared in equal measure by
the U N negotiators, including the secretary-general, by the US and the
UK. Our daily tripartite meetings with de Soto had shown that no real
progress was being made. None of us had picked up any signals that
either party or their motherlands were contemplating initiatives that
might move things along. As to the content of any U N initiative, there
was no serious disagreement about that either. It was desirable to set out a
framework for the future and to avoid recognizing the distinction, beloved
by Denktash who wah ever on the look out for an opportunity to filibus-
 PROXIMITY. EQUA1,ITY. WI\LI~-OUT

ter, between preparation and negotiation proper. That framework was as

follows: an effort should be made to set aside for the moment the argu-
ment over federation v. confederation, given that the idea of a limited
number of centrally exercised powers, with the rest exercised by the two
zones or states, was more or less common ground and, for this purpose,
the terms 'common state' and 'component states' were coined. Some
satisfaction should be given to each side on points of great significance for
them: political equality and non-domination for the Turkish Cypriots; for
the Greek Cypriots indissolubility of the common state, an international
force with a UN mandate, a property settlement based on an appropriate
combination of restitution, exchange and compensation. Some issues were
fudged for the meantime. T h e link between the territorial adjustment and
the property settlement was hinted at. T h e only issue that gave any
difficulty was that of property. Denktash was, even by his own standards,
remarkably tough on this subject, saying that he would reject any solution
based on any element of return to the north by Greek Cypriots; every-
thing had to be done by compensation. But we concluded that a
document that went down that road, or appeared to contemplate doing so,
would be both unnegotiable with the Greek Cypriots and indefensible
because it would be a legitimization of ethnic cleansing and would fly in
the face of the jurisprudence emerging from the European Court of
Human Rights. So on 12 July de Soto set out what he called his 'Prelimi-
nary Thoughts' to each of the parties and asked them to respond when
they returned later in the month:

1. As we are about to break until 24 July, I would like to share with you
some preliminary thoughts on the way ahead. It is difficult to draw a bal-
ance sheet of a process which has not yet entered the negotiating phase as
such, and that is not my purpose today. Nor has the time come for sub-
mitting proposals, let alone comprehensive proposals. I am intentionally
refraining from covering the entire spectrum at this time. One step at a
time. I first wish to obtain reactions to these preliminary thoughts, which
contain a mixture of procedure, assumptions, emerging trends, and pend-
ing issues.

2. I am not asking for approval or concurrence with what I am about to

say. My purpose is to elicit your comments, not now, but when you re-
turn from the break.

3 . General points:
126 C Y P R U S : T H E S E A R C H FOR A SO1,UTIC)N

The aim is a comprehensive settlement covering all issues on the ta-

ble, encompassing all legal instruments and other agreements
involving non-Cypriot actors.
The settlement should be self-executing and provide for appropriate
mechanisms for verification of compliance.
The settlement should leave nothing to be negotiated subsequently.
The settlement should include binding timetables of implementation.
Labels are to be avoided, at least for the present, so as to concentrate
on the underlying concepts.
Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.

4. General aims:
Political equality for Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots.
Maximum security and institutional protection for Greek Cypriots
and Turkish Cypriots to ensure that neither can dominate the other.
Equitable solutions for the exercise of property rights, for the right of
return, and on territory.

5. Among the broad features of a potential settlement that are emerging, I

see the following:
A common state consisting of an indissoluble partnership of politi-
cally equal, largely self-governing component states, sharing in a
single international legal personality. Each component state shall have
its own constitution, government, powers and distinct citizenship.
The comprehensive settlement would enshrine the basic legal frame-
work of the common state.
A common Cypriot nationality and government with specified pow-
ers.
Effective participation of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots in the
common government.
Free movement throughout the island.
An international force to be deployed under a Security Council man-
date; dissolution of Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot forces;
prohibition of arms supplies; substantial reduction of non-Cypriot
forces to equal levels. Security arrangements will have to recognise
the crucial role of thc Treaty of Guarantee and the Treaty of Alliance.
The need to honour property rights. My sense is that this will require
an appropriate combination of restitution, exchange and compensa-
tion. The exact make-up will be closely linked to the extent of
territorial adjustment.
The extent of territorial adjustment will require considerable further
reflection. There also seems to be a correlation between territorial
 P 11 0 X IIv1 I'I' Y . l i Q U A I. I'1' Y . M' A [Link] - 0 U 'I

adjustment and the degree of integration of, or separateness between,

Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots in general.
An additional factor in this equation is the powers and structures of
the component states and the commou state respectively.

These linkages confirm the view, which I am sure we all share, that we
must advance on all issues simultaneously.

Finally, let me state my assumption that a comprehensive settlement shall

commit Cyprus to EU membership while talciug into account legitimate
concerns in this regard.
I have attempted to share with you my impression of thc state of play.
The resulting snapshot is unavoidably blurry. More cannot be expected in
the short time available to me bccause of the carly break. It is obvious that
considerable work remains to be done on all issues, but we must take thc
long view. I look forward to your comments on 24 July so as to build on
what we have so far.

l h e responses when the leaders and their delegations returned to Geneva

later in July were not particularly encouraging, but nor were they wor-
ryingly negative. Each side pocketed without recognition or thanks the
elements that suited them and continued to press the points that did not.
O n one issue, however, there did appear to have been some progress - the
setting aside of the form of governance for the new Cyprus, federal or
confederal, to be decided only at a much later stage in the negotiations.
While Denktash continued to push his confederal option and to draft
every piece of paper produced by the Turkish Cypriot side rigorously and
explicitly within that framework, neither side objected to the use by the
UN of the two placebos of 'common state' and 'component state' to
identify the central and the autonomous functions of the new Cyprus, and
argument about the options was allowed to lapse. This was not too sur-
prising. T h e Turks had never been greatly enamoured of the confederal
concept, which they knew was unnegotiable, a bit of a red herring and
which placed Denktash firmly outside not only Security Council resolu-
tions but also the IIigh-Level Agreements that he had himself signed with
Makarios and Kyprianou in 1977 and 1979 when acceptance of a federa-
tion (to replace the 1960 unitary, bi-communal state) had been a major
concession by the Greek Cypriots. In a private conversation with the
Turkish foreign minister in London earlier in the year, Cem had asked me
whether there was any chance of agreeing to a confederation. I said none
whatsoever. T h e fact that it was Denktash's own proposal and that he was
128 C Y P R U S : 'I'HE SEI\I<CII I;OK A [Link])N

pushing it in a form that would be quite unworkable meant that it would

never be accepted by the other side. But that did not mean that there
could not be elements of a confederal nature (as well as some of a federal
nature) in any constitution for a new Cyprus, as in fact had been the case
in Boutros-Ghali's 1992 Set of Ideas. Cem had looked pensive and said no
more.

Equality
One set of issues that were certainly not put to one side by de Soto's 12
July 'Preliminary Thoughts' was Denktash's obsessive preoccupation
with status and sovereignty. H e continued to harp on these at every
meeting he had with Annan and de Soto (and indeed with the rest of us),
virt~mllyto the exclusion of everything else. This began to worry de Soto,
who was concerned that it might bring the whole negotiation to a halt.
And it propelled Moses, the US Special Representative, into an attempt to
cobble together some formula that could be agreed by both sides and free
up the possibility of getting to grips with the core issues. I was less wor-
ried by Denktash's antics and a good deal more concerned that the cure
might prove worse than the disease. I pointed out that Denktash was in
fact in the process of destroying the 'no preconditions' precept of Security
Council Resolution 1250 and, if we were to attempt to broker some
agreement on status and sovereignty, we would be conniving in that.
Once this precept was destroyed, there would be no end to Denktash's
preconditions and no end either to the negotiations. Nevertheless Moses
struggled on through a series of lengthy meetings with Denktash and
Haktanir. H e was given a very dusty answer by Clerides when he
broached the subject with him, and I noted myself that Clerides was
deeply unsettled by these signs that the Americans wanted to draw him
into a negotiation on ground on to which he was unwilling to venture.
'Towards the end of the session, in early August, Moses concluded that
there was no chance of getting Clerides and Denktash to agree on a for-
mula; Denktash invariably asked for too much, and Clerides was unhappy
about doing anything at all.
When we took stock at the end of the session, I suggested we had
broadly two choices. We could struggle on as things were, with Denktash
concentrating heavily on status and sovereignty and reluctant to engage
on anything else. O r we could try to park at least the trickiest parts of
these issues for the duration of the negotiations. T o do that we would
need to stop trying to get the two sides actually to agree to any formula,
since that was clearly not going to fly; rather we should contemplate a
unilateral but formal statement by the secretary-general which would not
be binding on either party. But for that statement to have a positive rather
than a negative effect it would need to be extremely carefully drafted, and
it would, above all, need to avoid offering Denktash anything up front but
rather be based on what would be obtainable by him in the context of his
acceptance of a comprehensive agreement. De Soto and Moses agreed
with this analysis and opted firmly for the second alternative. D e Soto
said he would now work up a formula and clear it with the secretary-
general for his use with Clerides and Denktash on the opening day of the
next session of negotiations in New York on 12 September. H e was
adamant that there must be no pre-negotiation of the formula with either
side if we were to avoid it being torn to pieces by the two of them. This
was agreed. De Soto was as good as his word and produced an extremely
carefully crafted form of words with which neither Moses nor I had any
problems. And we passed to the U N the undertaking of our two govern-
ments to back Annan if he decided to go ahead on this basis. T h e text that
Annan read out to Clerides and Denktash on 12 September was short and
went as follows:

The Grcek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot parties have been participating,
since December 1999, in proximity talks to prepare the ground for mean-
ingful negotiations leading to a comprehcnsive settlemcnt. I believe the
time has now come to move ahead.

In the course of thcse talks I have ascertained that the parties share a
common desire to bring about, through negotiations in which each repre-
sents its side - and no-one else - as the political equal of the other, a
comprehensive settlement enshrining a new partnership on which to build
a better future in peace, security and prosperity on a united island.

In this spirit, and with the purpose of expediting negotiations in good faith
and without preconditions on all issues before them, I have concluded that
the equal status of the parties must and should be recognised explicitly in
the comprehensive settlemcnt which will embody the detailed negotia-
tions required to translate this concept into clear and practical provisions.

Although brief, this formula contained some important elements. In its

first paragraph it clearly indicated the secretary-general's intention to
finesse the distinction between talks and negotiations and to do so without
seeking explicit agreement and thereby giving either side a veto. In the
second it stated more clearly than ever before that, witliin the negotiations
130 C Y P I t U S . T H E S E A R C H F O R \t SOLUTION

each side only represented itself and was politically equal with the other;
but it did not, as Denktash would have liked, say that those principles
applied also outside the negotiations. It did, however, refer to 'a new
partnership', which were sacred words in the Denktash lexicon and
represented about the limit of what an intensely concerned Clerides could
contemplate. Finally, in the third paragraph, it made clear Annan's view
that the equal status of the parties would need to be recognized explicitly
in any comprehensive settlement, and that that settlement would need to
embody the results of detailed negotiations that would have to translate
equal status into clear and practical provisions at some point in the future.
The statement was silent on the issue of sovereignty.
It had been clear from the outset that this statement would send out
considerable shock waves, and indeed it did. It had also been clear that the
Creek Cypriots would not much like it, even though it did not in fact
cross any of their red lines on recognition or sovereignty. But the iron law
of Cyprus negotiations was that any move that might help or please your
opponent must necessarily be to your detriment, and this statement
certainly qualified under that criterion. What really upset the Greek
Cypriots, however, was that the statement had been prepared and deliv-
ered without their having the slightest inkling of it and thus without their
having any opportunity to influence it. Clerides's immediate reaction was
sulphurous and he retired to the Waldorf Astoria where he remained
holed up for the next three days refusing to attend any further meetings
with Annan and receiving much bad advice from most of the members of
the National Council, with the notable exception of his immediate prede-
cessor as president, George Vassiliou, to the effect that he should either
seek the withdrawal of Annan's statement or himself withdraw from the
negotiations. Meanwhile on the other side Denktash was not helping by
putting out public interpretations of Annan's statement that went far
beyond what was justified by the text. This provoked a firm rebuke from
the secretary-general's press spokesman on 1 3 September to the effect
that the statement was Annan's own, that he was therefore the only
source of interpretation of it, and that interpretations of it by others did
not have any validity. Denktash's reaction to Annan's statement was, by
his standards, reasonably positive but disobliging, putting the emphasis
on its insufficiency rather than its merits. The Turkish reaction was a
good deal more positive.
The brunt of persuading Clerides that the situation was less bad than
he thought or feared fell on Papandreou, who, along with other EU
foreign ministers, was by now in New York for the annual ministerial
session of the U N General Assembly. H e rose to the challenge without
hesitation, despite being subjected to a pretty vitriolic press campaign
from the Greek and Greek Cypriot press who were egging each other on
to heights of hyperbolic excess. Other EU foreign ministers played their
part too, pointing out to Clerides that they saw nothing untoward in
Annan's statement and that a decision to leave the talks would be very
badly received by the EU. But more than mere persuasion was needed. In
the end the device of getting the U N to deny on the record some of the
wilder interpretations being put on the statement did the trick. O n 14
September de Soto issued a statement which was quickly called 'the
Three Noes' and which read as follows:

Earlier today Mr Alvaro de Soto, the Secrctary-General's Special Adviser

on Cyprus, was askcd three questions by a correspondent, in connection
with the statement that the Secretary-General read to Mr Clerides and hlr
Denktash when he met them on 12 September 2000:
1,'Does the Secretary-General's statement imply recognition of the
'TRNC' ?
2. Does the Secretary-General's statement imply a step in the direction of
the recognition of the 'TRNC'?
3. Does the Secretary-General's statement imply 'derecognition' of the
Republic of Cyprus?
To each question Mr de Soto replied 'no'.

Denktash grumbled a bit and said that much of the value of Annan's
original statement had been removed, a judgement that said more about
his real agenda than about his ability as a trained lawyer to construe the
text. Clerides returned to the daily meetings with Annan, which contin-
ued until 26 September. And, although the Greek Cypriot National
Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution in October denouncing
Annan's statement, Clerides never conveyed this to the U N (although
Denktash tried to interpret it as a formal rejection). And when Annan
repeated the 12 September statement word for word as part of a much
longer one that he made to the two sides at the November session in
Geneva, Clerides did not turn a hair or utter a word of dissent.
Had this piece of brinkmanship by the U N been worthwhile? I would
say it was. It set out very clearly for the first time some points that were
of great significance to the Turks and Turkish Cypriots and which they
had every right to have clarified. For those in Ankara who needed a signal
132 CYPRUS: T H E SEARCH FOR A SOLU7fION

that their interests were not going to be overlooked or brushed aside, this
was exactly that. But for those there who refused to contemplate any
outcome that was not totally consistent with all their demands, it was also
a signal that a serious negotiation was now under way which would
require difficult decisions and compromises. O n the Greek Cypriot side,
for all the ferocity of the storm while it blew, there were no lasting nega-
tive consequences. And the Greek government had shown that it was a
good as its word in its commitment to supporting the secretary-general's
effort to get a settlement.

The UN's next step

Annan had left his interlocutors in no doubt during the latest New York
round of talks in September that he wanted the following round in Ge-
neva in November to get to grips with the core issues and that he saw a
role for himself in helping that process along. Indeed his 12 September
statement, which had been the focus of much of the activity in New York,
had clearly stated the need to move on. While the EU accession negotia-
tions with Cyprus had not yet reached a critical stage, the Greek Cypriots
and the Commission were by now ticking off the various technical prob-
lems and there was little, if any, doubt that the crucial decisions on
enlargement in general would be taken within the next two years. Indeed
Cyprus was always in the first or second place among the ten accession
countries in satisfying the EU that it met or would meet the various
demands made of it - 'closing chapters' in EU parlance. Given the past
record for procrastination by the Cypriot parties, that was no excessive
amount of time to bring the settlement negotiations to a head, rather the
contrary. A whole year had been by now devoted to clearing the approach
route. T h s same message was conveyed in New York by ministers and
officials from the US, and from the UK and other EU countries, and it
was conveyed as much to the Turks and the Greeks as to the two Cypriot
parties.
The Greek Cypriots (and the Greeks) were on the whole responsive to
this message. They wanted to move on to a serious negotiation on the
core issues, and their main preoccupation, which became an obsession
during the weeks between the New York and Geneva sessions, was
whether the U N would take a further step to handle Denktash's status
and sovereignty concerns. Denktash wanted nothing less, and spoke at
length about the inadequacy of the 12 September statement. But it was
made very clear to him that that statement was not going to be extended
 PlIOXIMl'SY, EQUAL11'Y. WALK-OU'I

or amplified, and that, if he pressed for changes in it, not only would he
not get any, but the statement itself would then be contested by the other
side and become worthless. This point seemed to have registered at least
with the Turks. In other respects their position remained totally obscure.
In what was to become an all too familiar pattern when an important
stage in the negotiations was about to be reached, Ankara was gripped by
policy paralysis. Some understood full well that if progress was ever to be
made towards a settlement, the secretary-general would have to give a
lead and explore the possibilities for compromise, and they were consid-
erably encouraged by the 12 September statement which had met a
number of points of great importance to Turkey.
But others were fearful of any initiative by Annan, convinced (cor-
rectly) that it would not embrace Denktash's completely unnegotiable
positions, and would compel them to examine compromises that would be
difficult to accept. This second school was also deeply attached to a
highly restrictive view of the UN secretary-general's scope for independ-
ent thought and action; they argued that in a Good Offices Mission, such
as this one undoubtedly was, the secretary-general had no right to ad-
vance suggestions or ideas of his own without first getting the explicit
authority and agreement of the parties to the dispute. This highly aca-
demic, and effectively rather absurd, concept, which would have given
Denktash (and Clerides for that matter) a veto over anything Annan said,
had no serious basis in law or in practice. It clearly made sense for the
secretary-general to feel his way forward carefully and try to ensure that
any ideas he floated did not arouse fundamental objections from the
parties. But giving the parties a veto on what he said would largely re-
move the point of having the secretary-general involved in the first place.
This was not how previous secretaries-general (Pe'rez de Cue'llar and
Boutros-Ghali) had handled the Cyprus problem, nor was it how they
had worked in any number of other disputes in which they had been
constructively engaged. Nor was it a view that had been expressed by the
Security Council in its handling of the Cyprus problem; rather the oppo-
site had been the case, with the Security Council urging the secretary-
general to be active and imaginative. All t h s was explained to any Turk
or Turkish Cypriot who was ready to hear, but it did not affect Denk-
tash's own attitude. So Ankara's views at this point remained largely
obscure, limited to rather general and vague concerns that the U N should
not try to push Denktash too far and that they should not make any
formal proposals.
114 C Y P R U S : T H E S E A K C H E'OK A S O L U T I O N

It was against this background that de Soto consulted Moses and me in

mid-October. O n some points we were clear. The 12 September state-
ment must be left as it was, unamended and unembellished. It had
contained all that it was necessary to say on status at this stage, and it was
the absolute maximum weight that the Greek Cypriot bridge would bear
until substantive progress was made on the core issues. We were agreed
too that the distinction between preparation and negotiation must be
bypassed. There was no disagreement also that it would be premature at
this stage for the secretary-general to come forward with formal proposals
or a complete plan or blueprint. This pointed towards some fleshing out
of de Soto's 'ideas' put forward in July, aimed at moving the talks into a
substantive negotiating phase. There were some differences of emphasis
over the degree of urgency and the degree of specificity to be aimed at.
Moses, who was only too conscious of the impending US presidential
election, the ending of President Clinton's mandate, whatever the out-
come, and of the possibility of the traditional hiatus in US foreign policy
that follows the arrival of a new incumbent in the White House, favoured
pressing ahead as far and as fast as possible in November. I was slightly
more cautious, and de Soto considerably more so. As usual we left the
tactical judgements and decisions to Annan and de Soto.
In parallel with this meeting I visited Brussels and talked things
through with both Enlargement Commissioner Verheugen and EU
Foreign Policy High Representative Solana and their teams, making sure
that they were fully in the picture about the way the U N was planning to
proceed. About the EUJCyprus accession negotiations there was not a
great deal to be said except to urge the Commission to begin thinking
actively about the implications for the terms of accession of a reunited
Cyprus if a settlement of the sort beginning to be discernible in the UN's
thinking were to come about. This Verheugen readily agreed to do. And
he also agreed to keep in check attempts by Greek Cypriot hardliners to
use the acquis communautaire to rule out certain types of solution in the
settlement talks which would certainly be needed if there was to be an
agreement. H e was by now fully aware of the rather odd anomaly that
was taking shape by which a number of specific EU matters would need
to be settled in the talks on the Cyprus problem and that therefore these
would need to be discussed in detail in advance between him and de Soto,
so as to enable him to keep the EU member states on board in due course.
The main active subject in Brussels, however, was, yet again,
EUJTurkey. The EU's commitment to Turkey at the Helsinki European
Council to enter into an Accession Partnership, which would provide a
framework and funds to prepare for Turkish membership, was coming to
fruition, with the Commission due to make formal proposals to the Coun-
cil early in November and the Council to reach agreement with Turkey
by the end of the year. The Accession Partnership document would need
to make some reference to Cyprus, since the Helsinki European Council
conclusions, on which it was based, did so. But it was essential to avoid
any formal linkage between progress on EUJTurkey and progress in the
U N settlement process and to stick to the clarification contained in the
Finnish prime minister's (as president of the EU's Council) letter to
Ecevit that all the EU was asking in respect of Cyprus was that it should
be part of an 'enhanced political dialogue' over mutual support for An-
nan's efforts.
There was a further complication: the timing of the Commission's
Accession Partnership proposals, in juxtaposition with Annan's next
session with Clerides and Denktash in Geneva. This was awkward and all
too likely in any case to arouse suspicion in Ankara that the two issues
were being deliberately linked. But neither the Commission's proposals
nor Annan's next session could be delayed without conveying precisely
that impression. So we had to live with it. What made things far worse
was that the Greek Social Affairs Commissioner, Anna Diamantopoulou,
provoked a major and extremely well-publicized row in the Commission
over the wording of the proposed Accession Partnership, trying to bounce
through an explicit linkage with Cyprus. By the time this was all sorted
out in the Council and the Accession Partnership agreed with Turkey in
early 2001 in terms precisely consistent with the Helsinki conclusions, the
damage had been done. In the view of many in Ankara there had been a
whiff of blackmail in the air and that greatly helped the rejectionists.
The session of proximity talks in Geneva from 3 1 October to 10
November was not an easy one. The after-shocks of the 12 September
statement were still being felt by the Greek Cypriots, and Clerides in
particular was in a highly nervous, febrile mood. It was well known that
when Annan arrived towards the end of the session he would have im-
portant things to say on the future of the negotiations. The day before
Annan's arrival, Moses and I were separately summoned. I had never seen
Clerides in such a state, his people clearly horrified by what he was saying
and threatening to do. He told me that if Annan went further than he had
done in September on status and sovereignty, he would leave the talks,
return to Cyprus and hold a referendum on his decision to walk out.
136 C Y P K U S : T H I S F . t \ I I C H I;OlI A SOI.UT1ON

While I was certainly not in a position to say what Annan would or would
not say the next day, I told him that I thought his fears exaggerated. I
could not believe that walking out of the talks would be well received in
EU capitals. This provoked a familiar Clerides diatribe to the effect that if
he had to choose between accepting a bad settlement and losing the
chance to join the EU he would have no hesitation in rejecting the former
and reconciling himself to the latter. Overnight I arranged for a calming
message from Robin Cook. In the event Annan's statement did not (and
had never been intended to) touch the neuralgic point. And another storm
blew over, with Clerides leaving Geneva and making it clear that he was
prepared to work within the framework put forward by Annan, even
though it contained word for word (in paragraphs 4 and 9) the 12 Sep-
tember statement that had caused so much trouble two months earlier.
Annan's identical statement to Clerides and Denktash on 8 November
was a good deal longer and contained rather more detail than de Soto's
'Preliminary Thoughts' of 12 July, but in substance it did not depart
significantly from the earlier presentation. Once again, and this was made
clear in a brief press statement by the secretary-general, what was being
put forward were not proposals, nor any formal document (it was explic-
itly stated that what Annan had said was only being handed over in
writing to ensure that they had an accurate record of his oral remarks),
that decisions would be taken by the two sides and not the UN, that he
was not seeking Clerides's and Denktash's agreement but wanted them to
reflect on what he had said and respond to de Soto, who would be visiting
the region for that purpose, and finally that he would look forward to
continuing the dialogue in January 2001. T h e text of what Annan said
was as follows:

1. I am very glad to join you and wish to thank you for accepting my in-
vitation to continue and intensify efforts to achieve a comprehensive
settlement. I was gratified that, in Ncw York, we saw the first signs of the
real engagement and I understand that this has continued hcrc in Geneva.
I rcalize, of course, that there is a long way to go.
2. Since we are now seriously engaged in the substance, I wish to make a
number of observations. Further to my statement of 1 2 September, I want
to give you my thoughts, first about procedure, and then about some sub-
stantive aspects of a possible comprehcnsive settlement, in the hope of
hcilitating negotiations. However, I wish to make clear that, as with Mr
dc Soto's 'Preliminary Thoughts' of 12 July, and the subsequent idcas we
havc offered, I am not at this stage putting forward a proposal, nor am I
 PROXIMI'l'Y, EQUALITY. WALli-OUT

covering all the ground. I do not intend to make these remarks public, but
I will leave you with notes of what I say just for your record.
3. O n procedure, the first thing I wish to do is to confirm that, as concerns
the United Nations, these negotiations are being conducted pursuant to
Security Council Resolution 1250, which sets out four guidelines:

N o preconditions;
All issues on the table;
Commitment in good faith to continue to negotiate until a settlement
is reached; and
Full consideration of relevant United Nations resolutions and treaties.

These four guidelines cannot be invoked selectively; they all apply.

4. In these negotiations, each party represents its side - and no one else -
as the political equal of the other, and nothing is agreed until everything is
agreed.

5. T h c aim is a comprehensive settlement covering all issues, encompass-

ing all legal instruments and other agreements needed to achieve and
implement it, including any agreements involving non-Cypriot actors. In
other words, it should be self-implementing. T o this end, it should pro-
vide for appropriate mechanisms for verification of compliance and
binding timetables of implementation. It should leave nothing to be nego-
tiated subsequently. The settlement should include the test of a 'basic law'
and texts on security arrangements, territorial adjustrncnts and the prop-
erty regime, as well as the initial body of 'common state' legislation.

6. The comprehensive settlement should be submitted for approval in

separate referenda so as to ensure the democratic endorsement, legitimi-
sation, and ratification of the comprehensive settlement by each
community. Unless otherwise specified in the comprehensive settlement,
subsequent changes to it could only occur by the same method.

7. Since no useful purpose would be served by myself or Mr de Soto con-

veying proposals from the parties back and forth, we are working towards
a single negotiating text as the basis for negotiations. For this process to
succeed it is essential that you provide specific comments on ideas put
forward by the UN. I would ask you to give us indications of what you
feel might not be fair or viable in the ideas we put to you, and why. This
would be more helpful to the process than substitute proposals, position
papers or suggested amendments. Without your specific comments, and
those of the other side, we cannot take them on board in revising our
 CYPRUS THIS SI<t\R(:H b 0 K A SOLU'I'ION

submissions, and your participation in shaping the negotiating text will be

hampcrcd. I ask you to engage with us fully in this way so as to enable us
to advance on all issues simultancously.

8. O n substance, as you know, we have intentionally avoided labels in

these talks so as to concentrate on the underlying issues. I would like to
give you a general outline of elements I believe should be a part of a com-
prehensive settlement. Again, I am not seeking your agreement on them at
this time. Rather, I wish to indicate what 1 believe the parties ought rea-
sonably to accept as a fair and viable compromise. I will now describe the
elements -which, I emphasize, are not an exhaustive list.

9. T h e comprchcnsivc settlement should enshrine a new partnership on

which to build a better future in peace, security and prosperity on a
united island. l'hc equal status of the partics in a united Cyprus must and
should be recognized explicitly in the comprehensive scttlcmcnt, which
will embody the results of the detailed negotiations required to translate
this concept into clear and practical provisions.

10. Cyprus should have a single international legal personality. Whatever

is eventually agreed regarding the status of the two 'componcnt states',
there should be onc sovereign, indissoluble 'common' state. I mean that
neither side could separate from the 'common state' that emerges from
these negotiations, nor try to unite all or part of the island with Greece or
Turkey. Nor should either side be able to dominate the 'common state' or
the other 'componcnt state'. There should be a single citizenship. Human
rights and fundamental freedoms should be guaranteed.

11. T h e 'common state' should have what we are calling, for now, a
'common government', with a 'basic law' prescribing powers exercised by
lcgislativc, cxccutive, and judicial branchcs. T h e 'common government'
should be able to function efficiently in the modern world. This includes
being able to take decisions in international bodies of which the 'common
state' is a member. In the operation of the 'common government', the po-
litical equality of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots should be
rcspcctcd. Political equality, whilst not requiring numerical equality, must
involve effective participation of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots in
the 'common government', and protection of their fundamental interests.

12. There should bc what we have called, for now, two 'component states'
- Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot - each with its own 'basic law'. T h e
'component states' should be largely self-governing, it being understood
that they must not contravene the 'basic law' of the 'common state'. They
would have power ovcr all matters other than the essential competencies
and functions that will be listed in the comprehensive settlement as being
the responsibility of the 'common state'. Neither 'conlponent state' would
be able to interfere in the governance of the other. It might be possible for
the 'component states' to confer additional internal citizenship rights on
persons who possess Cypriot citizenship.

13. I take it that a comprehensive settlement would commit Cyprus to EU

membership. At the same time, I would hope that the EU would be pre-
pared to address special and legitimate concerns in regard to accession. In
this context, it is clearly important that the provisions of the comprehcn-
sive settlement should not represent an obstacle to such membership nor
need to be renegotiated when the terms of accession are established.

14. Concerning property, we must recognize that there are considerations

of international law to which we must give weight. 'The solution must
withstand legal challenge. T h e legal rights which people have to their
property must be respected. At the same time, I believe that a solution
should carefully regulate the exercise of these rights so as to safeguard the
character of the 'component states'. Mceting these principles will require
an appropriate combination of reinstatement, exchange and compensation.
For a period of time to be established by agreement, there may be limits
on the number of Greek Cypriots establishing rcsidcnce in the north and
Turkish Cypriots establishing residence in the south. It is worth men-
tioning in this context that the criteria, form and nature of regulation of
property rights will also have a bearing on the extent of territorial adjust-
ment. and vice-versa.

15. 1 find it hard to imagine a comprehensive settlement without a rcturn

to Creek Cypriot administration of an appreciable amount of territory. In
my view, in negotiating the adjustment, a balance must be struck between
a maximum rcturn of Greek Cypriots to areas being returned to Greek
Cypriot administration, and a minimum of dislocation of Turkish Cypri-
ots. T h e focus should be on the number of persons affected more than the
amount of territory involved. Clearly, the moment is approaching where
discussions should proceed on the basis of detailed geographic data.

16. I am confident that arrangements can be made which effectively ad-

dress the security concerns of each side. It is clear that one side's security
must not be assurcd at the expense of the security of the other, and I think
that both parties would be willing to come to an arrangement acceptable
to all. Such an arrangement should include the continuation of the secu-
rity regime established in 1960, as supplemented to reflect the
 CYPRUS THE SEARCH E O K I\ SOLUTION

comprehensive settlement; the dissolution of Greek Cypriot and Turkish

Cypriot forces; a prohibition legally binding on both exporters and im-
porters of arms supplies; agreed equal levels of Greek and Turkish troops;
a United Nations mandated force and police unit that function throughout
the island; and a political mechanism which can assist in resolving security
issues.

17. I am making these observations on the main issues before us after

nearly a year of listening and testing ideas. My purpose is to make a fur-
ther step in the direction of developing an overall picture of a
comprehensive approach to a settlement. Please reflect on what I have
said. I hope you will use my observations as the course to follow in the
talks ahead.

18. I think it is necessary to schedule further talks early in 2001. Accord-

ingly, I invite you to continue the proximity talks in Gcneva from late
January 2001. In the meantime, I am asking Mr de Soto to travel to the
region and the island late this month or early next month.

19. In the time between now and the next session, I would also ask you to
reflect on one final point. A strong impression that I have formed during
the proximity talks is this: it is not only the sad events of the past that are
the tragedy of modern Cyprus; it is also the absence of a solution. The ab-
sence of a solution prevents all Cypriots from sharing fully - and equally -
in the fruits of prosperity, security and progress. A united and independ-
ent Cyprus, in which Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots are equal and
protected and free, as citizens of Europe, is the promise of the future. I
hope that you will seize what is perhaps the best chance yet for a Cyprus
settlement, in order to bcqueath that promise to succeeding generations.

20. In closing, let me say again that I do not intend to make these remarks
public, and I trust that you will also keep them to yourselves.

O f the very few new elements which were introduced since July, two
are worth mentioning. T h e first was a purely procedural suggestion
(paragraph 7) that from now on the negotiations should be based on a
single negotiating text to which each side should react by agreeing, dis-
agreeing or amending, and that this process should replace the practice of
each side tabling extensive drafts of their own approach to core issues.
This seemingly harmless surfacing of a diplomatic technique used in
countless international negotiations caused massive offence on the Turk-
ish side, who described it as a UN diktat (which it was not) and who
clearly saw it as a way for the UN to play a more central role in the
negotiations (which it certainly was). In any case, if they did not like it, all
they had to do was to say politely to de Soto when he visited the region
that they were not yet ready to move to that stage, in which case the idea
would have been set aside for the time being. With the benefit of hind-
sight it would have been better not to have included this novel thought in
Annan's presentation in Geneva but to have explored it informally in de
Soto's subsequent contacts. It was yet another example, which one ig-
nored at one's risk, of the extent to which Denktash and his close advisers,
and the Turkish officials who specialized in Cypriot affairs, were cut off
from the development of international negotiating practices and tech-
niques and also of how ready they were to interpret any innovation as a
secret weapon being deployed against them. The second novel thought in
Annan's presentation was a brief passage on EU accession (paragraph 13)
where he suggested for the first time that any provisions in a settlement
should not represent an obstacle to EU membership nor require to be
renegotiated when the reunited Cyprus's terms of accession were estab-
lished. This idea provoked less outrage than the other (and none at all
from the EU itself, to which it was directed). But it is interesting to note
that the Turks managed to construe this paragraph as meaning that the
EU had a veto over the terms of a Cyprus settlement when in fact the
meaning and thrust of the paragraph was exactly the opposite: that the
Greek Cypriots should not expect to be able to unpick any settlement
later in the European Court of Justice.
Annan's presentation was given, deliberately, on the last day of the
November session in Geneva, with the object of avoiding knee-jerk reac-
tions from either side. This was in fact achieved. Clerides was relieved at
the absence of any new material on status or sovereignty and let it be
known soon afterwards that he would be content to move forward on the
basis proposed. Denktash's reaction was typically curmudgeonly, but,
since that characterized the whole range of his negotiating technique, it
was never easy to be sure whether there was any significance in it or not.
But de Soto was sufficiently worried to have canvassed with the US and
the UK the possibility of immediately sending a written report to the
Security Council containing Annan's statement and thus putting Denk-
tash and the Turks on the spot. We both counselled against this, not
because there was the slightest doubt that the Security Council would
back Annan, but because past experience had shown that lining up the
Security Counci1,againstDenktash did not work and that a written report
of the kind envisaged tended to be interpreted - as it had been in the case
 CYPKUS T H E S E I \ R C H I:011 A SOLUTION

of the Set of Ideas in 1992 - as marking a definitive breakdown in the

efforts to achieve a settlement. Denktash did, however, ominously as it
turned out, say that he could not accept the invitation to a further round
of proximity talks in January 2001 without having first consulted the
Turkish government.

Denktash walks out

It took some time for those outside the Turkish governmental machine to
understand just how fundamentally Denktash and the accompanying
Turkish delegation to the Geneva talks had misunderstood (the charitable
interpretation) or misrepresented (probably closer to the truth) Annan's 8
November statement. One consequence of the statement having been
issued on the last day of the talks was that there was no opportunity for
the two sides to go over the ground with the UN and at least reduce some
of their concerns. But gradually, as the UN and others of us closely
concerned came to be exposed to Turkish versions of what they believed
had been put forward, we realized just how wide of the mark their analy-
sis was. For one tling the rather large number of points that were helpful
from their point of view - the reiteration of the 12 September statement,
the firm endorsement of the 1960 Treaties of Guarantee and Alliance, the
need for any settlement to be endorsed by referendums on both sides, the
avoidance of domination of the 'common state' by either side, the flat
statement that the 'component' states, which would each have its own
constitution, would have power over all matters other than those explic-
itly granted to the 'common' state - were simply ignored or taken for
granted. The dilution of the Treaties of Guarantee and Alliance was
asserted, although there was no evidence for it, the provisions on property
were alleged to ensure an absolute right of return for all Greek Cypriot
refugees, although that was not what was provided for, and the territorial
adjustment, although no details of the scale envisaged had been provided
by the UN, was exaggerated.
This was the background against which Denktash went to Ankara late
in November to discuss the next steps with the Turkish government.
Following a meeting, which included the president, the prime minister,
the coalition party leaders and the chief of the general staff, Denktash
emerged and described the proximity talks as 'a waste of time as long as
our parameters are not accepted. They are being run on the basis that the
Greek Cypriots are the sole legitimate government on the island.' H e said
he would not attend further UN proximity talks unless the existence of
the 'I'KNC w'is recognized. 'The truth is the co-existence of two states,
two peoples, two sovereignties and two democracie~.. . . There is no point
in attending talks until the existence of our state is accepted.' IIe did say,
however, that he would reconsider his position if 'a new basis' for the
talks was created. Later the same day, as if to slam firmly shut even the
tiny crack that Turkish foreign ministry officials were trying to hold
open, Ecevit said publicly that he supported Denktash's decision (sic) not
to attend the meetings. In this way a whole string of Turkish Cypriot and
Turkish preconditions to negotiations were reinstated in contradiction to
Resolution 1250. Annan, who had been given no advance warning of what
was in the offing, was told he had been wasting his time, and all pressure
to show flexibility was lifted from the Greek Cypriots.
Why did the Turks opt for quite such a kamikaze approach to their
Cyprus diplomacy? Without a detailed knowledge of the inner workings
of the Turkish establishment and bureaucracy it is not possible to say
with any certainty. Neither Denktash nor Ecevit had ever really been
committed to a negotiation in good faith for a settlement that would
necessarily involve some elements of compromise over their publicly
stated positions; they had been pushed into it by international pressure,
particularly from the US and the EU. They could now see that the nego-
tiating train was beginning to move down a track towards a destination at
which they did not wish to arrive - and here the misrepresentation of
what Annan said may have played an important role. They could also see
that the UN's role was becoming more prominent and that their capacity
to filibuster endlessly was going to be limited. They may well have exag-
gerated the likely effect of taking off their shoe and beating the rostrum.
One thing was clear: once Denktash and Ecevit had spoken publicly as
they did, there was no diplomatic wiggle room left, at least in the short
term. The process was blocked and a way would have to be found in
Ankara to unblock it.
 9

200 1: Trench Warfare

ne of the eventualities to which little thought had been given by

the U N and its supporters, the US and the UK and the other
main European Union countries, was that Denktash, with full
Turkish support, would simply walk out of the negotiations and refuse to
return. We had bargained for an endless filibuster or even for some dra-
matic breaks but not for an attempt to destroy the whole basis on which
the negotiations had begun a year earlier. This approach had seemed
rather unlikely, if only because the main victims in terms of diplomatic
damage were the Turkish Cypriots and the 'Turks themselves. And yet
this was the situation we now faced. This became quite clear after a visit
to Cyprus, 'l'urkey and Greece, which I made in early January 2001.
While Denktash attempted to equate his action with that of Clerides
when he had absented himself from the talks in New York in September
2000, there was in fact no similarity at all. Clerides had resumed his
participation after a very short (three-day) break and basically on the
terms laid down by the UN, with a little bit of diplomatic finessing with
the 'Three Noes', and he had subsequently ceased to contest the matter
that had caused the problem in the first place. Denktash was thoroughly
enjoying the breakup he had precipitated, went daily to the press with his
aggressive rhetoric about the proximity talks having been a waste of time,
and had publicly set terms (the usual status/sovereignty mantra) for his
return which he knew to be unnegotiable. He showed no inclination
whatsoever to discuss constructively ways of resuming the settlement
process, nor was he to do so at any time during 2001 up until his own
decision in November to take the initiative. t l e thus ruled himself out as a
participant in any procedure designed to pick up the pieces.

Working with Turkey

When de Soto sat down with Moses and myself in New York on 18-19
January we had no difficulty in agreeing on the way ahead, even if we had
 TRENCH WARFARE 145

no illusions that it would be easy or quick. There was no inclination to

take no for an answer. The arguments for pressing on, in particular the
approach of the conclusion of the EU enlargement negotiations, remained
convincing. Nor was there any inclination to discuss Denktash's precon-
ditions. They had been set out so starkly and in such maximalist terms as
to rule out any possibility that the Greek Cypriots would respond posi-
tively; and, since they had just given some ground on status issues by
effectively swallowing Annan's 12 September statement, there was no
convincing reason why they should be asked to do more at this stage. We
were also agreed that Annan's statement of 8 November must not be
allowed to wither on the bough or to become the sacrificial price for
getting Denktash back to the table. Not only were the Turks scandalously
misrepresenting it, but, in the view of all of us, it represented the only
viable approach to a negotiated solution that stood any chance of being
agreed. So, if one sacrificed it or allowed large chunks of it to be lopped
off, one might end up with a resumed process, but a process without
negotiable content.
Since we were aiming to get the Turks and Denktash back to the
negotiating table without making any concessions of substance, we agreed
to a division of labour. De Soto would lead on all matters relating to
Annan's 8 November statement. H e would try to demystify it, and ex-
plain why it contained much material of use to the Turks and Turkish
Cypriots which could be developed through negotiation into a settlement
that would respect both their vital interests. H e would avoid any accusa-
tion of outright misrepresentation and would not move aggressively into
the task of getting Denktash back to the table, thus hopefully avoiding
damaging his impartiality should the US and the UK succeed in bringing
that about. The US and the UK would meanwhile use all means possible
to bring home to the Turks that Denktash's walk-out was damaging them
to an increasing extent as time passed. I had begun this effort when I
visited Ankara in early January and sustained it when I returned there in
May. The US was uncomfortably placed since we were in the last day of
Clinton's presidency, and Moses, who was a political appointee, was
unlikely to continue. No commitments could therefore be entered into
with regard to the incoming Bush administration's policy. But Weston,
who was to take over the lead in Washington when the decision was taken
(not on Cyprus grounds, but out of a general desire to cut back the num-
ber of special representatives) not to replace Moses, made it clear that
contacts with the transition team indicated the likelihood of US policy on
Cyprus being unchanged.
This was a crucial dimension since not only was the US by far and
away the most influential player in Ankara, but the Turks, like many
others, had nurtured all sorts of illusions that the new Republican admini-
stration would be more friendly to them, in general and on Cyprus issues
in particular, than the outgoing Democrat administration had been. Until
that illusion had been dissipated we would get no change of policy in
Ankara. Weston was in fact as good as his word: US policy on this issue
did not change by an iota; and the new administration's firm view that
Denktash needed to return to the table without preconditions was made
known by the incoming secretary of state, Colin Powell, when Turkish
foreign minister Cem visited Washington in March. In addition to these
efforts we agreed that other EU governments should be encouraged to
bring home the same messages to the Turkish government and to under-
line, without making any direct linkage, that Turkey's present Cyprus
policy would inevitably over time conflict with their aspirations to join
the EU. This was indeed done with some effect, all the more so since the
European Union's willingness during this period to move ahead with the
Accession Partnership with Turkey, without making any unacceptable
linkage with the Cyprus problem, demonstrated that Turkish fears in the
autumn of 2000 had been exaggerated.
In truth it was not difficult to marshal the arguments in Ankara that
showed that the walk-out was damaging Turkey's interests. For one thing
it was propelling into the European Union a divided Cyprus. It was
inconceivable that if the 'relevant factors' referred to in the Ilelsinki
European Council conclusions included a Denktash who refused to
negotiate further, the EU would punish the Greek Cypriots and refuse to
admit a divided island. Moreover a prolonged vacuum in the negotiating
process would inevitably lead to further Greek Cypriot pressure to pur-
chase sophisticated weapons, with tiresome implications for Turkey's
security interests in the region. Turkey's long-term European aspirations
were simply not consistent with a Cyprus policy of refusing to negotiate
except on Denktash's terms, nor indeed was the further development of a
Greek-Turkish rapprochement on which Papandreou and Cem had
lavished so much effort. And should the business world conclude that
Turkey's EU aspirations were unlikely to get anywhere and that there
would be more tension in future in the Eastern Mediterranean, this would
over time have damaging implications for Turkey's already fragile econ-
 TRENCH WARFARE 147

omy and for inward investment. Nor was there a lack of positive points to
make. A Cyprus settlement would facilitate Turkey's EU application,
would mean fewer Turkish troops tied down and less Turkish money
spent, and would mean a Turkish Cypriot presence in EU decision tak-
ing. All these, and more, were points made to Cem and his officials when
I visited Ankara in the first half of 2001. The Americans were making the
same points.
The Turkish response was less discouraging than we had feared. For
one thing they rapidly stopped their misrepresentations of Annan's 8
November statement, realizing that many of the allegations about it
simply did not fit what was said in the statement. Rather more positively
they did not contest the long list of negative consequences for Turkey
that were only too likely to flow from a prolonged hiatus in the negotiat-
ing process. And they understood, even if they did not like, the analysis
that if Denktash was offered substantive concessions to return to the
negotiating table, then no doubt there would be further walk-outs in the
future designed to achieve the same ends. I was struck during my first
visit to Ankara by the clear recognition by Mumtaz Soysal, Denktash's
hardline Turkish constitutional adviser, that the walk-out had been a
tactical error. But, if logic got them so far, it did not immediately bring
about a change of policy. Denktash himself was not helping them in that
respect; he and they were all too aware that most of the negative conse-
quences impacted on Turkey and not on Turkish Cyprus. If, like
Denktash, you did not want Turkey to join the EU in the first place there
was no great discomfort. Nor were these arguments getting through
directly to two critical constituencies, the prime minister, Ecevit, and the
Turkish general staff with whom, by this time, no direct contact with
outsiders was permitted. So while we could feel that we were winning the
argument, there was as yet no evidence that this was getting us anywhere.
Meanwhile, in the short term at least, there was not much to be done
with the Greek Cypriots and Greeks, who were tactically sitting in clover.
Cyprus's EU accession negotiations were making rapid progress, unim-
peded by any doubts over their eventual accession. Indeed, thanks to
Turkish policy, the view became more and more prevalent in the Euro-
pean Union during 2001 that accession by a divided island was virtually a
foregone conclusion; and by the autumn it was proving quite difficult to
persuade the Commission and some of the more nervous EU member
states that it was not yet time to begin drafting the consequential legal
provisions based on that assumption. As always a prolonged period of
148 CYI'KUS T H E SbAKCH FOR I\ SO1,U'I'ION

contacts by the main players with the Turks led to periodic outbreaks of
nervousness among the Greek Cypriots that they would be expected to
pay the price for getting Denktash back into the negotiations. And assur-
ances to the contrary, however firm and clear, never quite dissipated these
endemic fears.

A USITurkish scenario
From the late spring of 2001 onwards the US became locked into a proc-
ess with the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs aimed at defining in
precise terms the way in which Denktash should be brought back into the
negotiations. This was no simple task, particularly since the Turks on this
occasion, unprecedentedly, decided to proceed without consulting Denk-
tash and in strict confidentiality. Given the opacity of the decision-
making process in Ankara, it was never very easy to be sure who knew
about what and who was on board, as the approach took precise shape.
But assurances were given that Ecevit had given his blessing to what was
being done and agreed that the negotiations needed to be resumed. Nei-
ther the U N nor the UK played a direct role in the elaboration or
negotiation of the scenario but each was kept informed at every stage by
Weston, the US Special Coordinator.
T h e main elements of the scenario as finally agreed in June were as
follows:

(i) The UN would contact Denktash and invite him to meet Annan in
New York in late July to discuss the way forward with the UN Good Of-
fices Mission (and thereby give Denktash a fig leaf for the resumption of
the talks).

(ii) After the AnnanIDenktash meeting de Soto would go to the island to

give new impetus to the U N process through discussions on substance.

(iii) It would be agreed in advance of (i) and (ii) that all this would lead to
substantive talks without preconditions on all issues with the secretary-
general in September 2001 at the latest.

(iv) The U N would not make the 8 November statement a specific point
of reference in future talks or in public statements so long as Denktash did
the same. Any assertion that the 8 November statement was 'off the table'
or had been repudiated by the UN would be unacceptable. In subsequent
talks the UN would continue discussion with the parties on the specific
issues that must be agreed as part of a comprehensive settlement. The
parties would also be able to relate their views on the status question.
 (v) It was understood that this scenario for restarting the UN process
would not reopen the question of whcthcr the ground had been prepared.
The secretary-general's 12 September statcmcnt on equal status and
equality alrcady did that. Reopening this issue would only call into ques-
tion the continued solidity of the 12 September statement.

(vi) The UN would start the process at (i) once Turkey could assure them
that Denktash had agreed to this scenario for moving ahead.

This extremely satisfactory agreement, which safeguarded all the points

to which the U N , the US and the UK had attached importance when
they had worked out their tactics in January, was confirmed by the Turks
to the US as being acceptable to them. They undertook to put it to
Denktash (which was understood to be a polite way of saying that they
would put the whole Turkish government's weight behind it and get
Denktash to agree to it). In due course they gave the Americans the green
lighr, who passed that on to the U N , it being understood by all concerned
(Turkey, US, U N ) that the sequence was a single whole to which all were
committed in its entirety from the outset, not an 'a la carte menu. But it
was also understood by all concerned that no reference must be made, in
particular publicly or to Denktash, to the existence of a scenario of this
sort; it must simply be played out.

Preparation for resumption of the negotiations

T h e U N had not been idle during this long hiatus in the negotiations,
during which they had been unable to play an active diplomatic role.
Rather they had put in hand detailed work on the main elements of a
comprehensive settlement so that they would be well prepared to move
the negotiations on to issues of substance whenever a resumption was
agreed. On territorial issues they had begun the detailed cartographical
analysis required to achieve a substantial return of territory to the Greek
Cypriots, which would at the same time accommodate the maximum
possible return of Greek Cypriot refugees, while displacing the minimum
possible number of Turkish Cypriots. I t was already clear to them that
they could improve on the 1992 Boutros-Ghali map in both respects.
They also identified quite a large number of different territorial options
that would provide some degree of flexibility if and when negotiations got
under way, although in no case did they stray very far away from the
basic Boutros-Ghali proportions (which had been endorsed in 1992 by the
Security Council) of a Turkish Cypriot zone of 28-plus per cent and a
1SO CYPRUS T H E SISARCH FOR I\ SO1,UTION

Greek Cypriot zone of 72-minus per cent. They also began to relate each
option to the scale of limited settlement (including returns) by Greek
Cypriots in the Turkish Cypriot component state as it would emerge
from any settlement.
O n governance they began looking for ways of avoiding Denktash's
requirement for a veto on every decision, whether substantive or proce-
dural, but at the same time of ensuring that the Turkish Cypriots could
not just be brushed aside, as they had in effect been in 1963. This led
them towards arrangements for a collective decision-making executive
body with a rotating, but effectively powerless, presidency, rather close to
the Swiss model. For essential tie-breaking purposes they were looking
towards a major role for the Supreme Court, on which some non-Cypriot
judges would supplement the equal numbers of Greek and Turkish
Cypriots.
As to the division of responsibilities between the common and compo-
nent states, they worked on a very restricted list of powers for the
common state, with many of those central responsibilities actually being
exercised in Brussels once the new Cyprus joined the European Union,
and thus on a very extensive list of responsibilities for the component
states, who would also have residual responsibility for any matters not
allocated to the common state.
For security issues they envisaged the continuation of the 1960 Trea-
ties of Guarantee and Alliance, not only not diluted in any way but
actually extended in that they would now specifically include the guar-
anteeing of the territorial limits and constitutional order of the component
states (which had not existed in 1960). They foresaw the maintenance on
the island of a substantial, but much reduced, number of Turkish and
Greek troops (numbers not yet identified and, ideally, to be agreed mutu-
ally in advance by Turkey and Greece), demobilization of all Greek
Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot armed forces, a legally enforceable arms
embargo, and a UN-mandated military presence, on which some consul-
tation with the US and the UK had already taken place.
They had also done a great deal of detailed work on the methods for
achieving property compensation (the greater part of any property set-
tlement) and restitution (the smaller, strictly limited and quite
considerably delayed part of any property settlement). All this work,
which was built on the foundations of Annan's 8 November statement,
was to come to good use in due course.
 TRENCH WARFARE 151

In addition a good deal of thought had been given to the issues of

continuity, status and sovereignty, which were obviously going to be
among the most sensitive to be settled as part of any comprehensive
agreement. I had been pressing the U N since the July 2000 session of
proximity talks in Geneva to open up the issue of continuity with the two
sides. I suggested that there could be more common ground on this than
met the eye and that it could lead on to a less confrontational approach to
status issues. The fact was that the Greek Cypriots, while they rejected
any recognition of the T R N C as such, fully realized that there would
need to be some degree of legitimization of all the decisions and legal acts
taken by the Turkish Cypriots between 1963 and the date of the entry
into force of any settlement. The Turkish Cypriots needed that legitimi-
zation, which they could not hope to gain outside a settlement. Moreover,
while the Greek Cypriots would never contemplate any suggestion that
the new Cyprus should be a successor state of the 1960 Republic, they
were prepared to see the 1960 constitution abrogated and replaced by a
new one and for the new state of affairs to be unrecognizable from the
old. They too had an important stake in continuity. At first the U N had
been reluctant to raise the issue of continuity as being too sensitive, but
they gradually warmed to the idea. They had not, however, got anywhere
with it by the time the talks were broken off in November. Now, in the
hiatus that followed, they developed the concept that came to be known
as the 'virgin birth' of the new Cyprus, by which a politically new, but
legally not new, Cyprus, with elements of continuity with what had
passed on both sides of the island since 1963, would come into being the
day after approval by the referendums on the two sides, which would in
any case be needed to approve any comprehensive agreement.
There remained the vexed question of sovereignty, to which Denktash
and the Turks attached fundamental importance, but which they wanted
to resolve in a number of different ways. None of these ways had any
chance of being accepted by the Greek Cypriots, who had made it very
clear that any solution that explicitly located sovereignty with the com-
ponent states - for example a phrase like the common state's sovereignty
'emanating from the component states' - would not be acceptable. The
Greek Cypriots in their turn wanted sovereignty to be the sole perquisite
of the common state with no reference at all to the component states
having any attributes of sovereignty. The obvious solution was simply to
avoid any reference to sovereignty at all, but this was easier said than
done in technical and legal terms and was anyway said to be unacceptable
1C2 CYPRUb 1H E S E A R C H I ' O K \i bOLU SION

to either side. It was agreed that this was too sensitive an issue to be
allowed at an early stage of drafting to drift to one or other side of the
argument, since whichever side got their way would never later concede
the point and whichever did not might well break up the negotiations
over it. It would thus have to be held back to a late stage. I suggested to de
Soto that part of a solution might lie in calling the 'component' states
'constituent' states - a precedent for which existed in the not very happy
example of the Yugoslav federal constitution - or in allowing some refer-
ence to the existence of two 'peoples' rather than 'communities', an idea
which the Greek Cypriots greatly disliked because of its connotations of
self-determination but which might just possibly prove acceptable in a
document that banned any possibility of secession, thus making impossi-
ble any act of self-determination other than through an irreversible
affirmative vote in the referendum endorsing the settlement. H e tucl<ed
those two ideas away for future reference.
O n the basis of all this work, much of which had been carried out in
close consultation with the US and the UK, de Soto felt able in July -
when it was expected that the negotiating process would resume in Sep-
tember - to share the first draft of an overall view of the various elements
that would make up a comprehensive settlement. H e clearly hoped to be
able to begin familiarizing the parties with it once negotiations resumed,
as we all assumed they would. T h e US and the UK both said they were
comfortable with it. T h e document read as follows:

1. The comprehensive settlement would comprise a short document to

which would be m ~ c h e dannexes with the detailed specific legal instru-
ments covering all mattcrs that have to be resolved.

2. The short document, which might be entitled 'JOINT

DECLARATION OF AGREEMENT O N A COMPKEIIENSIVE
SETTLEMENT OF T H E CYPRUS PROBLEM', could be signed by
the two leaders, the three guarantors, and the SGISASG as witness. Its
language would, inter alia,
signify the leaders' and guarantors' agreement to the cornprchensive
settlement contained in the document and the annexes thereto;
outline the general framework of the agrcemcnt and the basic princi-
plcs on which it is bascd [this would include language on the range of
core issues, on virgin birth, on indissolubility, on non-domination,
etc];
 T R E N C H WARI;)\RIS

state that the new partnership contained in the comprehensive settle-

ment supersedes that reached in 1960 (in particular, the 1960
constitution), without prejudice to the continuation of the 1960 trea-
ties, which it would be clearly stated remain in force [as
supplemented by the protocol on security arrangements];
state that the comprehensive settlement would come into force and be
binding only once approved in separate referenda by Greek Cypriots
and Turkish Cypriots, conducted in a manner to be outlined in one of
the annexes;
state that, once it came into effect, the comprehensive settlement
would be binding on all parties to the agreement and having the force
of the law operating in the 'common state' and the 'component states';
state that, should the comprehensive settlement fail to gain the ap-
proval of either side by referendum, it would remain null and void
and of no legal affect; and
list the annexes to the joint declaration of agreement.

3 . The annexes to the joint declaration of agreement on a comprehensive

settlement could contain thc following legal instruments/texts:

I. Protocol 011 security arrangements.

11. 'Basic law' of the 'common state'.
Appendix to Annex 11: Property of the 'common state'.
111. Delineation of territory of the 'component states'.
IV. Treatment of property affected by events since 1960.
V. Dispositions relating to E U accession.
VI. List of international treaties to remain in force for the 'common
state' of Cyprus.
VII. 'Common state' legislation to be in force upon entry into force of
a comprehensive settlcment.
VIII. 'Basic laws' of the 'component states'.
IX. Conduct of referenda to approve the comprehensive settlement
(including EU accession).
X. Implementation arrangements.
XI. Establishment of historical clarification commission.

4. It would be ideal to achieve a watershed of broad agreement covering

the issues in annexes I-IV by the end of the first half of 2002 so as to
make possible full participation of the Turkish Cypriot side in the ncgo-
tiations over Cyprus's EU membership as early as possible. Whether this
watershed is achievable, and how it might be informally marked, will de-
pend upon developments.
154 CYPRUS 'I'HE S I < I \ R C H 1;OR A S O L U I ' I O N

It was in fact the first outline of the structure of the proposals that Annan
was to put to the parties in Novemt~er2002.

Failure and success

When the time arrived for the USITurkey scenario to be played out, the
auguries were not entirely promising. Increasingly extensive leaks about
some kind of US understanding with Turkey began to appear in the
press, provoking understandable restiveness in Denktash and also among
the Greek Cypriots. Since the nature of the understanding could not be
commented on and its very existence had to be denied, this left free rein
to the press on both sides of the island and in Ankara, which was not
renowned for the accuracy and restraint of its reporting. Nevertheless the
first stages went ahead as planned. The Turks gave the US the grcen
light, having allegedly squared Denktash, and the Americans asked the
U N to act. The meeting between Annan and Denktash took place in
Zurich during August, and not in New York, purely for reasons of con-
venience. In addition de Soto and I were able to persuade Verheugen to
interrupt his holiday and also to see Denktash (in Salzburg) with a view to
assuring him that the European Union would not allow the rigidities of
the acquis cornmunaotair to cut across or to undermine provisions in a
Cyprus settlement.
Neither mceting was particularly promising. Denktash certainly did
not give the impression that he was someone on his way back to the
negotiating table but he did not say he was not. Thereafter de Soto began
planning his follow-up contacts, and Annan issued invitations to Clerides
and Ilenktash to resume negotiations in New York on 12 September. At
this point Denktash, having apparently squared Ecevit, declined the
invitation. N o explanation was ever given by the Turks, who simply went
into an elaborate state of denial about the very existence of a scenario and
their own role in making it work. Of only one thing can one be certain
and that is that the talks would not have happened in New York on 12
September as planned, even if Denktash had accepted, because the A1
Qa'eda attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon took place
the day before and travel into and out of New York was interrupted for
several days as was the conduct of any U N business other than that
relating to the attacks. Those who had put so much effort into restarting
the negotiations were now left, like Sisyphus in the fable, watching the
stone rolling back down to the bottom of the hill yet again.
 TRENCH WAKFAKIC 155

In the event, although this was in no way evident at the time, the
situation was less hopeless than it seemed. It appears likely that Denk-
tash's rejection of Annan's invitation was more a tactical manoeuvre
designed to remind those in Ankara who believed they could negotiate
about Cyprus behind his back that he could always outfox them and to
reassert his own primacy in the determination of Turkey's Cyprus policy.
There were some indications also that the Turkish general staff were
surprised and dismayed that the negotiations had not been resumed, as
planned, having concluded that the degree of isolation arising from
Denktash's refusal to negotiate was harmful to Turkey's interests. Be that
as it may, early in November Denktash wrote, completely out of the blue,
to Clerides proposing that the two of them should start face-to-face nego-
tiations on the island without any preconditions. This fairly astonishing
volte-face in fact went further than the USITurkish scenario, which had
envisaged nothing more ambitious than a resumption of the proximity
talks broken off in November 2000, and it quite simply jettisoned a series
of Denktash preconditions that had been said many times to be unnego-
tiable.
Denktash's letter reached Clerides in New York where he had gone
for the resumed session of the United Nations General Assembly, post-
poned after the attacks on the World Trade Center. I saw Clerides in his
suite at the Waldorf Astoria as he was considering his response and he
showed me the draft reply that had been submitted to him. This, while
stopping short of rejection, was full of legalistic quibbles, only too likely
to set off a lengthy and possibly fruitless exchange of correspondence. I
said I thought something shorter, more political and more positive was
called for. The only really tricky point was the involvement of the U N in
the proposed negotiations, which Denktash had passed over in silence but
which needed to be secured. Assuming that Clerides was prepared to
contemplate negotiations in Cyprus and not, as before, in Geneva or New
York, which he said he was, there was everything to be said for conclud-
ing these preliminaries rapidly and positively. Clerides said he agreed
with all that, and was as good as his word, replying very positively. The
U N point, although it caused a bit of haggling, with much warning by
Denktash that de Soto should not get above his station and must remain 'a
fly on the wall' simply taking the note, was also settled satisfactorily, with
U N participation in all meetings being agreed and the negotiations to take
place on UN ground, in the buffer zone at the former Nicosia interna-
tional airport.
 T h e switch of the negotiations to Cyprus was an interesting example
of how quite trivial procedural points can come to assume an exaggerated
importance and then, quite suddenly, disappear. It had been an article of
faith for several years -with the UN, with those who supported its efforts
and with the Greek Cypriots - that any negotiations must take place off
the island. The considerations were that the ubiquity of the Cyprus press
and the proxinlity of the politicians on both sides, together with unhappy
experiences with previous rounds of negotiation on the island, meant that
this option, which Denktash favoured as a matter of personal conven-
ience, must be resisted at all costs. In the event none of these
considerations proved to be very solid. The Cyprus press was ubiquitous
whether one was in Geneva or Nicosia; the involvement of politicians was
inevitable and necessary; the arguments for allowing two, by now rather
elderly, gentlemen to meet and negotiate close to where they lived and
without extensive air travel were compelling. In the end no one regretted
the decision.
Following the completion of the exchanges of correspondence between
the two leaders and the UN, which set January 2002 for the opening of
the face-to-face negotiations, and following Clerides's return to the island,
there was a further and quite unexpected burst of bonhomie and opti-
mism. Clerides invited Denktash to dine with him at his home in the
south of Nicosia, and Denktash then reciprocated in the north. The two
leaders thus broke any number of taboos of protocol and status, on which
massive quantities of ink had been spilled over the previous three decades
and more. Both spoke in a generally upbeat way to the press, Denktash
going so far (unwisely as it turned out) as to predict the conclusion of a
settlement by June - but there was also a distant roll of thunder in what
he said about his need to have heart surgery in the second half of the year.
Meanwhile the U N set in hand a crash progranlme (with generous assis-
tance from the US government) to refurbish some of its pretty dilapidated
property at Nicosia Airport so that an adequate conference centre, with
air conditioning, could bc available for the talks. It all sounded too good to
be true, and of course it was; but it was certainly an improvement on
everything that had passed hitherto.
 2002: Countdown to Copenhagen

T
he face-to-face talks duly began in Cyprus in mid-January and
proceeded intensively until the end of September with a break in
August. There were two and sometimes three meetings a week,
although they became more desultory as the deadlock intensified. In
addition to these meetings of the leaders accompanied by their negotiating
teams, de Soto pushed hard and with some success for informal meetings
attended only by himself, Clerides and Denktash, with no advisers pres-
ent. I le also arranged a number of seminar-type meetings in which he and
his U N team went over particularly tricky or complex issues, such as the
'virgin birth' of the new Cyprus or the property issue, with each of the
Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot negotiating teams. From the very
start Denktash reminded de Soto constantly that he was there only as a
'fly on the wall' - a description used by de Soto in the pre-Christmas
bargaining over the format of the talks but which he came to regret.
Denktash would not allow the U N to try to capture on paper any emerg-
ing areas of common ground, particularly at their informal t&e-'a-t&e
meetings, but of course he could not stop the U N gradually building up a
more detailed and comprehensive picture of the positions of the two sides
and identifying where there was potential overlap between them.
The talks took place in a hastily refurbished line of Nissen huts on the
former civil airport at Nicosia. A large, air-conditioned conference room
and a suite of offices for the U N team was constructed out of this some-
what unpromising material. Nicosia Airport had been left stranded, like a
beached whale, in the UN-controlled buffer zone between the two cease-
fire lines when the fighting stopped in 1974. Since then it had remained in
a kind of time warp. On the runway stood the rusting carcases of several
civilian aeroplanes that had suffered collateral damage in the fighting. The
control tower was vandalized and pock-marked with bullet holes. Most of
the land within the old airport perimeter had reverted to scruffy scrub,
some of which had been cleared to make a golf course, and which har-
158 C Y P R U S : 'TliK Slil\l(CH 1'011 t
\ SOLUTION

boured rather more bird life than was usual in Cyprus. A few houses,
used as quarters by the UN, were dotted around, including the large ugly
villa used by the head of the U N peacekeeping force and known to the
cognoscenti as 'Lenin's tomb'. I'he airport, which is on a plateau a bit
above the broad plain in which Nicosia is situated, has stunning views. T o
the north are the Kyrenia Hills and to the south the Troodos A4ountains,
both easily visible on clear days, which is most days in Cyprus. It had
three other inestimable advantages. It was easy of access for both sides,
each leader having to go for no more than a ten-minute drive to get there;
it was neutral ground; and access to it was controlled by blue-bereted U N
soldiers, so there was no question of demonstrators being able to get
there.
The Turkish government had spoken with great insistence to both us
and the Americans before the face-to-face talks began, asking us not to
shadow the negotiations closely as we had done the proximity talks in
New York and Geneva. Denktash, they said, needed space to breathe and
to develop his thinking if he was to negotiate with flexibility. We both
agreed to this request, while expressing lively anticipation of the day
when Denktash began to show flexibility. In fact the situation was quite
different from New York and Geneva. 'There we had had little or no
Cyprus expertise in residence to cover the negotiations in concert with the
U N . In Cyprus we each had an ambassador and fully staffed missions
with plenty of expertise on the Cyprus problem. So we worked to a quite
different pattern. O n the island the U N briefed our missions after every
session. We had secure conference telephone calls between de Soto,
Weston and myself on average about once or twice a week. And we set
out on a Baedeker tour for our tripartite meetings, of which we held 12 in
2002 - two in Paris, two in London, one each in Rome, Vienna, Nicosia
and Copenhagen, three in New York and one at Vevey in a delightful
hotel high above Lake Geneva between Lausanne and Montreux. Weston
and I visited the region frequently and Cyprus even more frequently, but
our visits were not connected with particular negotiating sessions as they
had been during the proximity talks. Only once did we ,dl meet in Cy-
prus, our triple presence tending to get the press over excited. This three-
layered system of coordination worked admirably and caused less stress
to everyone than our previous practice, and it ensured that neither side
nor their supporters ever managed to slip even a cigarette paper between
our positions. Indeed both the Greek and Turkish Cypriots, inveterate
practitioners of playing third parties off against each other, paid us the
great compliment of stopping even trying to do so. Once, when I asked
Denktash what he had said on a particular point to the Americans, he
said, crossly, that he was not going to waste his time telling me, because
we already knew the answer.

The early months

The early stages of the face-to-face talks showed some promise. It was not
that there were any breakthroughs. There were not. But the atmosphere
was reasonably relaxed, the core issues began to be seriously addressed,
and there was at least something that could come to life as a real negotia-
tion at short notice if the will was there to make it happen. The contrast
with the previous, fallow year, with actual face-to-face talks coupled with
the inexorablc progress towards the EU's decision-making summit at
Copenhagen, seemed to inject a sense of momentum.
Clerides in particular seemed to take on a new lease of life. While he
remained sceptical that Denktash was negotiating in good faith, he shook
off the grumpy pessimism that had characterized him through the prox-
imity talks and began to hint at, and sometimes to set out reasonably
clearly, the sort of concessions he might make as part of an otherwise
satisfactory package. H e had clearly been impressed by the major effort
the international con~munityhad made to bring Denktash back to the
table without any concessions. And, like the rest of us, he hoped that
Turkey's consideration of its European policy would lead it to value more
highly a settlement in Cyprus. He accepted the advice that we and the
Americms gave him that he should set out u p front a conciliatory negoti-
ating position on security issues. We pointed out that, since the Turkish
military were unquestionably going to have a major influence on the
outcome, it made no real sense to hold back on concessions he was ready
to make on security until the end. Hetter to indicate at an early stage that
Turkey's security concerns could and would be met in a comprehensive
settlement.
This advice he followed - indeed it matched his own instinctive feel-
ing which had begun to surface during the proximity talks - and after the
first few meetings, Denlmsh and the Turks had no excuse if they did not
understand that the structure of a strengthened and open-ended Treaty of
Guarantee, a continued Turkish troop presence on the island and a re-
moval of all the existing Greek Cypriot troops and their weapons was
potentially on offer. On governance also he hinted that he would not be
too demanding over his list of powers for the central authority, which was
160 CYPRUS 'I'HE S E A R C H F O R A S O L U I ' I O N

longer than that which Denktash and even the U N had in mind, and
would be prepared to see it whittled away a certain amount. H e allowed
de Soto to develop the thinking that would subsequently emerge as the
virgin birth approach to the new Cyprus. He stated flatly that he was
prepared to see the 1960 constitution of the Republic of Cyprus abrogated
and not merely amended or adapted, as he and Alecos Markides had
originally proposed. He continued to say that his attitude on Greek
Cypriot returns to property in the north would be crucially affected by
the scale of the territorial adjustment and that he could show flexibility on
one if he got satisfaction on the other. And when the vexed issue of the
mainland Turks in the north, the 'settlers', could no longer be avoided, he
was astute enough to say that if Denktash's first figure of 35,000 could be
validated (which of course it could not be as it was a gross understate-
ment) that would cause him no problems. This was a brave, if tactically
astute, move by Clerides since it put the Turkish Cypriots thereafter on
the back foot as they refused to produce a list of names and argued for
much higher figures.
The position of Denktash was quite different. Predictably he began to
construct a new version of his preconditions over status, equality and
sovereignty. This time it was called 'agreeing on a vision of the new
Cyprus'. Once this vision was agreed, he said (and this was a line much
favoured also by Cem), then everything else would fall into place. The
vision naturally involved recognizing the realities on the island, i.e. two
states, making it clear that sovereignty belonged to those states and was
granted to the new Cyprus by them and ensuring that political equality
required Turkish Cypriot agreement to each and every decision, even
procedural ones. But at least at this stage of the negotiations he did not
push his point of view to the extent of refusing to discuss the other core
issues. He flatly declined, however, to contemplate any discussion of the
details of a territorial adjustment until that elusive and ill-defined mo-
ment, the final stage; and he continued to insist that the property issue
must be dealt with in its entirety by compensation, with no returns by
Greek Cypriots to the north. Nevertheless in those early exchanges there
were at least some glimmers of hope that progress could be made. How-
ever, as Annan's subsequent report on the negotiation put it, 'regrettably,
the glimmers seldom lasted beyond the meeting, subsequent meetings
often reverting to debates about history or visions' (S/2003/398 of 1 April
2003).
 C O U N T D O W N '1'0 C O P E N H A G E N 161

,
I his systematic extinction of glimmers of light began before long to
have a negative impact on the talks process. An example gives a picture of
what was occurring. After a useful discussion on 2 3 January of a variety
of options for what was destined in due course to be Article 1 of the new
constitution of Cyprus and which included the names to be used instead
of the current placebos of 'common state' and 'component state', de Soto
sent to the two leaders a piece of paper setting out seven possible alterna-
tives as follows:

Possibilities for Article 1 of the Constitution

Option 1. The United Cypriot Republic
The United Cypriot Republic is an independent and sovereign State with
a single international legal personality and a common state governmcnt
and consists of two component states, namcly the Greck Cypriot State
and the Turkish Cypriot State.

Option 2. The Union of Cyprus

'The Union of Cyprus is an independent and sovereign State with a single
international legal personality and a central government and consists of
two component states, namely the Greek Cypriot State and thc Turkish
Cypriot State.

Option 3. The State of Cyprus

The State of Cyprus is an independent and sovercign State with a single
international legal personality and a common governmcnt and consists of
two component states, namely the Greek Cypriot State and the lurkish
Cypriot State.

Option 4. The Statelunion of Cyprus

The Statelunion of Cyprus is an independent and sovereign State with a
single international legal personality and a federal government and con-
sists of two constituent states, namely the Greek Cypriot State and the
Turkish Cypriot State.

Option 5. The United State of Cyprus

The United State of Cyprus is an independent and sovereign State with a
single intcrnational legal personality and a common state government and
consists of two component stateslrepublics, namely the Grcck Cypriot
Republic and the Turkish Cypriot Republic.

Option 6. The Federal Partnership of Cyprus

The Fcdcral Partnership of Cyprus is an independent and sovereign State
with a single international personality and a federal government and con-
162 CYPRUS: T H E SEARCH FOR A SOLUTION

sists of two partner states, namely the Grcck Cypriot State and the Turk-
ish Cypriot State.
Option 7. The Federation of Cyprus/Cypriot Federation
The Federation of Cyprus/Cypriot Federation is an independent and sov-
ereign State with a single international legal personality and a federal
government and consists of two constituent partner states, namely the
Greek Cypriot State and the Turkish Cypriot State.

The next day Clerides replied in writing, accepting with some qualifica-
tions four of the alternatives (Nos. 1, 3, 4 and 7) and, at the subsequent
meeting, accepted a fifth (No. 5) which had been the only one Denktash
had accepted the day before. Denktash then rejected all seven. It was
difficult to understand what was going on on the Turkish Cypriot and
Turkish side of the fence. It was rapidly becoming clear that the decision
by Denktash and the Turks back in the autumn of 2001 to initiate face-to-
face talks, and thus to execute a complete procedural U-turn, had not
been accompanied or followed up by any definition of a series of negotia-
ble positions on the core issues. Denktash himself seemed to be navigating
without a compass. H e was not allowed to walk out of the talks, as he had
done in November 2000 and as he would probably have liked to do again,
but he had been given no clear idea of where the Turkish red lines were
and what his ultimate destination was intended to be. In these circum-
stances he reverted to playing for time in a filibuster which it was
increasingly difficult to sustain as the months went by. The backing and
filling to which he resorted, and which became part of a pattern, was less
easy to explain. Was it simply the result of advice he received from his
hardline Turkish (but not Turkish government) adviser, Soysal? O r was
he actually being pulled back by the Turkish government itself? And, if
so, why? The probable answer was that it was a mixture of all these
elements but, at least during the course of the negotiations, no explanation
was vouchsafed.
The effect of this on Clerides was thoroughly negative. H e began to
regret that he had shown so much flexibility at an early stage of the face-
to-face negotiations and to worry that this risked exposing him to his
domestic critics. H e told de Soto that he was no longer prepared to come
to ttte-'a-ttte meetings, since Denktash invariably clawed back at later
plenary meetings any movement he had demonstrated at the private ones.
There was then a substantial hiatus in such private meetings, which was
only overcome by the persuasion of the UN, the US, the UK and, even-
 C 0 U N '1' 1) (1 \?' N 'I' 0 C 0 1' li N H \ I C E N 16%

tually, of the Greek government too, all of whom pointed out that fili-
bustering at the plenary meetings was much easier than at the private
ones and that it was important to keep up the pressure which Denktash
clearly felt at the private meetings. Meanwhile the plenary sessions began
to deteriorate into exchanges of lengthy papers recycling the respective
positions taken up by the two sides in the proximity talks two years
before, and into polemical exchanges, both spoken and written, in which
the forensic skills of Markides came to the fore but not to any very useful
purpose. In parallel with this deterioration of the atmosphere within the
negotiations, the public perception of what was going on remained com-
pletely negative and cynical. Denktash, who had never been much
troubled by Annan's request to maintain a press blackout, defended at
great length in the media his fundamental views on status and sover-
eignty. On the Greek Cypriot side the desire not to reveal publicly any
flexibility being shown in the negotiations themselves was reflected in a
presentation that depicted the negotiations as totally stuck because of
Denktash's obduracy, which was part of the story but not the whole of it.
So by April the negotiations had bogged down and were badly in need of
a shot in the arm.

T h e secretary-general lends a hand

As the pace of the negotiations slowed and the prospect dwindled of the
two parties making substantial progress, the need for some external
impetus to get things moving forwards became more urgent. Already the
end-June target date for completion of a comprehensive settlement, so
surprisingly put forward by Denktash before Christmas, was losing
credibility, and he himself was daily subverting it in his press comments.
It was, however, evidently too soon for the UN to be putting on the table
a proposal for a comprehensive settlement, and to table proposals on one
or another of the core issues was certain to ;lrouse objections all round. So
the U N and its supporters were not spoiled for procedural choices. Annan
could, as was the normal practice, invite the two leaders to meet him in
New York or in some European capital where his hectic travel schedule
might take him in the late spring of 2002, or he could himself visit the
island, which no secretary-general since Waldheim had done. The latter
approach had a number of advantages. It avoided the possibility of a long
haggle with the leaders about whether a visit to New York was desirable
and, if so, when it should be; it sent a much stronger public message that
the negotiations were for real; and it provided Annan with an opportunity
164 C Y P R U S . T H E S E A R C H I;OR A SO1,U'I'ION

to deploy his undoubted presentational skills in reviving what was fast

becoming a moribund public image of the negotiations. For all these
reasons the US and the UK strongly favoured a visit to the island and so
too, more hesitantly, did the UN itself, once they had overcome their
qualms about committing the secretary-general to a meeting which was
highly unlikely to result in a breakthrough. Annan decided to visit the
island from 14 to 16 May and so briefed the Security Council. Faced with
the unlikelihood of any breakthrough on a core issue, the U N set as its
objective getting a green light from the two leaders for de Soto to begin
codifying the outcome of the face-to-face talks, which was of course
diplomatic speak for beginning to create the building blocks of a compre-
hensive settlement.
Annan duly came and went, but there was not much to show for the
visit. The personal atmosphere at the talks remained calm and friendly.
Annan himself demonstrated yet again his skill at managing the most
awkward interlocutors and avoided the temptation to lock horns with
Denktash, which had proved his predecessor Routros-Ghali's undoing.
But he did not succeed in getting a green light for de Soto to codify the
negotiations (although de Soto in fact began tentatively to do so within
weeks). And when, in his farewell statement, Annan expressed the hope
that, even now, the end-June target date might be met, Denktash, in a
statement that was as gratuitous as it was counter-productive, contra-
dicted him.
Nevertheless, within a matter of days, it looked as if the visit might
indeed register a change of gear because by the end of May the two sides
were tantalizingly close to agreement on the outline for handling security
issues. The open-ended and undiluted continuance of the Treaties of
Guarantee and Alliance and their adaptation to the circumstances of a bi-
zonal island, which in particular strengthened the terms of the Treaty of
Guarantee by extending the guarantee to the territorial integrity and
constitutional order of the two component states as well as of Cyprus as a
whole (as had been the case in 1960), was agreed. So too was the demobi-
lization of all Cypriot armed forces, the removal from the island of their
weaponry, and the need for a legally binding arms embargo. And the need
for a UN-mandated international military presence, to operate island-
wide and not just along the Green Line, to underpin but not to enforce
the terms of an agreement, was also settled. Dc Soto had got both sides to
agree that he put all this down on paper and there remained a minimal
number of square bracketed points to be negotiated. In addition the troop
levels of the residual Greek and Turkish military presence in the south
and the north of the island remained to be negotiated, but it had always
been envisaged that this figure should be left to be determined at the end
of the whole process, preferably by direct negotiation between the Greeks
and the Turks.
At this point Denktash performed one of his infuriating two-steps.
IIaving cooperated in discussion of the text, he drew back and said that
Turkey was unhappy about the provisions for a UN-mandated inrerna-
tional military presence. They needed more time and would want a
weaker text, as they were said to be concerned that the UN mandate
could lead to aggressive implementation in the teeth of opposition by
Turkey. Clerides then withdrew his provisional agreement to the whole
document. It was made clear by both sides that further discussion of this
issue in the short term would be fruitless. Clerides's willingness to agree
the security chapter, albeit provisionally, had been something of a gamble.
It had contained major concessions on his part to the Turkish and 'I'urk-
ish Cypriot point of view, and allowing security to be settled and banked
before any of the other core issues had been settled was likely to be
sharply criticized by his rejectionist opponents once it became known,
which it inevitably would.
Why the Turks (because on this occasion it seems clear that it was
their doing) passed up this opportunity to nail down an agreement
strongly favourable to them remains a mystery. When I took the matter
up with Ziyal soon afterwards he replied, somewhat feebly, that the
Turks wanted to have some concessions in hand for the final stage of the
negotiations. Certainly the alleged Turkish problems with de Soto's
security text were never raised in the ensuing months of the negotiations,
nor was a word said from the Turkish side when the same text emerged in
the successive iterations of the Annan Plan. I am inclined to suspect that
the problem arose in the somewhat defective coordination between the
Turkish foreign ministry and the military. Be that as it may, the conse-
quence of this setback was that the end-June target date no longer had any
meaning at all. A wider consequence was that it put an end to steps to
negotiate issue by issue, banking the points provisionally agreed as one
went along, the normal way most successful negotiations proceed.

Britain's role in the negotiations

As one of the UN's main backers in the effort to get a comprehensive
settlement of the Cyprus problem, Britain needed to be active but not too
166 CYPRUS: I'HE SEARCH FOR A SOLUTION

prominent in the process. We needed to be in touch with all the partici-

pants, oiling the wheels where we could, exercising discreet pressure here
and there and helping two multilateral organizations, the U N and the EU,
not very accustomed to working together, to cooperate effectively. But we
also needed to avoid appearing to take the process over, partly because it
was only going to succeed if the U N remained centre stage and in charge
and partly because Britain's historical inheritance in the Eastern Mediter-
ranean of suspicion and residual hostility made it unlikely that any
activity that was clearly labelled as British would succeed.
But we could move things forward discreetly, and we did. Peter I-Iain,
the minister for Europe at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, visited
Cyprus in April 2002 for talks with Clerides and Denktash. He decided to
try to give the public diplomacy surrounding the negotiations a bit of a
push by means of a speech to a bi-communal audience at the Ledra Palace
Hotel on the Green Line. Such occasions were not unprecedented but
they were unusual, press conferences at the Ledra Palace being more
common, as Denktash normally banned Turkish Cypriots from attending
any event where they might meet Greek Cypriots. The turn-out was
excellent even if the Turkish Cypriot parties that supported Denktash,
and his own entourage, were noticeable by their absence. On the Greek
Cypriot side, unusually, the foreign minister, Kasoulides, attended. As so
often, it was striking how warm the personal relationships between
Turkish and Greek Cypriots were. Both in the opening paragraph of the
speech and in the peroration Hain referred to 'the peoples of Cyprus/of
this island'. In the code-dominated vocabulary of speeches about Cyprus
this reference came high on the Richter scale, it being obligatory in the
south to refer to the Turkish Cypriots as a 'community' (although the
Greek Cypriots did not hesitate to talk about themselves as 'the Cypriot
people' when outside the island). Anyway the reference to 'peoples' did
not pass unnoticed by either side. There was great satisfaction in the
north where the habits of verbal denigration never failed to draw blood
and to win adherents to Denktash's demands for full recognition. In the
south there was the usual media furore designed to get the erring visitor
to recant and recognize the error of his ways. But Hain stood his ground
and told the House of Commons that he would not fancy telling his
Welsh constituents that they were not a people. In reality the Greek
Cypriot concern that the use of the word 'people' opened the door to self-
determination, which was but one step away from secession, was over-
 C O U N T D O W N 7'0 C O P E N H i \ ( ; I ? N 167

blown. But it did show the astonishing sensitivity to such semantic ques-
tions.
A few weeks later Cem, the Turkish foreign minister, took advantage
of a N A T O ministerial meeting to lobby his colleagues on behalf of
Denktash's 'vision first' approach and to try, by handing over a non-
paper, to persuade them of the virtues of the Turkish vision. T h e UN,
who were not in any case present at a N A T O meeting, were not well
placed to explain the essential unreality and unnegotiability of the Turk-
ish approach; as facilitators of the negotiation they had to be extremely
careful to avoid crossing swords openly with either side. Britain and the
US, both of whom had been lobbied, could more easily do so and did.
Jack Straw's reply to the non-paper pointed out: T h e overall impression
we have from your paper is that its proposals are more like a permanent
negotiating diplomatic conference between two independent states likely
to spend much of its time in, or approaching, deadlock, than the func-
tioning institutions of a state which would have assumed the rights and
responsibilities of U N and EU membership and would need to be able to
speak with one voice in the counsels of those bodies and fully to imple-
ment its obligations within them.' Such straight talking was crucially
important for the U N negotiations.
My own worries about the way the negotiations were going, or rather
not going, had begun to focus on the fact that no one in Turkey outside
the small group of officials in the foreign ministry who dealt with Cyprus
seemed to have the slightest idea of how far the possible solutions were
moving towards meeting basic Turkish interests and concerns. So, having
consulted de Soto and our own ambassador in Ankara, Peter Westmacott,
I decided that, on my next visit to Ankara, I would speak out about the
shape of the solutions emerging. My interview with Mehmet Ali Birand
of C N N Turk on 6 June caused plenty of waves. I pointed out that the
new Cyprus would have a new flag, a new national anthem, a new name
(it would not be called the Republic of Cyprus). It would in fact be the
new partnership, for which the Turks and Turkish Cypriots had been
calling. It would have a new constitution and it would be made up of two
constituent states in which Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots would
be masters in their own houses for a whole range of policies. The effect of
this interview in Turkey was entirely beneficial. It contributed to what
developed later in the year into a thoroughly healthy national debate
about the pros and cons of Turkey's Cyprus policy instead of the tacit
acceptance of the conventional wisdom that had prevailed up to then. In
168 C Y P R U S : T H E S E A R C H 1;OR \
t SOLUTION

the south of Cyprus the effect was pandemonium. There were demands
for me to be banned from the island or for the British government to be
asked to sack me. A heavily sedated and cynical public opinion had sud-
denly realized that something quite far-reaching might be about to
happen. Luckily I had pre-positioned transcripts of the interview in
Athens, Ankara and Nicosia, so the wilder claims of the commentators,
for example that I had called for the recognition of two states in Cyprus,
could easily be refuted. Gradually the storm blew itself out. When I next
saw Clerides at the end of August I thought I had better apologize for all
the trouble my interview had caused him. Forget it, he said; it is all in a
day's work.
One further modest British contribution was made. De Soto's travel-
ling between the three regional capitals was greatly complicated by the
fact that it took the better part of a day to get from Nicosia, where he was
based, via Athens and Istanbul to Ankara, where he was certainly going to
need to go frequently in the final stages of the negotiations, and the better
part of a day to get back again. So a visit to Ankara took three days (flying
directly from the M F base at Akrotiri to Ankara took about 1% hours).
This absurdly long detour was necessitated by the fact that there were no
scheduled flights between Cyprus and Turkey, except for those from the
north of the island which, for political reasons, de Soto could not use. So
he appealed to a number of European countries for help in hiring a private
aircraft (the US had budgetary problems which prevented them doing so)
and this was forthcoming, with the British contribution the largest. The
aircraft was much in use in October, November and January and enabled
de Soto to leave Nicosia by UNFICYP helicopter to Akrotiri, to fly from
Akrotiri to Ankara for lengthy talks and to return the same way, all in a
working day.

The European Union: the parallel track

From the beginning of 2002 there was no longer any serious questioning
of whether the critical decisions on the European Union's enlargement
would be taken at the end of the year and the terms of accession for the
ten applicant countries in the first wave, including Cyprus, would be
definitively settled at the December meeting of the European Council in
Copenhagen. The European Union, having dithered and temporized and
become bogged down in detail over many years, had now changed gear
and was lumbering towards the finishing line. What still remained in
doubt was whether the Cyprus that would be admitted would be a di-
 C O U N T D O W N 1'0 C O P I S N I I A G E N 169

vided one or a reunited one, and whether some important step in the
handling of Turkey's EU candidature would be taken at the same time.
These two issues were of the greatest importance to the Cyprus settle-
ment negotiations. As time went by, it became increasingly unrealistic to
hope that the settlement negotiations would be wound up successfully in
good time for the outcome to be taken on board in an orderly fashion at
Copenhagen. A more likely scenario was of decisions on both tracks being
broadly simultaneous, a prospect that bristled with problems both techni-
cal and political.
The two 2002 European Union presidencies were held by Spain
during the first half of the year and by Denmark in the second half.
Neither country had very strong links with or major interests in either
Cyprus or Turkey, indeed neither at the outset even had diplomatic
missions in Nicosia, although both remedied that. Perhaps helped by this
detachment, both performed their presidency role to perfection. I worked
very closely throughout with the Spanish minister for Europe, Ramon de
Miguel, and with the permanent-under-secretary equivalent at the Danish
foreign ministry, Friis Arne Petersen. The Spaniards had the easier hand
to play. They had to set the stage for negotiations that would only come
to a head after the end of their presidency. On Cyprus they needed to re-
emphasize the European Union's strong preference for admitting a re-
united island over a divided one, without detracting an iota from the
position established at Helsinki that a political settlement was not a pre-
condition for accession. Of even greater importance, they needed to
repeat and endorse at heads of government level a position earlier agreed
at the end of 2001 at foreign-minister level that the European Union
would 'accommodate' any U N settlement when admitting a reunited
island, while reiterating two firm but relatively uncontentious European
Union conditions that had been set out by the presidency of the Commis-
sion, Romano Prodi, when he visited Nicosia in the autumn of 2001, that
a reunited Cyprus must be able to speak with a single voice at the EU and
to implement its EU obligations. On Turkey they needed to signal that
important decisions on Turkey's candidature could (not would) be taken
at Copenhagen but that much depended on how Turkey handled matters
in the meanwhile. The Seville European Council in June 2002 set out
these points admirably, and the fact that it did so with Greek concurrence
was particularly important. The text read as follows:

In rcspect of the accession of Cyprus, the Helsinki conclusions are the ba-
sis of the European Union's position. The European Union's preference is
 C Y P R U S . 'I'HE SEARCH FOR A SOI.UT1ON

still for the accession of a reunited island. The European Council fully
supports the efforts of the Secretary-General of the United Nations and
calls upon the leaders of the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot commu-
nities to intensify and expedite their talks in order to seize this unique
window of opportunity for a comprehensive settlement, consistent with
the relevant UN Security Council resolutions, it is to be hoped before the
conclusion of the negotiations. The European Union would accommodate
the terms of such a comprehensive settlement in the Treaty of Accession
in line with the principles on which the European Union is founded: as a
Member State, Cyprus will have to speak with a single voice and ensure
proper application of European Union law. The European Union would
make a substantial financial contribution in support of the development of
the northern part of a reunited island.

The European Council welcomes the reforms recently adopted in Turkey.

It encourages and fully supports the efforts made by Turkey to fulfil the
priorities defined in its Accession partnership. The implementation of the
required political and economic reforms will bring forward Turkey's
prospects of accession in accordance with the same principles and criteria
as are applied to the other candidate countries. New decisions could be
taken in Copenhagen on the next stage of Turkey's candidature in the
light of developments in the situation between the Seville and Copenha-
gen European Councils, on the basis of the regular report to be submitted
by the Commission in October 2002 and in accordance with the Helsinki
and Laeken conclusions.

T h e story of the Danish presidency belongs to a later part of this chapter.

Over the years the Commission had done everything they could to
prepare for the eventuality of the admission to the E U of a reunited
island. They had tried to improve knowledge and understanding of the
European Union in the north through their delegate in Nicosia. They had
attempted to find ways to build up their own technical data on the econ-
omy and legislation of the north so that a necessarily crash programme to
examine the compatibility of this with the acquis communautaire would
not need to start from scratch. They had sought ways of preparing proj-
ects in the north for European Union funding should a settlement make
this possible and had earmarked substantial funds for that object. But at
every step they had been thwarted by Denktash and by the government
of the T R N C .
T h e foreign rqinister of the TRNC, Tahsin Ertugruloglu, seemed to
have little better to do than frustrate every attempt by the Commission
delegate in Nicosia to work in the north; petty harassment was the order
of the day. He could not, however, prevent the Turkish Cypriot Chamber
of Commerce cooperating closely with the Commission over the provi-
sion of factual material about the EU, nor could he prevent the member
states (of whom he was rather more respectful than of the Comnlission)
running seminars in the north with expert speakers who could respond to
the steadily increasing appetite there for information about the European
Union and all its works. But every attempt to prepare the legislative
ground for accession and to get EU money flowing towards the north was
shipwrecked on the issue of status and recognition. This reached its
highest absurdity when Denktash's sidekick, Olgun, told the Commission
that he would only cooperate if they wrote to hlnl officially as 'the under-
secretary to the president of the TRNC', a title that he knew perfectly
well not one of the representatives of the EU member states in Nicosia
would be prepared to give him. It was very clear from this campaign by
the Turkish Cypriot authorities that they regarded the prospect of m a n -
bership of the European Union as a serious challenge to their grip on
Turkish Cypriot politics and to the hard line on a settlement they were
pursuing in the negotiations, just as Denktash regarded the prospect of
Turkey's eventual membership of the European Union as a threat to his
own grip on Turkey's Cyprus policy.
The endorsement by the Seville European Council of the commitment
to 'accommodate' a U N settlement in the terms of accession for a reunited
Cyprus gave the Commission and its officials a more solid basis from
which to intensify the contacts they had already begun to develop with
the U N negotiating team. It had been clear from the outset that any
negotiable settlement would need to offer the Turkish Cypriots reassur-
ance that their component state would not be flooded with Greek
Cypriots buying up property and businesses once the normal provisions
of European Union law applied to the whole island, as they would do
when a reunited island was admitted. There were other tricky issues such
as the European Security and Defence Policy and those that would arise
with respect to the access by Turks to the Turkish Cypriot component
state once it was part of the European Union and had to apply the Schen-
gen provisions of the acquis. Now it became urgent to define the
necessary transitional arrangements or derogations that would need to be
included in any comprehensive set of proposals the UN might put to the
two sides later in the year. All this had to be done with the greatest dis-
cretion given the tendency of many Greek Cypriots to believe that
172 C Y P R U S : T H E S E A R C H FOR I\ SOLU'I'ION

application of the acquis communarltaire to the north unamended would

deliver to them outcomes that they could not get the Turkish Cypriots to
accept at the U N negotiating table. Verheugen gave this work his full
support, despite the fact that he was precluded from clearing his lines in
advance with member states; he and his officials therefore had to make a
judgement cold on what they thought the EU market would bear.
O n one issue alone the Turkish Cypriot authorities' attitude to the
European Union was less than totally negative, namely the decision-
making processes to be applied in a new Cyprus to establish positions on
European Union business. For some time a group of ethnically Turkish
Belgian academics had been pressing on Denktash and on the Turkish
government the attractions of the internal machinery for coordinating EU
policy, which the Belgian government had set up some years before when
Belgium had become a highly devolved federal state. This machinery
covered not only issues for which the central government was responsible
but also those for which the component state governments in a federation
were responsible and issues where responsibility was shared between the
central and the component state governments. All this surfaced in the U N
negotiations in late June 2002 with the tabling by the Turkish Cypriots of
a paper entitled 'Some characteristics of the Belgian state that may apply
to the new partnership state of Cyprus'. This was the single most con-
vincing and influential paper the Turkish Cypriots tabled throughout the
negotiations. It is hard to believe that Denktash and Soysal fully under-
stood the implications of it. But the U N certainly did and much of it
found its way into their proposals.

Another Turkish earthquake

Quite soon after the face-to-face talks got under way, and once the bloom
had worn off them, it became apparent that Clerides and Denktash were
not going to be able to conclude a comprehensive settlement unaided.
Later it also became evident that an incremental approach, with the
parties, assisted by the UN, reaching tentative and provisional agreement
on this or that issue and banking it while they moved on to other issues,
was also not going to be possible. So, gradually, the option that had from
the outset seemed the most likely one - for the U N secretary-general
himself to table a draft comprehensive settlement - became the only
viable one to hand. But it had been agreed between the UN, the US and
the UK that no hint of that should be allowed to surface and no planning
should be undertaken until after the end-June target date for completion
 COUN'I'IIOM'N 'I 0 C O P E N H A G E N 171

had been overrun. That it was likely to be overrun had been obvious for
many weeks but it made no sense to throw away even the modest amount
of leverage afforded by the target date before one had to. At a tripartite
meeting in Paris on 5 July thought was given to a timetable that would
have involved Annan bringing the leaders to New York early in October,
presenting them with his proposals and then beginning an open-ended
negotiating process with them, probably outside but close to New York.
This timetable, while already quite a tight one in view of the European
Union's enlargement timetable, offered some scope for consultation
recesses and dramatic interruptions of the kind to be anticipated in any
Cyprus negotiation.
Within days of that meeting, however, the Turkish coalition govern-
ment began to collapse and this put paid to any such a carefully calibrated
countdown. The Turkish government had been in difficulties ever since
the winter, when a well-publicized row between the president and the
prime minister at a National Security Council meeting had sent the
financial markets into a tailspin from which they had not recovered and
which the government was ill equipped to handle. By the beginning of
July the financial crisis, the government's inability to master it, the effects
of a massive forced devaluation of the lira, the looming consequences in
terms of inflation and unemployment, the failing health of the reclusive
prime minister, Ecevit, and the tensions between the three coalition
parties, all of whom were shown by the opinion polls to have almost no
popular support, brought things to breaking point. The government then
proceeded to collapse in slow motion over a period of weeks. The foreign
minister, Cem, resigned not only from his office but from Ecevit's DSP
and went off to found a new party, defections of members of parliament
from the governing coalition parties became a daily occurrence and the
pressure to call an early election mounted. By the time the dust settled at
the end of August, there was only an interim, caretaker government, still
led in title, but no more, by an ailing Ecevit and with a new foreign
minister, Siikru Sina Gurel. A large package of EU-compliant legislation
had been passed at Yilmaz's behest in a last-ditch attempt to rescue his
party's fortunes, and a general election had been called for the first week
of November. The opinion polls were predicting (quite accurately in the
event) that because of Turkey's 10 per cent threshold for being repre-
sented in parliament, none of the three coalition parties nor the main
opposition party (Ciller's DYP) would be represented in the new parlia-
ment. The only parties that would be represented on these predictions
174 C Y P R U S : 'l'H1.: S E A R C H FOR A S O L U T I O N

would be Erdogan's Islamic AK party, which had risen from the ashes of
earlier, banned Islamic parties, and the C H P (Atatiirk's and Inonii's old
party) which had been out of the previous parliament, having fallen short
of the 10 per cent threshold.
None of these dramatic political events was even remotely caused by
developments in Cyprus but they did have a considerable impact on
them. By the time of the next tripartite meeting in Vienna on 27 July it
was already becoming clear that the previous scenario was unrealistic, and
when we met in Paris on 7 September a number of points had come into
sharper focus. Nothing positive could be expected from the interim
government whose prime minister believed he had settled the Cyprus
problem in 1974 and whose foreign minister (who had previously been
the minister for Cyprus, not directly involved in the negotiations for a
settlement but more concerned with disbursing the $200 million dollars
or so which Turkey had to spend every year - not counting military costs
- to prop up the TRNC) was generally reckoned to be even harder line

than Denktash. So if Annan made his proposals before the Turkish elec-
tion they could well be rejected out of hand. It would in any case be
extremely unwise to throw a complex settlement plan, which concerned a
national issue for Turkey, into the mcle'e of a general election campaign.
So a month was lost which could ill be spared. Another consequence of
the recent events was that Yilmaz's EU legislative package had placed
Turkey in a better position than before to hope for a positive result at
Copenhagen. Of this hope the interim government wasted no time at all
in reminding its EU partners. Giirel's visits to EU capitals in September
were designed to push that case, but they also provided an excellent
opportunity to remind him forcefully that EU governments were ex-
pecting Turkey to help get a Cyprus settlement by the end of the year - a
message that fell on deaf ears.

The run-up to the proposals

Annan invited Clerides and Denktash to meet him in Paris on 6 Septem-
ber. T h e week before I spent some days in Cyprus and over the weekend
was able to see the leaders in relaxed conditions, outside their offices. My
objective was to bring home to each of them that time was running out to
reach a solution during the time frame before Copenhagen when interna-
tional interest and pressure were creating the best circumstances for
achieving the necessary compromises. The subliminal themes - which
had to remain subliminal, because it was not my job to predict precisely
what the U N would do and when - were that the face-to-face talks proc-
ess had now gone as far as it could, that the U N had a shrewd idea of
where each side's genuine red lines were, and that the time was fast
approaching when the UN would need to draw all the threads together
and provide the basis for a negotiated settlement. I found Clerides, as
usual at his best out on the sea in his beloved boat and swimming off Cape
Greco, the south-eastern tip of the island, very calm and determined to
see the process through to the end and to demonstrate the flexibility
needed to get a deal if that was reciprocated by the other side. H e be-
lieved he would be able to negotiate effectively up to December; after that
it would be more problematic (a presidential election was due in the south
in February 2003 and candidacies would be declared, at the latest round
about Christmas). This was in sharp contrast to earlier dire warnings that,
come the autumn, his hands would be increasingly tied by electoral
politics. H e was watching the electoral campaign in Turkey with interest
and some hope, but remained to be convinced that the outcome would
bring much change.
Denktash the next day was just as hospitable, in the pool at his house
by Snake Island, looking over the sea towards Turkey, and afterwards at
lunch on the terrace. I-Ie seemed rather subdued, preoccupied by the
gathering signs that his political supporters in Ankara were doing badly in
the election campaign and that he was likely shortly to find himself deal-
ing with a completely new and unpredictable government formed by a
party that all his secular and Atatiirkist instincts inclined him to dislike.
We went over familiar ground at lunch, much of it to do with the core
issues and mercifully little with the 'vision' set of preconditions; unusu-
ally he took copious notes throughout.
In Paris on 6 September Annan did not mince his words, to Denktash
in particular. H e referred to a 'profound sense of disappointment' that
more progress had not been made since they had last met in May. H e
explained why neither of the two simple overall approaches, recognition
of the T R N C or absorption of the T R N C into the existing Republic of
Cyprus would work, and urged Denktash to see the virtues of an ap-
proach that did not mention the word 'sovereignty' at all, but focused
instead on the exercise of powers at different levels of authority - by the
EU, by the common state and by the component states - with no hierar-
chy between them. H e set out the prize to be achieved in the shape of an
entirely new Cyprus in terms almost identical to my C N N Turk inter-
view. He pressed hard for full engagement on the core issues, explaining
176 CYPRUS T H E S E A R C H TOR A SOI.U'I I O N

why Denktash's refusal to discuss a territorial adjustment was blocking

consideration of tight numerical controls on Greek Cypriots returning to
their property in the north, which Clerides was willing to contemplate.
IIe went over the ground on governance, pointing out why giving the
Turkish Cypriots a veto over every decision, whether procedural or
substantive, was not necessarily the best way of protecting their interests.
H e argued that Clerides's recent hint that he could accept a rotating, non-
executive presidency marked a real breakthrough, and warned Denktash
against his practice of publicly misrepresenting Clerides's position in
unjustifiably negative terms. And he warned that if the pre-Copenhagen
opportunity for a settlement was not taken the Greek Cypriots' position
would strengthen: 'The most leverage you will ever have is right now.'
Clerides got off more lightly, but he too was warned that time was
getting short, that while his relative flexibility up to now had been very
welcome more would be required ('If Mr Denktash does engage seriously,
down the road, in a genuine negotiation, you will be pressed to be flexible
on other points as well'), and a clear indication was given that a UN
comprehensive proposal was in the offing ('We are preparing avenues so
that, should the moment be right to make a move, we will be ready to do
SO').The responses were, as usual, sharply contrasted. Clerides replied in
broadly positive generalities; Denktash treated Annan to a lengthy, para-
noid disquisition on how unfair everyone - the Security Council, the
European Union - had been to the Turkish Cypriots and how all these
injustices must first be corrected if there was to be a settlement. IIe
repeated his 'vision' for a new Cyprus, but did at least refer to my CNN
Turk interview as 'a bold, yet half-way attempt' to meet Turkish Cypriot
needs and interests. H e simply declined to grapple with any of the core
issues. The only concrete outcome to the meeting was an agreement to
meet in New York on 3-4 October.
With the two leaders back on the island, de Soto launched a major
effort to push the negotiations ahead on the core issues, and in particular
to get some sort of dialogue going on the territorial adjustment and on the
- linked - constraints on the right of Greek Cypriots to own property in
the north, many of whom would be returnees. E4e only had limited suc-
cess in this because of Denktash's continuing refusal to discuss territory
and his insistence that, before he could do so, he must be assured that the
Turkish Cypriots would exercise sovereignty over that part of the island
allocated in an agreement to the Turkish Cypriot component state.
Meanwhile a small, informal group composed of Markides, Soysal and
 C O U N T D O W N 'SO C O 1 ' P : N H A G E N 177

Pfirter, de Soto's deputy and legal adviser, had begun to identify a

framework within which there could be a systematic discussion of the
international obligations the new Cyprus would assume from those
entered into by the Republic of Cyprus and the TRNC, of the validity of
acts taken by each prior to the entry into force of a comprehensive agree-
ment and also of the mostly uncontentious but very substantial body of
legislation that would be required by the new common state. This
framework, which might have been called a 'sovereignty umbrella' if the
sovereignty word had not been so sensitive as to be unmentionable, had
actually found its way on to paper by 26 September and so was available
for the New York meeting on 3-4 October.
Meanwhile that rumble of distant thunder, first heard from Denktash
in December 2001 when the face-to-face talks were initiated, to the effect
that he might need heart surgery in the second half of 2002, was rapidly
materializing into an imminent storm of unpredictable dimensions and
duration. First it was announced that he would be having a check-up in
New York after the talks in October, then that he would definitely be
going in for surgery on 5 October immediately the talks had concluded.
Even if the timetable ahead had been less tight and even if Cyprus had
not been a place whose every inhabitant was a conspiracy theorist, a good
deal more would have been read into these announcements than met the
eye. As it was, the speculation that Denktash was playing a hospital card
as part of a continuing filibuster was almost universal, and not merely
among his adversaries in the south of the island. That Denktash needed
heart surgery was not in doubt; he had had several heart problems over
the preceding years. That he had not lost the considerable amount of
weight his doctors said was necessary before an operation was also not in
doubt. 'l'he motivation of the timing of the operation can only remain an
unsolved mystery until, if ever, more is known about the medical back-
ground. What is clear is that nothing was done at any stage, either at the
time of the operation or in the weeks following, when complications set
in, to mitigate the effect of his absence from the negotiating table.
When Annan met Clerides and Denktash in New York on 3-4 Octo-
ber the departure of Denktash from the negotiating scene, at least for
some weeks, was already a given fact, but not one that was taken too
dramatically in the light of the continuing shadow cast by the Turkish
elections over that period and by the need, increasingly less well con-
cealed, for the U N to work intensively on the preparation of its package
of proposals. Annan therefore concentrated on getting agreement on the
178 C Y P R U S . . f H I S SIS,\IRCH FOR A SC)[Link]

setting up of a number of working groups that could carry forward the

absolutely essential technical work during the month of October. H e
aimed for three, one dealing with the international obligations of the new
Cyprus, one with the legislation for the common state and one to go over
the technical aspects of a territorial adjustment and of property compen-
sation and restitution. O n 3 October the two leaders agreed to all three.
The next day Denktash withdrew his agreement to the third working
group but not to the other two. This latest two-step by Denktash was
even more open and more damaging to Turkey than the previous ones,
since the obvious assumption, possibly but not certainly correct, was that
Turkey had told him overnight to draw back on the key issues of territory
and property. The loss of the third working group was at the time not
taken too tragically since no one at that stage knew or even suspected that
Denktash would simply fail to nominate his representatives to the other
two groups for over two months, thus ensuring that they could neither
meet nor do any work for the rest of the year. That blatant act of bad faith
had serious implications for the final stages of the negotiation, when the
failure of the two groups to have completed their heavy work schedule
was given by Denktash as a reason why any referendum on Annan's
proposals in the spring of 2001 would be premature.
With Denktash in hospital in New York, and unable, as a result of
medical complications, to return to Cyprus until the very end of Novem-
ber, the process of twice or three times weekly face-to-face meetings came
to an end. In its place de Soto undertook an intensive process of consulta-
tion, with the Turkish and Greek governments, with the European
Commission and with the UN's main backers, the US and the UK. The
latter consultations (with the US and the UK) have since been grossly
exaggerated to the extent of suggesting that the Aiman Plan was virtually
written by one or other or both of the governments. It was not. Naturally
much of the thinking in the Annan Plan had evolved over many years of
negotiation, going back to Boutros-Ghali's Set of Ideas and beyond, and
much of what was in the plan had emerged from the intensive process of
coordination that the US, the UK and the U N had practised ever since
the latest effort to get a comprehensive settlement really got under way at
the end of 1999. But in the last hectic month before the first version of the
plan (Annan I) was put forward the consultation with the US and the UK
was about policy issues and choices, not about texts, which the U N kept
to themselves and, quite rightly, did not share. In some cases the advice
given was not followed. For example the US and the UK favoured stick-
ing to Annan's original preference for not mentioning the word 'sover-
eignty' at all, but the UN at a late stage diverted to an approach that
clearly gave sovereignty to the new Cyprus but equally clearly said that
the component states exercise their own extensive powers 'sovereignly'.
In other cases the advice was accepted. For example, the idea of putting
four asterisks in place of the numbers of residual Turkish and Greek
troops to remain on the island, thus effectively creating a bracket between
1,000 and 9,999, was one the UN accepted. One specific piece of consul-
tation related to the UK alone. We were asked if we could, as a guarantor
power, agree to the amendments to the Treaty of Guarantee extending its
scope to cover the territorial limits and constitutional order of the two
component states. We said we could.
Consultation with the European Commission also proceeded
smoothly. 'This was confined to the policy areas where the Plan created
potential overlap or incompatibility with the strict wording of the acqnis
communautair-e. With Greece and most particularly with Turkey, the
process was more wide ranging. The Greeks were thoroughly supportive
and made it clear that they were prepared to enter into bilateral negotia-
tions with Turkey at any convenient time to establish the exact size of
their residual troop presence in Cyprus. They favoured as low a number
as possible but did not specify one, and they left the impression that this
was unlikely to be a sticking point. De Soto paid several visits to Ankara
during October for talks with Ziyal and hls foreign ministry team (at
which, however, the military were never represented). These talks were
long, difficult and substantive. The Turks engaged on the substance of all
the core issues, without sheltering behind the preconditions of which
Denlaash was so fond and indeed giving the impression that they found
the 'virgin birth' approach to a new Cyprus interesting and potentially
acceptable. They were also fully aware by now that they were in the last
stages of the preparation of a comprehensive set of proposals by the UN
and they took no exception to that. They were extremely nervous about
discussing territory and would not get far into that issue. O n governance
they insisted on the need to avoid any scope for Greek Cypriot domi-
nance of the institutions, and showed a preference for a Swiss-style
executive council with collective responsibility over a non-executive
rotating presidency with a prime minister chosen by a majority in the
legislature. Their reserve on security issues was coilfirmed as being
tactical and concerns about how UNFICYP 11, as it was called, would
operate and would relate to the residual Turkish troop presence in the
180 CYPRUS: I'HE SEAllCII FOR \t SOLUTION

island did not appear to be insurmountable. O n property they continued

strongly to prefer a scheme based on compensation alone but seemed to
understand that the complexities of the U N ideas were designed to come
up with a result that was not too different from that in practice.
When I visited the island from 24 to 26 October (the only occasion on
which Weston, de Soto and I were there together), I found myself in the
middle of one of those mini-crises in which the Greek Cypriots special-
ized. While intellectually they accepted that the U N needed to consult
intensively with the Turks, they found the actual process particularly
nerve wracking. During this period of waiting for the U N to make pro-
posals, when they were themselves seeing relatively little of de Soto and
his team, having made all their points ad nauseam already, they watched
de Soto's frequent comings and goings to Ankara with rising panic. Were
they perhaps being stitched up? Would they be confronted with unac-
ceptable proposals cooked up between the U N and the Turks?
At this point they came by (a polite way of saying they had purloined)
a document that was either an early draft of the UN's proposals or part of
such a draft. It contained ideas that upset them. A long and hysterical
letter was sent off to de Soto threatening all kinds of dire consequences if
any of these ideas surfaced as proposals. Weston and I did our best to
calm them down with some success. When I taxed Clerides with having
purloined the UN's documents, he gave me a guilty smile, like a child
caught with his hand in the toffee jar. Nothing more came of the matter.
But, as we had feared from the outset, the Greek Cypriots made so much
of a fuss that eventually it got to the ears of the Turks who were naturally
quite convinced that they had yet again been outwitted by the wily Greek
Cypriots and some of whom purported to believe that the U N team had
shared the draft with the Greek Cypriots and not with them. In fact the
U N made no changes at all to their proposals as a result of this rumpus,
but because the document the Greek Cypriots had acquired had been a
very early draft there were plenty of discrepancies with the final version
of the proposals which the Greek Cypriots no doubt congratulated them-
selves as being a result of their efforts.
While all this was going on in the south, in the north nothing was
going on at all. Denktash was in New York, sometimes in hospital, some-
times recuperating in his hotel, sometimes back in hospital when
complications set in. Olgun was with him throughout, but communica-
tion with Olgun was sporadic and limited mainly to medical bulletins.
Soysal had retreated to Ankara. There was literally no member of the
 COUN'I'IIOWN TO C O P E N H A G E N 181

negotiating team with whom one could speak. The TRNC government
had no responsibility for the Cyprus problem, thanks to the intense
rivalry between Denktash and Prime Minister Eroglu, which meant that
the latter was totally frozen out of the negotiations. The intention might
not have been that the Turks alone should speak for themselves and the
Turkish Cypriots during this vital period but that was the effect. Mean-
while I saw all the Turkish Cypriot party leaders (including the
rejectionist ones in the government) and was able to note the rising tide in
the north of dissatisfaction with Denktash's policy. Above all, the immi-
nence of the European Union's decision at Copenhagen on the admission
of Cyprus, with the all too likely outcome that the Greek Cypriots would
be admitted, Turkey's candidature would be advanced and the Turkish
Cypriots would be left in a kind of limbo, was having a powerful effect
and convincing more and more Turkish Cypriots that their leaders were
in the process of missing an extremely important bus. The Turkish Cyp-
riot Chamber of Commerce, under the leadership of the younger
generation of businessmen, mounted an increasingly effective campaign
to put pressure on Denktash.

The Annan Plan

Annan sent his proposals to Clerides and Denktash, and to the govern-
ments of the three guarantor powers (Greece, Turkey and the UK) on 11
November. Just over a week before, the predicted electoral landslide had
taken place in Turkey, returning the AK centre-right Islamic party to
power with a large overall majority in the single-chamber parliament. The
only other party with substantial representation was the CHP, a centre-
left party which had not been in the previous legislature. Ecevit's DSP,
Yilmaz's ANAP, Bahceli's MHP and Ciller's DYP, together with Cem's
new party, all failed to get 10 per cent of the vote and thus to get into the
parliament. So, from the day of the election, there was no real doubt that
Turkey was going to have its first single-party government for many
years, and the processes for its formation were immediately put in hand
with what was, by Turkish precedents, lightning speed. The political
situation was not, however, quite so clearcut as it looked, since the effec-
tive leader of the AK party, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was still barred from
taking office as a result of a conviction for religious incitement, and the
new prime minister, Abdullah Giil, was clearly only an interim appoint-
ment, intended 60 hold office for the few weeks or possibly months it
would take to remove the impediments to Erdogan taking that post. But,
 CYPRUS T H E SEhRCfI FOR A SOI,U'I'ION

from the outset, both within Turkey and outside it, Erdogan was treated
as the leader of Turkey even though he as yet held no official position.
The clear outcome of the Turkish election and the speed with which the
new government was being formed removed the last obstacle to Annan
making his proposals, the Copenhagen clock by now being only one
month to midnight.
T h e structure of Annan's proposals was complex, but ingenious,
designed to make the most of the similarly complex but extremely tight
timetable for European Union enlargement. The overall package, which
ran to more than 130 pages and which included a constitution for the new
common state of Cyprus (but not for the component states, the drafting of
whose constitutions were left to the two sides themselves, so long as they
were not incompatible with the overall settlement), and numerous an-
nexes dealing with security, property, the territorial adjustment and EU
issues, as well as other more technical matters, was a single, integrated
whole. But it was so subdivided that not all the subject matter had to be
settled and accepted straightaway. The two leaders and the guarantor
powers were asked to sign a two-page 'Comprehensive Settlement' docu-
ment beforc Copenhagen, which also bound them to accept an attached
seven-page 'Foundation Agreement' containing most of the key, politi-
cally sensitive provisions of the settlement and in addition a fair number
of the most important parts of the constitution and other annexes. The
negotiations would then continue after Copenhagen, to fill in all the gaps
and matters left over, with an absolute cut-off for the negotiations of 28
February 2003, the UN secretary-general having a casting vote if there
were any deadlocks. The month of March would be left for referendum
campaigns in both south and north, the referendums taking place on 30
March. The whole set of agreements would, if both referendum results
wcre positive, enter into force the next day. This structure was, among
other things, designed to enable the European Union to take the political
decision to admit the new reunited Cyprus at Copenhagen and the new
reunited Cyprus to sign the Treaty of Accession to the EU in Athens in
mid-April. But the structure, complicated further by Denktash's failure to
nominate his representatives to the technical working groups agreed on 4
October, also provided for a two-month catch-up period to remedy that.
The Annan Plan sought to navigate through the shoals of status,
sovereignty and continuity with some ingenious legal drafting. The
agreement would 'establish a new state of affairs in Cyprus' (not a new
state); it would be called simply Cyprus or, as a long title, the State of
 C 0 U N 'I' I) O W N 'I' 0 C 0 I' I< N I 1 I\ G E N 181

Cyprus; it would be a single, sovereign state with a single international

legal personality, composed of two states, the common state exercising the
powers allocated to it in the constitution 'sovereignly' and the component
states exercising 'sovereignly' all other powers not allocated to the com-
mon state, with no hierarchy between them. Continuity would be
provided by legitimizing all acts, whether legislative, executive or judicial,
prior to the entry into force of the comprehensive settlement so long as
they did not contradict the provisions of that scttlcment and by listing all
the international agreements and laws binding on the new Cyprus (these
including much material derived both from the Republic of Cyprus and
from the I'RNC). The two nightmares of secession and domination were
dealt with explicitly, the new state of affairs being proclaimed indissolu-
ble, with secession prohibited, and domination of any institution by one
side being also declared to be unconstitutional.
The plan allocated to the common state responsibility for foreign
affairs, relations with the European Union, central-bank functions, com-
mon-state finances (but the common state had responsibility for virtually
no policies involving substantial public expenditure), economic and trade
policy, aviation and navigation policy and some more technical matters
including meteorology, weights and measures and intellectual property.
The executive would follow something like the Swiss model with an
executive council consisting of Greek Cypriots (4) and Turkish Cypriots
(2) chosen by each side on its own. No decision could be taken without
the agreement of at least one member of each side. There would be a
president and vice-president chosen by the Council from among its mem-
bers, the offices rotating every six months and never providing less than a
2:l rotation (although this provision was overridden for the first 36
months of existence of the new state of affairs during which the two
presidents in office at the time of its entry into force - Clerides and
Denktash - would act as co-presidents). There would be two houses of
parliament, the upper one being split 50:50 between Greek Cypriots and
Turkish Cypriots elected by the legislatures of the component states, the
lower house being elected by popular mandate with no side having fewer
than 25 per cent of the seats (the Turltish Cypriot population share being
roughly 18 per cent). Both houses would have to approve any legislation,
and there were provisions ensuring that the Turkish Cypriot nightmare of
one of their representatives being suborned by the Creek Cypriots and
then passing anti-Turkish Cypriot legislation could not come to pass. The
Supreme Court would consist of three Greek Cypriots, three Turkish
184 CYPRUS 'I H I - S E z \ R C H T O R I\ SOLUTION

Cypriots and three non-Cypriots, to avoid the possibility of deadlock and

to ensure that the Supreme Court was able to exercise the tie-breaking
function allocated to it in the event of the other institutions becoming
deadlocked.
O n security a number of amendments were proposed to the Treaties
of Guarantee, strengthening it by extending its scope to cover the territo-
rial limits and constitutional order of the component states, and of
Alliance, specifying the equal number of Greek and Turkish troops that
could remain on the island (four asterisks only at this stage, signifying a
figure between 1,000 and 9,999). Neither treaty was diluted or time
limited and the unilateral right of intervention remained. All Cypriot
forces were to be disbanded and their arms removed from the island. A
legally binding arms embargo was to be established. A UN-mandated
international military presence was to be deployed island-wide and for an
open-ended period of time, only to be terminated by common agreement;
it was to underpin but not enforce the settlement.
T h e territorial adjustment proposed consisted of two alternative maps,
each providing for a transfer to the Greek Cypriots of a bit less than 9 per
cent of the island (the scale of the adjustment in the Boutros-Ghali pro-
posals of 1992). One map gave the tip of the Karpas Peninsula (the 'pan-
handle' deep in the Turkish Cypriot north) to the Greek Cypriots, the
other, by making adjustments elsewhere, did not. The drawing of the line
was somewhat more sophisticated than in 1992, enabling more Greek
Cypriots to return and fewer Turkish Cypriots to be displaced but, in-
evitably, ending up with an even more irregular line.
O n property, elaborate provisions were made for mutual compensa-
tion, to be administered by a Property Board. All Cyprus settlement
proposals up to and including the Set of Ideas had equated property rights
with the right of return to those properties, a right that all accepted would
have to be limited. The Annan Plan marked a departure from this, instead
separating out the property question from the right of residence, which
equated more nearly with the EU freedoms. By placing limitations on the
right of residence, the U N did not prejudge whether a Greek of Turkish
Cypriot was returning to his own property, to another property in the
same village (potentially attractive in the case of neglected or abandoned
houses), or indeed building an entirely new property in the other compo-
nent state. It provided a framework for a more normal existence in the
future. Decisions on residence could be taken on the same grounds as
elsewhere in the world, such as job location, schools, family, and not the
 COUNTDOWN T O COI'ENIIAGI~N 185

backward-looking criterion of inherited property ownership. That said,

there would of course be a strong link between applications for restitution
of property and applications for residence. The distinction between
'residence' and 'return' is a fine one, and it was not much observed on the
island where most people used the terms interchangeably.
The limits on residence and on property restitution were to be estab-
lished in parallel with agreement on the territorial adjustment (meaning
that, if the adjustment was smaller than proposed, the limit on returns to
the north would be higher and vice-versa). There was in any case to be a
moratorium on any returns for three years in the case of unoccupied
property and five years for property occupied.
The issue of how many and which Turks who had come to Cyprus
since 1974 should be covered by Turkish Cypriot citizenship was ducked
for the meantime and left over for further negotiation. But it was pro-
posed that all Cypriots should be Cypriot citizens and at the same time be
entitled to citizenship status in onc or other of the component states.
It was stated flatly that the reunited Cyprus would join the European
Union, and the referendum question was so phrased as to make it impos-
sible to split the two issues of the settlement and of EU membership. A
protocol was included, which the European Union would be asked to
adopt, providing for derogations from the right of establishment and the
right to buy property, and ruling out military participation by Cyprus in
the European Security and Defence Policy. The European Union would
be asked to grant substantial financial assistance to begin narrowing the
gap in economic development and prosperity between the north and the
south. So far as coordinating the Cypriot position for EU decision making
was concerned, the Belgian model, suggested by the Turkish Cypriots,
was followed.
A reconciliation commission to help heal thc wounds of the past and to
remedy the antagonistic interpretations of historical events was also
proposcd.

From Annan I to Annan I1

Annan's covering letter to the plan, which he had sent Clerides and
Denktash on 11 November, asked them not to react imnwdiately (the
Cypriot tendency to shoot from the hip and to indulge in preemptive
press briefing being well known) but to give him their reactions within a
week. O n 18 November Clerides replied saying that he was prepared to
negotiate on the basis of the proposals and seeking a number of clarifica-
186 CYPKUS: T H E SEARCH FOK A SOLUTION

tions. The clarifications were then pursued between de Soto and Pfirter
on the U N side and Markides. Getting a reaction from Denktash was a
good deal less straightforward. He was still in New York, by now out of
hospital again, but still recuperating in his hotel and not fit to travel back
to the island. H e had so far had no direct contact with the new govern-
ment in Turkey. All the sounds coming from him and Olgun, who was
with him, which trickled out to the press, were thoroughly negative. A
preliminary response asking for more time gave no grounds for optimism.
Meanwhile the newly formed Turkish government, with a prime
minister, Giil, who did know something about Cyprus from his time as
minister for Cyprus in the ErbakanICiller government of 1996-97, and a
new foreign minister, Yasar Yakis, with no Cyprus experience, was also
trying to grapple with the Annan Plan. They rapidly coined quite a
promising phrase that was to become the mantra of their policy in the
months ahead: 'no solution in Cyprus is no solution'. However, this was
not in itself a policy response to the detailed proposals in the Annan Plan,
but it was the complete opposite of Ecevit's claim to have settled the
Cyprus problem in 1974, so it did signal a change of mind. They certainly
did not want Denktash to reject the plan or to filibuster eternally. So
Yakis was despatched to New York with a large delegation, including
some of Erdogan's advisers, to discuss the matter urgently with Denktash.
It was evident that Denktash gave Yakis a hard time, and after two days
of inconclusive meetings there was still no response to Annan. Finally,
after further pressure from Ankara had been brought to bear, Denktash
sent Annan a letter on 27 November saying that he was prepared to
negotiate on the basis of the proposals but noting that he had serious
elements of concern with them.
Meanwhile Erdogan had set out on a comprehensive tour of European
capitals designed to boost the chances of the Copenhagen European
Council taking a decisive step forward in the handling of Turkey's EU
candidature, and it became known that the new government was, as its
first legislative priority, drafting a further package of laws following up
those passed in August on Yilmaz's proposal and aimed at filling remain-
ing gaps in Turkey's ability to meet the Copenhagen criteria. Erdogan,
despite his lack of any foreign language and his need therefore to work
through an interpreter, made a very considerable and broadly favourable
impression wherever he went. H e pressed hard the case for Turkey to be
given a date for the opening of its accession negotiations, arguing that the
EU application was the best lever he had to modernize and reform Tur-
 C O U N T D O W N T O COPENI-IACEN 187

key and to improve its human rights record. He got a mixed reception,
positive in London, Rome, Madrid and some other capitals, notably
cautious in Paris, Berlin, Vienna and Scandinavia. In every capital, and
also when he moved on to Washington at the beginning of December, he
was told of the importance his interlocutors attached to reaching a solu-
tion to the Cyprus problem and their support for the Annan Plan, but
nowhere were the two issues linked in any formal way. His responses on
Cyprus were generally positive but lacked any specificity.
By the time of my next visit to Cyprus on 20-22 November the clock
was ticking very loudly indeed. The period before Copenhagen was
narrowing and still there was no reply from Denktash. It was highly
desirable that there should be some process of negotiation with the two
sides (although not necessarily directly between them) before Annan
produced a revision of his proposals as a final basis for a pre-Copenhagen
decision. But at the moment, there was no Turkish Cypriot side with
which to negotiate. I discussed all this with a distinctly depressed de Soto
as soon as I reached the island on 20 November and, together, we came to
the conclusion that the only way to cut this particular procedural Gordian
knot was for Annan to invite Clerides to New York where Denktash
already was. It should be possible then for de Soto to shuttle between
them, for Annan to make some modest and balanced adjustments to his
proposals and for a major push to be made to take decisions before
Clerides had to head off for Copenhagen.
I sent these recommendations off to London overnight, where they
were endorsed, and next morning they were discussed positively with the
US delegation in the margins of the NATO Summit meeting going on in
Prague. But when de Soto and I spoke to Weston in Washington that
night we ran into a barrage of US objections. I pointed out that it was
extremely unwise to allow the negotiations to run on into the same time
frame as the Copenhagen meeting itself. Previous experience at European
Councils with parallel meetings of this sort had not been happy. There
was a high risk of confusion and crossed wires. All this was to no avail,
since the US team in Washington (which included Marc Grossman, the
Under-Secretary for Political Affairs and former ambassador to Ankara
who invariably had the last say on matters relating to Cyprus) was pur-
suing a different approach that involved cutting Denktash completely out
of the negotiation and settling matters directly with the new Turkish
government. That approach was incompatible with getting Clerides to
New York and focusing the final phase of the negotiations there. The
188 CYPRUS 'I'EIE SEl\lICI-I F O R i\ SOLUTION

trouble was that it turned out to be unrealistic, because the new Turkish
government was no more willing, or perhaps able, to sideline Denktash
completely than its predecessors had been. By the time all that had be-
come clear, the opportunity had been missed, and Denktash returned
from New York to Cyprus on 7 December. By then we were locked into a
scenario that involved bringing matters to a head in Copenhagen on 11-1 3
December at the same time as the European Council met there.
Anyone who might have supposed that Denktash's will to resist had
been weakened by his operation and lengthy convalescence was soon to
be disappointed by his performance following his return. Despite all de
Soto's efforts, he declined to engage in anything approximating to a
negotiation on the specifics of the Annan Plan, sticking to negative gener-
alities all too familiar from previous rounds of negotiation. Indeed
Annan's post-negotiation report goes so far as to say of this period: 'Re-
grettably the substantive input from the Turkish Cypriot side was
extremely general and largely conceptual - leaving the United Nations to
seek inspiration for concrete improvements from concerns publicly voiced
by a broad cross-section of Turkish Cypriot civil society.' When Annan
invited Clerides and Denktash to Copenhagen to take the decisions neces-
sary for agreement on the Plan, Denktash not only refused to come
himself, an absence which could easily have been justified on health
grounds, but also refused to be represented, a move tantamount to boy-
cotting the negotiations. The mini-crisis resulting from this move
completely absorbed Annan's meeting with Erdogan in New York on 10
December, which could have been more usef~~lly devoted to discussing
the Annan Plan. In the end the Turks told Denktash he must be repre-
sented in Copenhagen, and he conceded, late and unwillingly. However,
he had the last laugh because he sent to Copenhagen Ertugruloglu, the
Turkish Cypriot foreign minister, who could be relied upon to say no to
anything the UN might put forward. Denktash himself retired to Ankara
for a medical check-up and was installed in a guest-house of the president
of Turkey where he was fited by all of Ankara's not inconsiderable
number of rejectionists. It was against this unpromising background that
Annan tabled a revised version of his Plan (known as Annan 11) and
decided, rightly in my view, not to travel to Copenhagen himself.

Annan I1
Annan sent his revised proposals to Clerides and Denktash on 10 Decem-
ber, two days before the meeting of the European Council in
 CCIUNTDOWN T O COPENHAGEN 189

Copenhagen. T h e major part of l i s 11 November proposals, its structure

and most of the content, were left untouched, but a number of modest
changes were put forward in response to points made to de Soto in the
intervening month. As he had promised in his covering letter of 11 No-
vember these changes reflected a careful balance between the interests of
the two sides. T h e main changes proposed (there were in addition a good
number of minor, drafting amendments) were the following:

(i) Political rights at the common state level, i.e. participation in elections
to the parliament of the common state, would be exercised on the basis of
internal component state citizenship status, i.e. a Greek Cypriot who went
to reside in the north would only get a vote to determine the Turkish
Cypriots elected to the parliament of the common state if he or she had
opted for and received Turkish Cypriot citi7,enship status and renounced
Greek Cypriot citizenship status (since holding both was not allowed).
This change responded to a Turkish Cypriot concern that, when Greek
Cypriots allowed to rcsidc in the north reachcd a critical mass, they would
be able to influence the outcome of parliamentary clcctions and thus to
undermine bi-zonality.

(ii) There could be a four-year moratorium on Greek Cypriots going to

reside in the north (as Turkish Cypriots in the south). 'Thereafter there
could be a cap of 8 per cent on such residents in a village or municipality
between the fifth and ninth years and 18 per cent between the tenth and
15th years, with a 28 per cent cap beyond that and a review after 2 5 years.
This change gave something to both sides.

(iii) The transitional presidency (when the two signatory presidents

would be co-presidents) was reduced from three years to 30 months: a
co~lcessionto the Greek Cypriots who wanted this transitional period to
be further reduced, fearing as they did that Denktash would work to un-
dermine and destabilize the new Cyprus.

(iv) A specific bracket of 2,500-7,500 for the residual Greek and Turkish
troop presence (but agreement on a single figure was left for negotiation
betwccn Greece and Turkey): a narrowing of the bracket helpful to the
Greeks and Greek Cypriots.

(v) 111 addition to Greece and Turkey the component states also had to
give their consent to any international military operations in the new Cy-
prus: a Greek Cypriot request reflecting their dislike of being cut out of
such decisions.
 CYPRUS THE SEARCH FOR I\ SOLUTION

(vi) The management of natural resources was made a common state re-
sponsibility. This change responded to Turkish Cypriot concern that the
Greek Cypriots, once back in control of Morphou, might tamper with the
groundwater resources needed by the Turkish Cypriots' orchards in the
region which would remain in Turkish Cypriot control.

(vii) The basic articles of the constitution could not be amended: an addi-
tional safeguard for the Turkish Cypriots against the hijacking of
constitutional amendments which they believed had happened in 1963.

(viii) The definition of citizens of Cyprus would include those who held
such citizenship in 1960, anyone who had resided in Cyprus for seven
years, anyone who married a Cypriot and had been there two years, mi-
nor children of the above, and, in addition, a list of 33,000 to be handed to
the UN. This set of definitions would have allowed most of the Turks
who had come to the north since 1974 to remain and be citizens of Cyprus
and of the Turkish Cypriot component state.

(ix) Financial assistance of not less than 10,000 Euros was promised for
anyone not being given permanent residence and having to be repatriated:
a change for the particular benefit of Turks in the north.

(x) One-third of Cyprus's European Parliament seats (two out of six)

would go to the Turkish Cypriots. This was helpful to the Turkish Cyp-
riots since a division based on population or a strict proportional
rcprcscntation could have resulted in less.

(xi) One map only was proposed for the territorial adjustment, that giving
the tip of the Icarpas to the Greek Cypriots. This was what the Greek
Cypriots wanted and what the Turks and Turkish Cypriots did not (al-
though they failed to make that clear in the run-up to Annan I1 by flatly
refusing to engage in any discussion of the territorial issue).

(xii) A relocation board was proposed to help those displaced as a result of

the territorial adjustment, with direct involvement of the United Nations
in the process. Grants of not less than 10,000 Euros were also provided: an
addition requested by the Turkish Cypriots.

(xiii) There would be a cap on property restitution of 9 per cent in either

component state and 14 per cent in any given village or municipality (but
figures could be varied if negotiation over the territorial adjustment led to
changes).
(xiv) The notick to be given to the UN for troop movements of their re-
sidual contingents was raised to 14 days: a change helpful to the Turks.
 COUN'TDOM'N TO C O P E N H A G E N 1'91

(XV) European Union safeguard measures would be available for the

Turkish Cypriot component state for three years, rather than one year: a
change to meet Turkish Cypriot concerns over the weakness of their
economy.

Copenhagen: so near, and yet so far

It would be an exaggeration to say that the Danish EU presidency wel-
comed the fact that crucial negotiations about the Cyprus problem were
likely to take place in Copenhagen in parallel with the meeting of the
European Council. Like almost everyone else they had hoped it would be
possible to reach agreement in advance of the European Council and for
that meeting simply to have to cope with a clearcut situation over admis-
sion of a reunited island. They were particularly concerned that the
highly sensitive inter-related issues of Turkey's EU candidature and of
Cyprus would in some way distract or even divert the meeting from its
main task of settling and agreeing terms of accession for the ten first-wave
candidate countries in central, eastern and southern Europe. These con-
cerns were especially strongly felt by the Danish prime minister, Anders
Fogh Rasmussen, and led to some tension between his team and the
foreign minister and his officials. Be that as it may, in the event the Dan-
ish presidency performed the necessary juggling act impeccably. In the
early stages of their presidency, at the Brussels European Council in
October and after the Annan Plan had been tabled on 11 November, they
worked successfully to reinforce the messages contained in the Seville
European Council conclusions and to give the European Union's full
support to Annan's proposals. When it was clear that the cup was going to
pass to Copenhagen they set out with a will to make the necessary ad-
ministrative arrangements. The European Council itself was meeting in a
conference centre out by the airport. A suite of offices for the Cyprus
negotiations was provided in an elegantly refurbished warehouse next to
the foreign ministry and a safe four or five miles and 20 minutes' drive
away from where the European Council was meeting.
I arrived in Copenhagen late on 11 December and joined de Soto and
Weston for dinner. Who would attend for the Turkish Cypriots and what
mandate he would have was still obscure. The only certain thing was that
no one had yet turned up, although the Greek Cypriots, Greeks and
Turks were already in town in force, even though the European Council
was not due to meet until dinner time on 12 December. We agreed on the
priorities for the next day, which focused mainly on the Turks and on the
I 92 C Y P R U S . T H E S E A R C H 1.'01< A S O L U T I O N

Greek Cypriots. We were joined after dinner by Pat Cox, the recently
elected president of the European Parliament, who had already made an
important contribution by shifting the parliament's traditional role of
uncritical and unquestioning support for the Greek Cypriots to a more
even-handed stance and was to continue to do so throughout the Copen-
hagen meeting.
The 12th of December began for me with a meeting at the Turkish
delegation's hotel, out near the airport and the European Council confer-
ence centre, with Ziyal (permanent under-secretary equivalent), Ilkin
(deputy under-secretary equivalent) and Apakan (former Turkish ambas-
sador to the TRNC and assistant under-secretary equivalent). They told
me gloomily that Ertugruloglu would be representing the Turkish Cypri-
ots but would not arrive until the next day. I shared their gloom and said
this was an unhappy choice if the objective was to reach an agreement.
We went carefully over the ground of Aman I1 and I pointed out all the
significant improvements in it over Annan I from the Turkish and Turk-
ish Cypriot point of view. They did not dispute that the plan had
improved but were very upset by the map and the U N decision to pro-
pose that the tip of the Karpas Peninsula should go to the Greek Cypriots.
I said I was not surprised, since I had always told the U N (as had the US)
that we believed the Karpas to be the wrong side of a Turkish red line and
suggested that it was not too late to take this up with de Soto. But what
the Turks were most concerned about was what was going to happen
about their EU candidature later in the day. They made no bones about
the fact that that would determine what they could do on Cyprus. I said
that their proclaimed objective (for which they had been pushing for
some time) of getting accession negotiations going in 2003 or even before
enlargement on 1 May 2004 was unattainable, not least given that Presi-
dent Chirac and Chancellor Schroeder had publicly called for the decision
to be put off until 2005 or later. O n the other hand those who supported
their EU candidature, as Britain did, were determined to get a decision
taken on opening accession negotiations in 2004 and not to have every-
thing pushed back to 2005 or beyond. It would be a close-run thing as
resistance to t h s sort of timetable was strong. Later in the day Ziyal and
Ilkin had a long meeting with de Soto and continued to give the impres-
sion that their main problem with Annan I1 was over the map. De Soto
told them the territorial adjustment remained negotiable, and sent them
away with a number of alternative maps that did not include the Greek
Cypriots getting back any of the Karpas Peninsula.
 C O U N T D O W N TO C O P E N H A G E N 193

My own next call was on Clerides and his delegation, including most
of the members of the National Council. The small hotel room was
packed, the Greek Cypriots in a mood of extreme nervousness as they saw
their objective of EU membership almost, but not quite yet, within their
grasp. There was not much talk of Annan 11, which the Greek Cypriots
seemed to be taking very calmly. I had decided in advance that I would
not ask Clerides in front of a lot of witnesses, not all of whom were
friendly, whether or not he would sign Annan 11. Instead I told him that it
was the working hypothesis of de Soto, Weston and myself that if the
Turks and Turkish Cypriots would sign, so would he. Looking at me
with a characteristic twinkle in his eye he said, 'Well, that is your working
hypothesis', and there the conversation ended. On the way out I met
Papandreou who said that he had brought with him to Copenhagen a
military team so that they could settle the numbers of Greek and Turkish
troops to remain on the island if that became possible. I fear they must
have had a frustrating few days.
In the evening I went to the airport to brief the prime minister on his
plane and we all then went straight to see Erdogan and Giil at their hotel
before the prime minister went to join his EU colleagues over dinner to
discuss Turkey's candidature. The meeting with Erdogan and Giil went
well. Tony Blair assured them of our strong support for their candidature
but warned them they would not get everything they wanted. Neverthe-
less he believed that what was achievable would represent a major step
towards membership. O n Cyprus he urged the need to strike a deal there
and then on the basis of Annan 11. The Turks stuck to generalities in what
they said. What was already clear was that among the mob of advisers,
diplomats and politicians crammed into their hotel and the meeting room
it was not going to be easy to come to quick and clear conclusions the next
day.
The next few hours were spent with everyone kicking their heels
waiting for the heads of government to emerge from their dinner, which,
as time went on, was clearly not proving plain sailing. Finally, shortly
before midnight, Blair returned to the hotel. A formula had been agreed
under which the European Union would open accession negotiations with
Turkey if, in December 2004, it decided that the Copenhagen political
criteria had been fulfilled. It had been a difficult discussion, with many,
the French president in particular, wanting a slower timetable and a lesser
degree of commitment. It had been the best obtainable. H e agreed that I
should telephone Ziyal and give him the formula, some flavour of the
194 CYPRUS. T H E SEARCH FOR \i [Link]

discussion, and the prime minister's judgement that this was an important
breakthrough and the best result obtainable. This I duly did. Ziyal tele-
phoned back at 3.00am to say on behalf of Erdogan and Giil that it would
be very helpful if, when the formula agreed over dinner came for approval
to the European Council in the morning, the prime minister could argue
for a bit more immediacy. I said I would pass the message on, which I
did, and Blair, with support from the German chancellor, managed to add
the words 'without delay' to the commitment to open negotiations. At
that stage, during the night, there was no hint of the dramas to come.
The following morning, however, all was turmoil and chaos in the
T u r l d ~delegation. News reports indicated that Erdogan and Giil were
taking the outcome of the previous night's dinner-table discussion very
badly. There was much talk of rejection and betrayal. The half-full glass
was being described as having no water in it at all. Not for the first time
Turkish diplomacy was falling victim to the excessive expectations it had
built up for itself. Throughout the morning telephone calls and meetings
between members of the European Council and the Turkish leaders were
used to bring home to them that what had been achieved was both posi-
tive and substantial. Further discussion in the European Council showed
that there was no stomach for reopening the hard-fought compromise of
the night before, apart from the minor addition of the words 'without
delay'. By the early afternoon the Turkish leaders had decided to pro-
claim victory and to present the outcome, correctly, as a considerable
success. Rut by then any chance of getting their attention to take difficult
decisions on Cyprus had long since passed, nor was the success so clearcut
that they felt able to afford a showdown with Denktash who was in
Ankara issuing defiant denunciations of the Annan Plan. All through the
morning de Soto tried to get hold of Ziyal and failed; nor was any other
Turkish official prepared to say where Turkey stood over Cyprus. Finally
in mid-afternoon Ertugruloglu turned up for the first and last time at the
foreign ministry conference centre, accompanied by a middle-ranking
Turkish diplomat, to say that the proposals were unacceptable in too
many ways for him to be able to enumerate and that there was nothing to
negotiate about.
At this point any hope of a settlement being reached in Copenhagen
finally evaporated. The European Council was moving towards the final
stages of agreeing the terms of accession for the ten candidates. Among
these was a still divided Republic of Cyprus. It was time to switch to the
alternative approach which, fortunately, had been extensively discussed
with the Danish presidency and Commission. This consisted in accepting
the candidacy of a divided island, in line with the Helsinki commitment.
But, in addition, the European Council made clear that it still hoped to
welcome a reunited island by the time the Accession Treaty was signed in
Athens in April. It called for a continuation and conclusion of negotiations
on the Annan Plan by 28 February, which had always been the cut-off
date in the plan for the end of negotiations, and repeated its commitment
to 'accommodate' a UN settlement. A number of dispositions were made
for handling one of two scenarios in the months ahead, either a settlement
or failure to reach one and signature of the Accession Treaty by a divided
island. T h e texts adopted by the European Council on Turkey and Cy-
prus were as follows:

As the accession negotiations have been completed with Cyprus, Cy-

prus will be admitted as a new Member State to the European Union.
Nevertheless the European Council confirms its strong preference for
accession to the European Union by a united Cyprus. In this context
it welcomes the commitment of the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish
Cypriots to continue to negotiate with the objective of concluding a
comprehensive settlement of the Cyprus problem by 28 February
2003 on the basis of the UNSG's proposals. The European Council
believes that those proposals offer a unique opportunity to reach a
settlement in the coming weeks and urges the leaders of the Greek
Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities to seize this opportunity.

The Union recalls its willingness to accommodate the terms of a set-

tlement in the Treaty of Accession in line with the principles on
which the EU is founded. In case of a settlement, the Council, acting
by unanimity on the basis of proposals by the Commission, shall de-
cide upon adaptations of the terms concerning the accession of
Cyprus to the EU with regard to the Turkish Cypriot community.

The European Council has decided that, in the absence of a settle-

ment, the application of the acquis to the northern part of the island
shall be suspended, until the Council decides unanimously otherwise,
on the basis of a proposal by the Commission. Meanwhile, the Coun-
cil invites the Commission, in consultation with the government of
Cyprus, to consider ways of promoting economic development of the
northern part of Cyprus and bringing it closer to the Union.

The European Council recalls its decision in 1999 in Helsinki that

Turkey is a candidate state destined to join the Union on the basis of
 C Y P R U S : 'I'HE S E A R C H F O R A S O L U ' I ' I O N

the same criteria as applied to the other candidate states. It strongly

welcomes the important steps taken by Turkey towards meeting the
Copenhagen criteria, in particular through the recent legislative pack-
ages and the subsequent implementation measures which cover a
large number of key priorities specified in the Accession Partnership.
The Union acknowledges the determination of the new Turkish gov-
ernment to take further steps on the path of reform and urges in
particular the governmcnt to address swiftly all remaining shortcom-
ings in the field of the political criteria, not only with regard to
legislation but also in particular with regard to implementation. The
Union recalls that, according to the political criteria decided in Co-
penhagen in 1993, membership requires that a candidate country has
achieved stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of
law, human rights and respcct for and protection of minoritics.

The Union encourages Turkey to pursue energetically its reform pro-

cess. If the European Council in December 2004, on the basis of a
report and a recomme~ldation from the Commission, decides that
Turkey fulfils the Copenhagen political criteria, the European Union
will open accession negotiations with Turkey without delay.

In order to assist 'Turkey towards EU membership, the accession

strategy for Turkey shall be strengthened. The Commission is invited
to submit a proposal for a revised Accession Partnership and to inten-
sify the process of legislative scrutiny. In parallel, the EC-Turkey
Customs Union should be cxtcnded and deepened. The Union will
significantly increase its pre-accession financial assistance for Turkey.
This assistance will be from 2004 and be financed under the budget
heading 'pre-accession expenditure'.

Discussion of this text was uncontentious. And the atmosphere was

somewhat improved by the news that, following some hectic shuttling by
Javier Solana throughout the day, the Creek Cypriots had agreed that
they would not participate in the military provisions of the European
Security and Defence Policy; Turkish objections to that policy had been
overcome; and the North Atlantic Council, meeting in Brussels, had
settled the terms of cooperation between NAI'O and the EU on defence
matters. As so often before, the Cyprus problem was left with the role of
Cinderella on an otherwise outstandingly successfid and significant
occasion.
 11

2003 : Extra Time

T
he failure to get agreement on a comprehensive settlement either
before or at Copenhagen was clearly a setback. The moment at
which both sides were, for quite different reasons, under the
greatest pressure to show flexibility, with a clear deadline set to concen-
trate minds, and when reaching an agreement would have brought
equivalent benefits, had been allowed to slip away. But no irretrievable
damage had been done to the structure of the package that Annan had
originally put forward in November; some clever legal drafting could take
care of the telescoping of the pre- and post-Copenhagen phases provided
for in the original proposals. The working groups on international obliga-
tions and domestic legislation, to which Denktash had agreed in early
October and then prevented for two months from meeting, had now
finally been staffed and were ready to start work; they could run in par-
allel with further negotiations between Clerides and Denktash, and did in
fact do so from the beginning of January 2003. Moreover Clerides, who
had hitherto given the impression that he would be unable to negotiate
beyond Christmas because of the imminence of the presidential election
in the south, showed no signs of disengaging or of being unable to sustain
his end of the negotiations. And Denktash, who had by now returned to
the island, while continuing to make negative statements about the Annan
proposals, showed no signs of unwillingness to continue either.
Moreover the pressures on Denktash were mounting considerably. A
spontaneous demonstration of Turkish Cypriots took place in north
Nicosia on the day of the Copenhagen Summit, demanding acceptance of
the Annan Plan and membership of the European Union. This was
followed in January by further massive demonstrations. Estimates of their
size varied, but 80,000, a remarkably high proportion of a total population
of north Cyprus of fewer than 200,000, was generally regarded as close to
the mark. Despite many forebodings, the demonstrations passed off
peacefully, but there was no doubting the real anger at Denktash's torpe-
198 CYPRUS T H I S S E I \ I I C H IYOK A S O L U T I O N

doing of the chances of a settlement at Copenhagen and there were even

unprecedented open signs of criticism and discontent at the role Turkey
was playing. Nor was attendance at the demonstrations confined to
supporters of the opposition parties and business interests; rather it
stretched right across Turkish Cypriot society, including many regarded
as members of the establishment, usually solid supporters of Denktash,
and also Turks from the mainland, often dismissed as a group hostile to a
settlement.
Opinion polls showed strong support for the Annan Plan and surpris-
ingly this was even true of polls taken in Morphou, a town due to be
handed back to the Greek Cypriots as a result of the territorial adjustment
and whose inhabitants therefore faced displacement yet again. The dem-
onstrations and the rising support in the north for a settlement also had a
positive spin-off in the south. Greek Cypriots who had tended to regard
Turkish Cypriots as giving uncritical and unquestioning support to
Denktash realized that a real shift was under way. The noises coming out
of Ankara, particularly from the new government and its supporters,
while confused and not very clear, were very different from the usual
unquestioning support for Denktash. I-Iigh-level Turkish visitors who
streamed through northern Cyprus in the weeks following Copenhagen
gave mixed signals. The speaker of the Turl<ish National Assembly struck
a note of nationalist defiance, as did some military visitors. But others,
like the prime minister, Giil, and Erdogan, put the accent on finding a
solution and were evidently ill at ease with the aggressive tone of Denk-
tash's press statements. The tension between these visitors and Denktash
was in~possibleto conceal.
One new element had begun to emerge right at the end of 2002.
Denktash began to speak publicly and to his visitors of the need for a
referendum in the north before he, as the T R N C negotiator (or someone
else if he could not bring himself to accept the task), signed any commit-
ment at all to a settlement. From the outset it was clear that the
referendum Denktash now had in mind was quite separate and different
from the simultaneous referendums in the north and the south to approve
(or reject) any settlement that the two leaders had signed and submitted
to them. This latter approach had been and remained an integral part of
every UN plan since the 1992 Set of Ideas. 'l'he latest idea fitted into an
easily recognizable pattern of Denktash thinking, which consisted of
always finding a new procedural obstacle just when negotiations were
reaching the home straight - at no point previously had he mentioned this
obstacle, although it was now asserted that it formed part of the TRNC
constitution. The assumption was that he was expecting to be able to
manipulate any such advance referendum so that it produced a negative
result and thus give him a firmly democratic excuse for refusing to sign an
agreement. As opinion swung in the north towards strong support for the
Annan Plan and EU membership, this assumption began to look less and
less viable; and, as it swung, so did Denktash's enthusiasm for the idea
evaporate, as we shall see. But he had planted a seed. And thought began
to be given by the U N as to how, in the necessary task of telescoping the
various stages of the original Annan Plan to take account of the passage of
time, more prominence could be given to the role of the referendums and
less to the up-front legal commitment of the leaders to the outcome of the
negotiations.

A presidential election in the south

The Copenhagen European Council brought to an end the semi-truce in
Greek Cypriot domestic politics, which, to general surprise, had prevailed
through the whole of 2002. With the election only two months away, the
members of the National Council returning from Copenhagen headed for
the hustings. Clerides, after much agonizing and under pressure to do so
from his own party (which had no real desire to support the candidacy of
Omirou, the leader of the small socialist party they had backed earlier in
the year in an attempt to split DIKO leader Tassos Papadopoulos's coali-
tion) decided to run again. Within 24 hours, despite some frantic arm
twisting, his own attorney-general, Markides, who had been heavily
involved in the talks process, also threw his hat into the ring as an inde-
pendent, thus further splitting the centre-right vote and also undermining
Clerides's main appeal, right across the political spectrum, as the indis-
pensable negotiator who could be trusted in the final phase of the
negotiations to secure a settlement. Unfortunately for Clerides, every
word spoken by Denktash belied the picture of a negotiation in its final
phase and thus further undermined this appeal. Whether Denktash in-
tended to have this effect it is hard to say; he was certainly not going to
put himself out to help Clerides, and he could see the tactical benefits he
would be able to draw from the election of someone like Papadopoulos
who could be depicted as a rejectionist.
The campaign did not in fact focus much on the negotiations for a
settlement or on the Annan Plan. Unlike 1992-93, when Clerides had
stood against Vassiliou and had opposed Boutros-Ghali's Set of Ideas,
Papadopoulos resisted any temptation to launch an open onslaught on
Annan's proposals. H e did not really need to. Every Cypriot voter knew
that Papadopoulos was less committed to the success of the negotiations
and thus would tend to be less flexible than Clerides; so those who did
not like the Annan Plan knew whom they should vote for. And the one-
third of the electorate that was in the gift of AKEL was concentrating
much more on returning to office than on the settlement negotiations.
T h e opinion polls from the outset gave Papadopoulos a strong lead, with
Clerides trailing and Markides well behind that, other candidates being
nowhere. By early February the only real question was whether Papado-
poulos would win on the first round, thus avoiding a run-off a week later
in which Clerides might have hoped to pick up most of Markides's vote.
O n 16 February Papadopoulos won on the first round.

The negotiations resume

The resumption of the negotiations in the second week of January, while
taking place in an atmosphere which fell well short of the euphoria briefly
aroused when the face-to-face talks had started exactly a year before, was
business-like and practical. The working groups established to draw up
the international obligations and domestic legislation of the new Cyprus
were at last at work and, while they faced an enormous task in bureau-
cratic terms, it seemed unlikely that they would throw up any insuperable
political problems. Progress was agonizingly painstaking, but progress
there was. At the same time, Clerides and Denktash agreed that Annan
should conduct competitions for the flag and anthem of a reunited Cyprus
and could approach potential candidates for appointment to the transi-
tional Supreme Court which would need to be ready to operate as soon as
a settlement came into effect. A total of 1,506 flag designs and 11 1 sug-
gested anthems were submitted by entrants from 50 different countries.
But there were plenty of less positive indicators, among which Denktash's
public statements about the Annan Plan were pron~inent.H e put out a
series of estimates of the implications of the proposals, designed to scare
the Turkish Cypriots and bearing no relation whatsoever to the careful
estimates the UN itself had made, based on 'l'RNC census figures, before
putting the proposals forward. He alleged that 70,000 Turkish Cypriots
would be displaced by the territorial adjustment, while the UN calcula-
tions gave figures between 42,000 and 45,000. He gave estimates of the
combined effect of the territorial adjustment and the limited and delayed
right of residence for Greek Cypriots in the north which implied more
 E: X 'I' I< A 'I' I h.1 E 201

than 100,000 Turkish Cypriots (over half the population) would be dis-
placed. I I e spoke apocalyptically of the Turkish Cypriots being wiped out
within a few years. Faced with this steady drip of disinformation, the UN
and its backers could do little. T h e U N was bound by its own news
blackout, as were the rest of us. T h e UN, in any case, as the facilitator of
the negotiations, could not go out and proselytize for a particular set of
proposals that had not yet been accepted by either side, and reducing to
scale Denktash's various eximates was not likely to sound good to a
Greek Cypriot electorate that was in the midst of the presidential cam-
paign. Fortunately the credibility of Denktash's propaganda among
ordinary Turkish Cypriots seemed low.
T h e position that Clerides took up when the talks resumed was that
there were certainly aspects of the Annan I1 proposals with which he took
issue and would like to see changed. These he and his collaborators dis-
cussed with de Soto, trying as far as possible to proceed on the basis of
'clarifications' rather than putting forward actual changes thenlselves.
Conscious that some further changes were almost certain to be made to
meet points being raised by the Turks and Turkish Cypriots, in particular
the map, they were determined that they too should get changes that
would make any f~u-therrevision of the Annan Plan a balanced one. But
Clerides's position, constantly reiterated, was that, if Uenktash would
accept Annan I1 and sign it, so would he.
From the Turkish side there trickled out a series of non-papers, three
in fact, all called 'Basic requirements for a settlement in Cyprus' and all
different from each other. T h e first, rather general paper was given to de
Soto by the Turks themselves and was dated 10 January. It contained five
points:

(i) Territory. The present (Aman 11) map was not acceptable. They were
ready to negotiate 'in a substantial manner'.

(ii) Right of return to property. Strong preference for compensation

only. Bi-zonality must be preserved if there were to be returns. A ten-year
moratorium and/or permanent restrictions would be needed.

(iii) Security. The Treaty of Guarantee must stand. The UN peace force
should not have an enforccment role. There must be no hierarchy be-
tween thc troops of the guarantor powers and those of the UN. There
should be no Cypriot participation in multilatcral operations without the
agreement of the guarantor powers.
202 C Y P R U S : ' T H E S E A R C H I;OK A [Link]

(iv) Turks in the TRNC. The settlement should not impose provisions
that would result in the repatriation of persons legally resident in Cyprus.

(v) Statuslsovereignty. A strong plug for 'constituent' states and two 'peo-
ples' and for sovereignty to 'emanate' from the two sides.

Several of these points were already dealt with partially or completely in

either Annan I or Annan 11; others were going to be more difficult.
T h e second version of 'Basic requirements' emerged from the Turks
on 27 January. It had now grown to seven points and contained actual
redrafts of parts of Annan 11. T h e main changes from the 10 January
paper were:

(i) Territory. As before.

(ii) Property. Moratorium now nine years. Returns by Greek Cypriots to

be capped at 750 per year thereafter, rising to a total of 11,250 in the 15th
year.

(iii) Turks in Cyprus. 50,000, plus those already having permanent resi-
dence for five years to be able to stay. No forccd repatriation of Turks
legally in Cyprus.

(iv) Aliens. Neither Turks nor Greeks should be allowed to make up more
than 5 per cent of the population of the island.

(v) Governance. Drafting changes giving effect to the proposals in the first
version of the 'Basic requircments' paper. One-third of senators from each
constituent state needed for an affirmative vote. Thirteen senators' votes
needed for matters requiring a special majority.

(vi) Status. Drafting changes giving effect to partnership, 'peoples', non-

domination.

(vii) Security. Drafting changes to give effect to the ideas in the earlier pa-
per: 14 days' notice of any troop movements.

While some of the precise drafting in this second version was certainly
not going to be negotiable, the substance had not changed much nor got
much more difficult and the increased specificity on some points made
subsequent negotiation more straightforward.
T h e third version of the 'Basic requirements' paper was handed over
by Denktash to Clerides on 3 February. It was unchanged from the
second version. But it was accompanied by a copy of Denktash's speaking
notes that day, which raised a number of additional issues, namely:

(i) Property. A plug for a global exchange of property and no restitution.

Restitution would be a 'recipe for disaster . . . which will take us back to
pre-1974, even to 1963'.

(ii) An obscure reference requested to the Treaty of Establishment

(which set up the Sovereign Base Areas) to make it clear that that Treaty
was only relevant with respect to the SBAs, i.e. avoiding any reconfirma-
tion of the 1960 constitution of the Republic of Cyprus.

(iii) Debt. All debts prior to entry into force of the agrcement to be thc re-
sponsibility of the constituent states.

(iv) European Union. A plea for simultaneity of entry by Turkey and the
TRNC; but acceptance this would not be so, and some consequential
amendments.

(v) Economic aspects. Request for concrete measures harmonizing the

economies of the two constituent statcs.

(vi) Signature. Agreement to be signed by the presidents of the two con-

stituent states.

T h e additional points from Denktash, not all of which were impossible to

accommodate, were added on to nine pages of drafting amendments to
the Foundation Agreement handed over by Denktash to Clerides on 15
January. This would all have been a lot more discouraging to the UN
team if it had not been made clear within days by the Turks that Denk-
tash had acted without authorization. T h e only points that needed to be
addressed were those in their own 'Basic requirements' paper, i.e. the
document of 27 January.
By this stage neither side was really trying very seriously to negotiate
with the other. Both were concentrating their efforts on what everyone
knew was coming down the road, a further revision by Annan of his
proposals. So most attention was focused on the bilateral meetings each
had with de Soto, and on de Soto's contacts in Ankara and Athens which
were continuing in parallel at a hectic pace.
In late January and early February I visited the regional capitals for
the first time since the Copenhagen meetings. T h e auguries were hard to
read. In Athens, Foreign Minister Papandreou (since 1 January taking his
turn as the EU president) remained as determined as ever to do what he
204 CYPRUS T H E S E A R C H I;OR '1 S O L U T I O N

could to get a settlement before the 28 February deadline, and Karaman-

lis, the leader of the opposition, was supportive too. Papandreou was
frustrated that all his efforts to get a Greek-Turkish dialogue going over
Cyprus, and in particular over the outstanding issue of the number of
Greek and Turkish troops to be stationed on the island after a settlement,
had so far come to nothing and evoked no response from the Turks except
to say that they were not yet ready. H e undertook to keep pushing for a
meeting to discuss the troops question. He also agreed that the process of
seeking the consent of the European Parliament to the Treaty of Acces-
sion, which was in full swing, should be handled in such a way as not to
prejudge whether it would in the end be a divided island or a reunited one
whose representatives would be signing the new Treaty in April. This
meant, rather awkwardly, sending forward two options to the European
Parliament, which deeply upset the legal purists in the Commission and
fluttered some dovecotes in Athens and Nicosia, but which passed off
eventually without causing any problems.
In Nicosia Clerides was in the last three weeks of the election cam-
paign with hope of victory ebbing away, the main doubt being whether
he would he beaten in the first round (16 February) or the second (23
February). Up to then, he said he would continue to negotiate, but, once a
clear result was known, he would pass the responsibility to his successor
even though the formal installation of the new president was not due to
take place until 28 February. Papadopoulos and his coalition partner
Christofias were predictably bullish about their chances of victory but
cautious to the point of total obscurity as to their intentions for handling
the Cyprus problem thereafter. They were offering no rejectionist hos-
tages to fortune. The negotiations were still in the hands of Clerides and
they supported the way he was managing them. O n the other side of the
city Denktash, whom I was seeing for the first time since his operation
the previous October, seemed cheerful and reasonably fit, having clearly
lost a bit of weight. As usual he showed no interest in engaging in a seri-
ous discussion of the main issues in the negotiations (it was before he had
tabled the 'Basic requirements' paper with his own additions, and it was
never wise to reveal knowledge of Turkish positions to Denktash since he
was only too likely then to try to alter them for the worse). I taxed him
with the disinformation lie was spreading about the Annan Plan, going
carefully through those of his public statements widest of the mark, and
pointed out that the co~lclusionmost observers drew was that he was
determined to scupper any chance of a settlement. He showed no sign of
 EXTRA TIME 205

contrition, nor of mending his ways. The one dog that did not bark was
that Denktash never mentioned the idea of a pre-signature referendum,
from which I deduced (correctly, as it turned out) that the state of public
opinion in the north had caused the attractions of this option to pall.
In Ankara I was brought face to face with the reality that the looming
war in Iraq and the need for the Turks finally to give a definitive response
to the US and UK requests to allow their troops to transit Turkey was
gradually drowning out all other issues in the consciousness of both
politicians and the bureaucracy. The Turks had been tossing this hot
potato from hand to hand ever since Erdogan's visit to Washington in
early December when Bush had believed that Erdogan had given him a
green light over transit and Erdogan believed he had been completely
non-committal. In the eyes of the Americans, at least, the answer was long
overdue and the pressures to put the matter to the test in the Turkish
parliament were mounting daily. The immediate consequence, so far as
my own visit was concerned, was that Ziyal, who was in the lead on Iraq
too, had to pull out of the talks at the last moment, and I had to deal with
Ilkin and Apakan. Normally this was not a particularly fruitful process
but on this occasion it was less discouraging, although not without its
oddities. The Turks pressed hard the case for a pre-signature referendum,
undeterred by my telling them that Denktash appeared to have lost
interest in one. Apart from pointing out that it might seem a little strange
to most Turkish Cypriots to vote in two referendums on virtually the
same question within a few weeks, I was careful not to rubbish the idea,
making clear that this was a matter for the Turks and Turkish Cypriots.
The rest of the talks consisted of working through their 'Basic require-
ments' paper, pointing out what was likely to fly, what was not and what
could perhaps be achieved by approaching matters somewhat differently.
It was made clear by then that if Turkey secured enough of the points in
their paper (not all of them), they would hope to support a new revision of
the Annan Plan and to persuade Denktash to do so also. Separate meet-
ings with some of Erdogan's advisers and members of parliament from
the governing AK party were even more encouraging. They were quite
open about their desire to see the Cyprus problem resolved, about their
understanding of how failure to settle now would weigh heavily on the
main objective of their foreign policy, getting into the European Union,
and about how Erdogan and Giil would have to give a clear lead if Denk-
tash was to be brought along. They pressed eloquently for a concession
on the sovereignty issue, but seemed to realize that this was unlikely to be
206 CYPRUS T H E S E I I R C H FOR h SOI,U'I'ION

negotiable and that Annan's approach provided the substance of what

they were seeking, if not the label.

The UN prepares the final throw

T h e window through which the UN had to squeeze if the negotiations
were to be concluded by 28 February was a remarkably narrow one. It
had been accepted from Copenhagen onwards that matters could not be
brought to a head until the Greek Cypriot presidential election was over.
Having refrained from making proposals during the Turkish election
period the previous autumn, the U N could not behave differently to-
wards the Greek Cypriots. While it might be possible to allow a few days'
slippage beyond 28 February, it was crucial not to say so in advance, and,
in any case, very few extra days were available if the whole timetable of
completing the process before the signature of the Treaty of Accession on
16 April and thus making possible the accession of the newly reunited
Cyprus were not to be jeopardized. O n 13 February Annan called de Soto
back to New York to take stock, and, rather unusually, he invited Weston
and me to attend as well.
Not surprisingly, since we had all been working together closely for
over three years, there was effectively a consensus over our analysis of the
situation and our prescriptions for action. We believed that the chances of
reaching a settlement hung in the balance. It could go either way. But the
only way to find out was to fire the last shot in the UN locker and put the
matter to the test, what had been known up till then as the 'do or die
scenario'. Delay would not only mean losing many of the positive pres-
sures derived from the EU timetable, but there was also no certainty that
the distracting storm clouds massing over Iraq would be rapidly dissi-
pated or would leave behind a Turkey more capable and willing to take
the necessary decisions. Annan then informed us that he intended to visit
the region in the last week of February, going first to Ankara, then to
Athens and ending up in Nicosia, where he would aim to get the agree-
ment of the Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots to a second revised
version of his plan which he intended to circulate ahead of time. H e
agreed himself to press the Greek and Turkish governments to meet
ahead of his visit and try to settle the issue of residual troop numbers.
Weston and I said that our governments at the highest level gave their full
support to this approach and would do all they could during the period
ahead to back up Annan's efforts.
 EXTRA TIME 207

One new element was introduced at this stage. The British govern-
ment had from the outset given its full backing to the UN. In recent
months consideration had been given in London to whether anything
more could be done. Since the size and configuration of the British Sover-
eign Base Areas had been settled in 1960 and set out in the Treaty of
Establishment, which, along with the Treaties of Guarantee and Alliance,
laid the foundations for the independence of Cyprus, their role and pur-
pose had evolved constantly. The 99 square miles of territory originally
defined was not all needed for current or prospective military and associ-
ated purposes. Could we contemplate offering to give up some of this
territory in the context of a settlement of the Cyprus problem? Ministers
agreed that we could. About 45 of the 99 square miles could be offered:
those areas from the Western Sovereign Base Area going entirely to the
Greek Cypriot component state, which surrounded it, those areas from
the Eastern Sovereign Base Area going mainly to the Greek Cypriots but
with a small parcel of land going to the Turkish Cypriots, which thus left
their component state still contiguous to the Rase Area, an important
point for the Turkish Cypriots. This offer would change the parameters
within which the single most hotly debated of the core issues would be
settled, providing a little more slack in what had become a very tight
situation. And while it did not affect the linked question of the return of
Greek Cypriots to their properties in the north, it would bring consider-
able economic and commercial benefits to the recipients since it would
result in the lifting of the ban on commercial development, which was an
integral part of the Treaty of Establishment. The offer included a stretch
of valuable coastal land. Annan and his team were grateful for this unex-
pected new trump card added to their hand. In due course we handed
over the maps and the draft amendments to the Treaty of Establishment
required to give effect to the offer. Astonishingly there was no leak until
the secretary-general tabled the second revision of his plan (Annan 111).
And even more astonishingly neither side in Cyprus was able to identify
any perfidious motives behind the British offer.
Annan's latest reminder to the Greek and Turkish governments of the
need for them to discuss residual troop numbers finally bore fruit, and a
meeting duly took place in Ankara on 2 1 February. Unfortunately it made
no progress and reached no agreement. So de Soto, who had gone to
Ankara to be briefed on the outcome and who, at Turkish insistence, had
to be given separate briefings on the same meeting by Greek and Turks,
was left without an agreed figure to put in the revised plan.
208 CYPLIUS I Ilk S L A R C I I P O R A S O L U T I O N

Annan I11
De Soto's shuttling between the different capitals had continued up to the
eve of Annan's own arrival in the region. This left precious little time to
incorporate the fruits of his consultations into the new revised proposals
and to get these to all concerned ahead of Annan's arrival. So it was
decided to circulate to them over the weekend of 22-23 February an
informal paper setting out the main changes being made to Annan 11. The
full text of Annan 111, which took the UN team several sleepless nights to
complete, was tabled on 26 February.
There were two important, general points about Annan 111. The first
of these was that the two-page 'Comprehensive Settlement of the Cyprus
Problem' which had formed the first stage of the rocket designed to put
Annan I and Annan I1 into orbit, had now been changed into a two-page
'Commitment to submit the Fouildation Agreement to approval at sepa-
rate simultaneous referenda in order to achieve a comprehensive
settlement of the Cyprus problem'. In other words the leaders were no
longer asked to bind themselves at the outset to anything beyond putting
the package to their electorates. Should the results of the referendums on
30 March both be positive they were then bound, as were the three guar-
antor powers, to implement the package the following day. Rut should the
result of either referendum be negative, then all agreements were null and
void and no binding obligations remained. In a sense therefore the two
referendums idea, with which Lknktash had toyed, would be telescoped
into one; but, before he was required to implement anything that was
legally binding and enforceable, there would have been an affirmative
vote by the Turkish Cypriots, which is what he argued was a legal re-
quirement under the T R N C constitution. The second point was that
Annan 111 introduced an entirely new text of Article 1 of the Constitution
which in one sentence renamed Cyprus, described the form of the central
government and banished the old placebos of 'common7 state and 'com-
ponent' states. It read as follows: 'The United Cyprus Republic is an
independent and sovereign state with a single international legal person-
ality and a federal government and consists of two constituent states,
namely the Greek Cypriot State and the Turkish Cypriot State.' ' I h s
judgement of Solomon balanced extremely important concessions to both
sides: the Greek Cypriots getting the federal label on which they had
always insisted, the Turkish Cypriots getting the concept of constituent
states and a very attractive name for their own state. It could be said that
parthenogenesis had been achieved.
 I n addition to these two general points, Annan I11 proposed a consid-
erable number of changes that had emerged from the negotiations and,
even more, from the consultations which de Soto had had in the final six
weeks. I have grouped them for ease of understanding into those made in
response to Turkish and Turkish Cypriot representations and those made
in response to Greek and Greek Cypriot representations. T h e Turkish
and Turkish Cypriot points were as follows:

(i) The Karpas Peninsula was to remain Turkish Cypriot, leaving the
Turkish Cypriots with 29.2 per cent (an increase on Annan 11) of the Re-
public of Cyprus (Denktash having said since 1992 that he would accept
29-plus per cent).

(ii) Constituent states were given discretion to decide on internal citizen-

ship. So Greek Cypriots returning to the north would not vote as part of
the Turkish Cypriot state in federal elections. It also meant the limits
were absolute.

(iii) The moratorium on Greek Cypriot right of residence in the north

went up to six years (not the nine years the Turks had asked for). The
steps fol!owing the moratorium became shallower (down to 7 per cent
from the end of the moratorium until year 10; down to 14 per cent from
18 per cent for years 10-15; final cap at year 15 down from 28 per cent to
2 1 per cent).

(iv) Greece and Turkey's consent for any international military operations
in Cyprus would be needed as well as that of the constituent states (a re-
version to Annan I).

(v) Religious sites were redefined to include only buildings and immediate
surroundings (to banish Turkish Cypriots' fear that a wider definition
would mean substantial repossession of property in the north by the
Greek Cypriot Church which had in many cases possessed land for many
miles around religious sites).

(vi) A simple list of 45,000 former Turkish citizens to have the right to
Cypriot citizenship (probably less in gross terms than the 33,000 plus dif-
ferent categories in Annan I1 but easier to operate).

(vii) Students and academic staff exempted from limitations on residency

and immigration controls (important for the Turkish Cypriots given the
growth of higher-education English-language establishments in the
T R N C catering for the Middle East marliet).
 (viii) Most favoured nation status for 'l'urltey.

(ix) Debts taken over by respective constituent states (a Denktash point).

(x) 6,000 Turkish and Greek troops to stay (nearer thc top end of the An-
nan I1 2,500-7,500 bracket).

(xi) Period of notice required for military movements reduced from 14

days to two (for ordinary movements) and three (for exercises) (a con-
stantly reiterated Turkish request).

(xii) Request for the European Union and the Council of Europe to en-
dorse the settlement (a safeguard against court action and Loizidou clone
cases being pursued).

(xiii) Federal economic policy to pay special attention to harmonization of

the economics of the constituent states (a Denktash point).

(xiv) T h e European Union to be asked to summon a donor conference to

raise funds for costs of displacement resulting from the territorial adjust-
ment and other changes.

T h e Creek and Greek Cypriot points were as follows:

(i) Increase in the territorial adjustment from 7 1.5 per cent in Annan I1 to
7 1.8 per cent (when Sovereign Base Area offcr of which Greek Cypriots
got over 90 per cent included). Some coastline near Morphou and two
historical sites added. 2,300 more returns to the adjusted territory than
under Annan 11.

(ii) Increase in overall property reinstatement limit from 9 per cent to 10

per cent, and per village from 14 per cent to 20 per cent.

(iii) Returns by Greek Cypriot property owners to four villagcs in the

I<arpas unlimited. Karpas villagers to have responsibility for their own
cultural and educational affairs.

(iv) Immediate voting for European and local elections by Greek Cypriots
resident in the 'l'urkish Cypriots' constituent state.

(v) Greek Cypriots over 65 to have only a two-year moratorium on return

to property in the north and no quantitative restrictions.

(vi) Nine years' permanent residence required to acquire Cypriot citizen-

ship as opposed to scvcn in Annan I1 (a point designed to rcduce the
number of Turks able to claim Turkish Cypriot citizenship).
 EXTR,\ T I M E 211

(vii) Non-Cypriot Supreme Court judges only to have a say if Cypriots

cannot agree (a point to which Clerides attached importance).
(viii) A Court of First Instance to be created (another Clerides point).

(ix) Rules on entry and residence rights for Turks to be compatible with
the Schengen agreement.

(x) Resolution of missing persons (from 1974) issue given constitutional

force.
(xi) The referendum question redrafted to modify the reference to EU ac-
cession (to make it clear that a negative vote in the referendum would not
invalidate EU accession which had already been decided).

T h e Turks had also pressed hard for some provisions to be linked to

Turkish accession to the European Union, thus giving the Greek Cypriots
and, indeed, other member states an incentive to work for that outcome.
So Annan I11 proposed the removal of the residual Greek and Turkish
troops from the island when Turkey acceded, the removal of the agree-
ment of Greece and Turkey to international military operations, and also
the removal of limits on Greek Cypriot residence in the north.

Three visits and no result

Annan's visit to Ankara, his first port of call, seemed at the time to have
gone well. T h e paper setting out the changes to Annan I1 having only
been in the hands of the Turks for a few hours, it was not reasonable to
expect a definitive response from them and, in any case, it remained
important for reasons of Turkish domestic politics that it should be
Denktash who gave the answer first. But, at a working dinner with Erdo-
gan, Ziyal gave an entirely fair presentation of the proposed changes and
Erdogan seemed pleased with them. In Athens it was all plain sailing,
with the Greeks making it clear that anything the Greek Cypriots could
accept they could accept too.
O n the island Annan had to face up to the fact that, since
Clerides/Papadopoulos and Denktash had only just received the full text
of Annan I11 he could not expect them to sign up to the commitment to a
referendum on it there and then. Moreover Papadopoulos, who was not
yet in office, had had only ten days since his election to catch up with all
the details of the proposals. During that time de Soto had conducted
several long teach-ins with the president-elect, who had kept his cards
close to his chest. H e had been equally cagey when I saw him after my
212 CYPIIUS: T H E SEAIICH FOR A SOLU'I'ION

arrival on the island on 22 February. So Annan decided to avoid a failed

effort to get agreement when he saw the leaders on 27 February and
instead went straight for a short extension of the timetable. H e therefore
invited Papadopoulos (whose presidential inauguration was to take place
the next day) and Denktash to meet him again in The Hague on 10
March. H e told them he would ask each of them formally then whether
they were prepared to sign the text committing them to putting the
proposals to a referendum on 30 March, making it clear that if they said
they were so prepared, he would expect them to campaign for a 'yes' vote.
H e reminded them he was also waiting for their reactions to the names he
had given them for appointments to the transitional Supreme Court
which he asked for by 3 March. He pointed out that each side needed to
give him the draft constitutions for their constituent states which had to
be consistent with the Foundation Agreement. H e wanted their decisions
on a flag and an anthem. H e drew attention to the massive amount of
work remaining to be done by the working groups on international obli-
gations and domestic legislation. Papadopoulos's response was to say that
he would come to The Hague as requested, ready to reply. Denktash
grumbled. H e called Papadopoulos a 'bloody nuisance' for agreeing to go,
but then agreed to go too. Later it emerged that he had stopped participa-
tion of his representatives in the working groups on international
obligations and domestic legislation. Meanwhile in north Nicosia another
huge demonstration had taken place, calling for acceptance of the Annan
Plan and accession to the European Union.
That evening Annan invited Weston and me to dinner at the Nicosia
Hilton Hotel, partly to thank us for the help we had given the UN
throughout the negotiations and also to look ahead. We agreed that eve-
rything hinged on Ankara's considered reaction to the proposals in Annan
111. Denktash himself was never spontaneously going to accept any pro-
posals. As to Papadopoulos, it was already clear that his enthusiasm for
pressing on was a good deal less than that of Clerides, but he was showing
every sign of believing that he could not afford to back out. If Denktash,
willingly or not, signed up, he was likely to do so too. We also discussed
the eventuality of Denktash saying no or continuing to filibuster. We
agreed that in either of those circumstances it made no sense to go on
beyond The Hague. Once any realistic prospect had gone of a settlement
being reached before 16 April, when the Treaty of Accession was to be
signed, it would be better to pull the plug on the negotiations and leave
Denktash and the Turks to face the consequences. But even the slenderest
chance of getting a settlement in that time frame should be seized. Annan
asked me to try to find an additional legal drafter to reinforce his hard-
pressed team. We produced a name within a few days but were never
taken up on it for reasons which soon became clear, including the fact that
Denktash had stopped the working groups.

The run-up to The Hague and the last chance

There was only one working week between the Nicosia meeting and that
in The Hague and during it nothing of significance happened in the
negotiations themselves. The UN was anxious to avoid even the slightest
hint that there could be an Annan IV set of proposals; they had used up
all the flexibility and scope for manoeuvre on Annan 111, and the meeting
in The Hague was in any case not designed to negotiate further but to
take a political decision on whether or not to put Annan 111 to referen-
dums in the north and south.
But three major developments did occur during that week, all of them
in Turkey, and, although two of them did not directly involve Cyprus, all
affected the background and climate against which the decisions on
Cyprus had to be taken. The first and least significant was the by-election
in south-eastern Turkey which elected Erdogan to the National Assembly
and thus opened the way to his becoming prime minister and not, as he
had been up to then, merely prime minister in waiting; it also opened the
way to a change at the foreign ministry, with Giil, up to then prime
minister, replacing Yakis as foreign minister. The campaigning for the by-
election and the air of change and upheaval in ministerial ranks reduced
the time and appetite for grappling with difficult, complex issues like
Cyprus.
The second development was far more damaging. O n 1 March, after
weeks of anguished internal debate and haggling with the US over the
accompanying economic aid package, the Turkish government put to the
parliament a proposal authorizing US troops to move through Turkey
into northern Iraq in the event of hostilities in that country. While the
government's measure was supported by more votes than those against it,
there were sufficient abstentions from the ranks of the government's own
supporters to mean that it did not get the necessary majority and thus
failed. This event and its knock-on consequences were to dominate Tur-
key's international policy making for the months ahead. It did not, to put
it mildly, encourage the government to grasp the Cyprus nettle, which
would also have involved a considerable political effort to sell to its par-
liamentary supporters. Moreover throughout the parliamentary saga over
Iraq, the military had stayed quiet, allowing the impression to be created
that they did not favour the government's proposal to give a green light to
the USA. When they explained in the aftermath that they did actually
favour that policy it was too late and rubbed salt in the wound. So rela-
tions between the new government and the military were tense,
unsatisfactory and not propitious to dealing with another issue that con-
cerned them both, Cyprus.
The third development was directly Cyprus-related. Denktash went to
Ankara and conferred with Erdogan, Giil, President Sezer and many
others. And he emerged from these convultations with full Turkish sup-
port for his policy, which as usual put a lot more emphasis on defiance
than on conciliation. Erdogan himself was by the end of the week singing
a quite different song than before, no longer emphasizing the desirability
of a solution but rather the shortcomings (unspecified) of the Annan Plan.
What happened in Anlara to bring about this shift still remains some-
thing of a mystery. Ziyal at The Hague said it was as much a mystery
and a surprise to him as to those outside the Turkish decision-making
machine and he offered no explanation for it. Whether the shaky parlia-
mentary position, an intervention by the military, perhaps with the
encouragement of President Sezer, or Denktash's undoubted powers of
advocacy were responsible it is difficult to say - probably a combination
of all three. Suffice it to say that Denktash emerged not just with Turkish
support but with a blank cheque for whatever he chose to do in T h e
Hague. Ziyal was sent off with him, deprived of any leverage or scope for
manoeuvre. There is some indication that Denktash misled the Turks
over his willingness to have a referendum. He seems to have indicated
such willingness in Ankara, but on the day of The Hague meeting the
government parties in the T R N C blocked an attempt to introduce refer-
endum legislation by depriving the Assembly of a quorum.
De Soto, Weston and I foregathered in The Hague on 9 March and
lunched together at the British ambassador's residence. The outlook was
not promising, given the negative sounds coming out of Ankara. Rut we
agreed that the priority remained to push as hard as possible for a positive
decision on calling referendums on Annan I11 and, if that could not be
achieved immediately, to explore any fall-back which preserved the
timetable we were all working to and still offered realistic hope of a
settlement within it. I then called on Papadopoulos, who was somewhat
incongruously ensconced in a seaside resort hotel at Scheveningen. The
sun shone pallidly, but the wind blew coldly off the North Sea. Papado-
poulos was nervous and cagey. H e would not confirm flatly that he
intended to agree the next day to putting Annan I11 to a referendum but
he gave the impression that he would, while speaking vaguely of the
plan's shortcomings and the shortage of time to prepare for a referendum.
Denktash declined to see either me or Weston, pleading a bad cold (which
did not stop him later alleging that we had refused to see him and were
ganging up to isolate him). Late that night I saw Ziyal. He was tired and
depressed. We agreed that the biggest risk the next day was that Denktash
and Papadopoulos, like drunken men emerging from a pub, would prop
up each other's negative positions. Ziyal's message was clear: if there was
to be any chance of a positive outcome, Papadopoulos would have to pull
away first. I said I thought that could be achieved. But could he manage
the other half? H e grimaced and smiled wanly. I breakfasted early the
next morning with Dimitri Droutsas, Papandreou's adviser, and told him
how things stood, pressing the need for Papadopoulos to respond posi-
tively to Annan's question about a referendum and taking him through
the possible scenario for a last-ditch effort. His response was helpful on all
points.
The secretary-general's meetings on 10 March were to take place in
the Peace Palace, the home at The Hague of the International Court of
Justice, which had been made available to the UN and the other delega-
tions. Dating architecturally from a period at the beginning of the
twentieth century not renowned for its style, an uneasy compromise
between neo-classical grandeur and Dutch homeliness, it was far from
being an ideal conference centre. Delegations were either shut away in
their own rooms for most of the 19 hours of talks, or they roamed the
corridors. Fraternization there was none. Papadopoulos said his answer to
Annan's basic question was yes, although he argued for more time before
the referendum was held, clearly wanting to push it beyond the 16 April
signature of the Treaty of Accession and thus strengthen the Greek
Cypriots' tactical position and reduce their vulnerability. H e was willing
not to reopen negotiations on Annan I11 if Denktash reciprocated. It was
clear at the time, and later when Annan reported in writing to the Secu-
rity Council, that Annan believed he could, if necessary, have overcome
Papadopoulos's reservations about the timing of the referendums.
Whether Papadopoulos (and Christofias) would then have campaigned for
a 'no' vote, as they were to do a year later, cannot be stated with any
certainty. But I doubt it. The imminence of the date for signing the
216 CYPRUS ' I ' H E S E A R C H F O R 12 S O L U T I O N

Accession Treaty would have weighed heavily in the balance. But, given
Denktash's response, that was never put to the test. Denktash gave Annan
a flat no to the request that he put Annan I11 to a referendum. H e pro-
posed that the negotiations begin again from scratch with an open-ended
discussion of principles.
In the light of this unpromising opening the rest of the talks were
devoted to exploring a basis for continuing the process on a realistic and
time-limited basis. Overnight I had put certain suggestions to the UN for
a crash work programme to complete the negotiations and all the ancillary
work by the end of March, and to slip the referendum a further week,
until 6 April. This chimed very much with their own thinking. A consoli-
dated draft of this programme was then put to Papadopoulos, Denktash
and the representatives of the three guarantor powers. It read as follows:

1. The two leadcrs have agreed to an intensified work program for the
technical committees to finish their work by 28 March 2003.

2. They are committed to negotiations on the basis of the 26 February

2003 revision of my plan with a view to agreeing on any changes by 28
March and to putting the finalized Foundation Agreement to simultane-
ous referenda on 6 April.

3. They will nominate the members of the committees on the flag and
anthem competitions, which have been launched with the agreement of
the two sides, by March 14. They will also strive to reach agreement on
the nomination of the members of a future transitional Supreme Court,
the Registrar and Deputy Registrars and the members of the transitional
Board of the Central Bank, failing which they have asked me to contact
persons who would fill those posts in case of approval of the Foundation
Agreement.

4. They committed to table draft constituent state constitutions no later

than 25 March 2003.

5. They will immediately put in hand preparations necessary and to be

completed by 28 March so that the holding of referenda on 6 April will
depcnd only on a political decision to that effect.

6. They will notify the UN SG by 28 March whether they are ready to

hold separate simultaneous referenda on 6 April.

7. The guarantor powers endorse this procedure and undertake to com-

plete whatever internal procedures are necessary in order for them to send
 an irrevocable written commitment not ldtcr than 31 March that they
agree with the holding of separate referenda and would sign thc suggested
'Treaty on matters related to the ncw state of affairs' upon entry into force
of the Foundation Agreement.

8. If agreed by 28 March, separate simultaneous referenda would be held

on 6 April 2003.
9. If referenda producc a positive result, the Foundation Agreement would
cntcr into force at 00:00 hours on the day after certification by the United
Nations.

T h e Turks immediately asked for time to submit it to Ankara and also

obtained a clarification to the effect that if either referendum returned a
negative outcome, the whole plan would be rendered null and void.
When negotiations resumed later in the day it rapidly became clear
that Denktash would accept none of this. H e was not prepared to let the
working groups resume their labours; he was not ready to make any
preparations for a referendum until the negotiations were over and a
decision to hold one was reached; everything to do with the Supreme
Court nominations, the flag and the anthem was premature; he was not
ready to table his constituent state constitution. By the time he had fin-
ished with it the UN work programme consisted of one single sentence as
follows:

The two leaders haw agreed to continue negotiations with a view to

agreeing on any changes to my 26 February revised plan on 28 March.

In parallel with these problems, the Turks then~selvessuddenly found

that they had insuperable difficulties about committing themselves in
advance of the referendums to signing the amendments to the Treaties of
Guarantee, Alliance and Establishment immediately after a successful
outcome. These amendments would require changes to Turkey's own
international obligations and thus could not be promised until the Turk-
ish parliament had approved them, but equally the Turkish parliament
would not even look at such changes until there had been a referendum
showing that the Turkish Cypriots approved them. It was a perfect Catch
2 2 situation. Since the tight timetable requiring the guarantor powers to
bind themselves to sign the treaty amendments the day after two suc-
cessful referendums had taken place had been an unchanged feature of
Annan I, I1 and 111, it was odd, to say the least, that the Turks only for-
mally raised the problem for the first time on 10 March. T h e assumption
had to be that the failed vote over Iraq in the 'I'urkish parliament had
changed everything.
Throughout the late afternoon, the evening and the night Anna11 and
his team wrestled with these two parallel sets of problems. They tried
various amended forms of the work programme that made thc details less
prominent but preserved the essence of it. Each one was rejected by
Denktash. They tried to find ways round the Turkish parliamentary
problem at two successive meetings with the guarantor powers, but these
tended to come up against a Greek (and by implication a Greek Cypriot)
objection that they could not be expected to go into the referendums
uncertain whether or not Turkey would endorse the outcome and bring
the new state of affairs into effect. There was too much of a risk of ending
up stuck in a limbo, with the existing Cyprus effectively wiped out, but
the new reunited one not brought into being. They pointed out that their
parliament too would need to ratify the outcome in slower time, but that
need not prevent Greece and Turkey committing themselves to imple-
ment their part of the bargain the day after the referendums had voted in
favour.
In the late afternoon I went for a walk in the grounds of the Peace
Palace and ran into Annan. It was sunny, but bitingly cold as only an
early March day can be. We agreed that things looked bad. Annan said he
was about to telephone Erdogan and ask for help. I said we were hoping
that the prime minister would do the same, and the Americans were
working on a presidential call. In the event all these calls went through
but they brought about no change in Turkey's or Denktash's positions.
Nor did a call to Denktash by Yakis later that night. The talks adjourned
for a dinner hosted by the Dutch foreign minister. H e had Papadopoulos
on his right and Denktash on his left and the two never exchanged a
word. Annan had slipped away to see his newly born granddaughter in
Haarlem and returned later. The talks went on into the night at the Peace
Palace in an air of increasing frustration and exhaustion. Finally, at a
meeting in the early hours, Annan said to the representatives of the guar-
antor powers that he could see no way forward and no sense in continuing
the negotiations. Only Turkey disagreed and said the negotiations should
go on, but Ziyal was unable to offer anything beyond that.
Nothing remained to be done except to hold the funerary press con-
ferences: de Soto (on behalf of the secretary-general) sad, Papadopoulos
smug and Denktash defiant. De Soto described the situation as the end of
the road. Negotiations would have continued if there had been a strict
work programme, but that had been rejected. Annan would now report to
the Security Council. De Soto's own office in Cyprus would be closed. It
was by no means clear that another opportunity like the present one
would recur any time soon. It was regrettable that Cypriots had been
denied the chance to decide their own future. The plan remained on the
table. If there were a clear and realistic prospect of carrying it forward to
a solution, with the full backing of the motherlands, he would be ready to
assist.
I drove directly from the Peace Palace up the road from The Hague to
Schipol Airport to catch the first flight to London. It was a cold, grey,
dank morning, which matched my mood as 1 contemplated the ruins of
seven years of hard labour. I wrote my report and my assessment of the
future prospects on the plane to London. Both report and assessment
were bleak.
 Epilogue: The Curtain Falls

T
he view of the secretary-general of the United Nations that the
negotiations had reached the end of the road and that there was
no purpose to be served in trying to conceal that they had broken
down at The Hague was contested by no one. Nor was it contested that
the responsibility for the breakdown lay at Denktash's door. Even the
Turkish government, which would have much preferred it if some proc-
ess of negotiation had continued, had had the ground cut from under its
feet by the pleasure displayed by Denktash at the breakdown and by the
intemperance of his constantly reiterated public onslaughts on the Annan
Plan, which he delighted in describing as dead and off the table. That was
not the view taken by anyone else: the widespread opinion in the interna-
tional community was that the Annan Plan was the most sophisticated
and the most complete attempt ever made to solve the Cyprus problem
and that a key objective must now be to rescue it from the shipwreck of
the negotiations. And, while comment on the breakdown was overshad-
owed by the hostilities in Iraq which broke out within a few days of the
meeting at The Hague, there was a general feeling of regret that the effort
and skill that de Soto and Annan had put into the negotiations had not
been crowned with success. It was another piece of bad news in a world
where good news was in short supply.

The European Union moves on

The first steps taken after the meeting in The Hague were by the Euro-
pean Union. There was now no longer even the slenderest chance that a
reunited Cyprus could be brought into being in time for it to sign the
Treaty of Accession on 16 April. So the documentation sent to the Euro-
pean Parliament to deal with that eventuality was withdrawn and the
alternative approach of preparing for the admission of a divided island
was pursued. A 'Protocol No. 10 on Cyprus' to be incorporated in the
terms of accession was approved by the European Parliament and agreed
 THE C U K T A I N I3hLLS 22 1

by the member states. The protocol's main provision was to suspend the
acquis communaotaire in the north of the island, thus avoiding a possible
confrontation with Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots and also avoiding
the Greek Cypriots being held responsible for events in an area over
which they had no control, but making it clear that the European Union
was in no way recognizing the division of the island. Another provision
enabled the EU Council, acting unanimously, to lift that suspension, thus
avoiding the need for treaty amendment and ratification in the event of a
settlement being reached. At the same time, the protocol committed the
European Union to continue its support for Annan's efforts to get a
settlement and reiterated its willingness to accommodate the terms of
such a settlement. This latter commitment was important in that it was
binding on the Greek Cypriots and thus provided some protection against
attempts to unpick the derogations provided for Turkish Cypriots in the
Annan Plan.
O n 16 April, amidst much fanfare and pomp, the heads of state and
government of the European Union and of the candidate countries, in-
cluding those of the three countries (Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey)
which were not yet ready for accession, met in Athens and the Treaty of
Accession was signed. Erdogan decided not to attend but Giil, now in-
stalled as deputy prime minister and foreign minister, did, although he
slipped away from the actual signature ceremony, no doubt finding that
just too much for Turkish domestic opinion to bear. For all the sound and
fury generated by the previous Turkish government about the possible
consequences of a divided Cyprus being admitted into the European
Union, with speculation that Turkey might annex the north of Cyprus or
resort to other (usually unnamed) measures of retaliation, not a bat's
squeak was heard. A diplomatic note repeating Turkey's view that Cy-
prus's accession was illegal passed unnoticed. While it was cold comfort
for the UN, which had laboured so hard for a positive outcome, this quiet
acceptance of a fait accompli was an unsung triumph of conflict preven-
tion.
A month later the Commission launched proposals to fulfil the remit it
had been given at Copenhagen to find ways of bringing the north of
Cyprus closer to the European Union. These proposals focused on possi-
ble aid projects in the north to be financed with European Union funds
and also on ideas for resuming direct preferential trade between the north
and the European Union, which had been largely cut off as a result of a
ruling by the European Court of Justice. The aid projects proved easier to
222 CYPRUS. T H E SEARCH FOR A S O L U T I O N

move forward than those for trade, partly because it was possible for the
Commission to enlist the enthusiastic cooperation of the mayors of those
Turkish Cypriot n~unicipalitiesthat had fallen to the opposition in the
2002 elections. The ideas for resuming trade were soon entangled in
bureaucratic and legalistic difficulties, many of them enthusiastically
contributed by the Greek Cypriots. The Papadopoulos administration
retained more than a trace of old-style thinking, that squeezing the Turk-
ish Cypriots was a clever policy, and was slow to recognize that, in the
new circumstances, this was largely counter-productive.

The United Nations takes stock

Immediately after the meeting in The IIague de Soto and Annan re-
turned to New York and put in hand the drafting of a substantial written
report to the Security Council. This was urgently required, since up till
then the whole set of negotiations, which had lasted for nearly three and a
half years, had been conducted without Annan making any written re-
ports to the Security Council. The justification for this was clear. Written
reports from the secretary-general are public documents, every word of
which are pored over and often subsequently contested by the interested
parties. T o have provided such material while the negotiations were
under way would have risked a controversy that would have damaged the
already fragile structure of the negotiations and would have also risked
embroiling the U N with one or other, or perhaps both, of the protago-
nists, thus reducing its effectiveness as the facilitator of a settlement.
Moreover a written report would have required a formal response from
the Security Council, at the very least a presidential statement or, more
likely, a resolution. The process of negotiating such a formal response
would have been fraught with difficulty, given the superior lobbying
capability of the Greek Cypriots and the pressure in the Council of a
permanent member, Russia, which simply took the Greek Cypriots' brief
unquestioningly. The chances were that any text agreed would not only
have upset the Turks and Turkish Cypriots, whose ability to keep their
end up in the Security Council was invariably less than that of the Greek
Cypriots, but would have destabilized the whole negotiation by moving
away from the 'no preconditions' text of Resolution 1250 on which the
negotiation was based. So Annan and de Soto had briefed the Security
Council orally from time to time throughout the negotiations on their
progress or the lack of it, but had sent forward nothing in writing; nor had
they officially published either the Annan Plan or its two revisions, al-
 T H E CURTAIN FALLS 223

though those texts were available for studying by members of the Council
in de Soto's office and were, of course, effectively in the public domain as
a result of press leaks on the island. The Security Council, for its part, had
responded on each occasion with a press statement of its current presi-
dent, which stuck largely to generalities and to supporting the secretary-
general's continuing efforts.
The secretary-general's report was tabled on 1 April (S/2003/398) and
the full text of Annan 111 was posted on the UN website. The report was
worth waiting for. It gave a coherent and often eloquent account of the
negotiations, of the proposals Annan had made and of the process that had
led to Annan's conclusion at The Hague that he had reached the end of
the road. H e justified the decision to launch a new effort to settle the
Cyprus problem: there had been 'a unique set of circumstances . . . and the
potential existed to make a true impact on the attitudes of the protagonists
and bring about the required qualitative changes of position'. He re-
minded the Council of the scale of the negotiating effort - 54 meetings in
the proximity phase, 72 meetings in the face-to-face format, more than
150 separate bilateral meetings between de Soto and the two leaders, 30
trips to Greece and Turkey. The cost had been $1,148,500. The proposals
ran to 192 core pages plus 250 pages of finalized laws for the reunited
Cyprus. Draft laws running to 6,000 pages and 1,954 international treaties
and instruments were awaiting approval when Denktash pulled out of the
working group exercise. Annan then ran through the issues, the narrative
of the negotiations and the content of his successive proposals in terms
similar to those set out in earlier chapters of this book and which I will
therefore not weary the reader by repeating.
H e concluded by describing the breakdown as the last in a long line of
missed opportunities. In measured but trenchant terms he set out the
responsibility of Denktash for the breakdown: 'in the case of the failure of
this latest effort I believe Mr Denktash, the Turkish Cypriot leader, bears
prime responsibility', and 'except for a very few instances, Mr Denktash
by and large declined to engage in negotiations on the basis of give and
take'. H e said little that was critical of the Turkish government, express-
ing the hope that '[it] will soon be in a position to throw its support
unequivocally behind the search for a settlement, for without that support
it is difficult to foresee one being reached'. For Clerides he had little but
praise: 'He did not feel wedded to tried and true formulas; he was quite
prepared to explore approaches different from his own . .. [he] showed a
capacity to accept that his side bore its share of the responsibilities for the
224 C Y P R U S : 'I'IIE S I < I \ I < C H 1;011 J\ SOLUTION

bitter experiences of the past.' 1le warmly thanked Greece for its support,
and the United States and the United Kingdom for their backing and
advice. As to the future Annan said a window of opportunity had now
closed; he did not believe such an opportunity would occur 'any time
soon'. But his plan remained on the table. H e did not propose to take any
new initiative

unlcss and until, such time as I am given solid reason to bclieve that the
political will exists necessary for a successful outcome . .. a solution on the
basis of the plan could be achieved only if there is an unequivocally stated
preparedness on the part of the leaders of both sides, fully and deter-
minedly backed at the highest political level in both motherlands, to
commit themselves (a) to finalize the plan (without reopening its t~asic
principles or essential trade-offs) by a specific date with UN assistance
and (b) to put it to separate, simultaneous referenda as provided for in the
plan on a date certain soon thereafter.

Faced with such a f ~ dandl clear report, the Security Council had no great
difficulty reaching similar conclusions. As might have been expected,
there was plenty of lobbying. T h e Greek Cypriots in particular put in a
frenzied performance which at some moments gave rise to the suspicion
that they too wanted to marginalize the Annan Plan and reopen its main
proposals. But none of that affected the outcome very much. Security
Council Resolution 1475 was adopted by unanimity on 14 April. It com-
mended the secretary-general and his team for their conduct of the
negotiations and for the proposals he had made. It gave its full support to
Annan 111, which it described as 'a unique basis for further negotiations'.
It regretted 'the negative approach of the Turkish Cypriot leader', which
had deprived both Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots of an opportu-
nity to decide for themselves on a plan that would have permitted the
reunification of Cyprus before the signature of the Treaty of Accession. It
asked the secretary-general to continue to make available his Good Of-
fices for Cypnls.
Soon after adoption of this resolution de Soto closed his office in the
island, and he and his able team were posted to new assignments, he
himself to become the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for
the Western Sahara in the autumn of 2003, Pfirter to go to the Swiss
embassy in Lisbon and Dann to the secretary-general's own office in New
York. But it was made clear that, should circumstances change and should
the prospects for a settlement revive, then the team could be reassembled
at short notice. I, too, after consultation with ministers in London decided
 THE CURTAIN Fi\I.T.S 225

that there was no useful purpose to be served in the short term by con-
tinuing my mission. No new appointment was made but Jack Straw told
parliament that if the circumstances justified it he would not hesitate to
make a further appointment. The message from all this was clear. The
international community had given Cyprus its best effort. If negotiations
were to be resumed, there would have to be some fundamental shifts in
the region.

A barrier aumbles
A few days after the signature of the Treaty of Accession, on 2 1 April, the
Turkish Cypriots, without any advance notice or the usual leaks, an-
nounced the lifting of all restrictions on the Green Line, which had for
nearly 30 years prevented Greek Cypriots going to the north and Turkish
Cypriots to the south. The response was instant and massive. Huge
queues formed at the crossing points. A mass two-way exodus began.
Pressure mounted for the opening of new crossing points. Tiresome
restrictions that prevented Greek and Turkish Cypriots driving their cars
on the other side of the line were lifted. The Greek Cypriots, who had at
first been caught on the hop by this sudden move, were driven to recipro-
cate and to desist from the temptation to make a fuss about such issues as
those crossing from the south having to show their passports to authori-
ties in the north, although they continued to try to prevent Greek
Cypriots spending a night in the north and would not admit to the south
anyone whom they considered to be a Turkish 'settler'. Within a few
months it was estimated that three-quarters of all Turkish Cypriots had
visited the south, many more than once, and that half of all Greek Cypri-
ots had visited the north.
Perhaps more interesting even than the scale of the crossings was the
atmosphere in which they took place. It had been part of Denktash's stock
in trade over many years to predict that dire consequences would ensue if
Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots ever again mingled in an uncon-
trolled way. I-Ie was not averse to dramatic bloodcurdling analogies with
the problems between Israelis and Palestinians. And there were extrem-
ists in the Greek Cypriot community with similar views. The reality bore
no relation to this picture. The mood was festive. There were many
touching accounts of reunions between Greek and Turkish Cypriots who
had been neighbours before the events of 1974 had driven them apart.
There were practically no ugly incidents of any sort, and the few that
there were were handled with a light touch by the police on both sides.
226 CYPRUS T H l i S I L A R C H 1.011 I\ SOLU'IION

For once ordinary people were able to get ahead of the politicians, and
they enjoyed it. It gradually dawned, however, that the Green I h e was
not the Berlin Wall. The mass crossings were not a prelude to the crum-
bling of the regime in the north. The political obstacles to a settlement,
although they were in the broadest sense undermined and weakened by
developments on the Green Line, were not removed by them.
A remaining enigma was why Denktash and the authorities in the
north took the action they did to open up the Green Line crossings. No
doubt part of the explanation was that both Denktash and the Turks felt
under great international pressure following the collapse of the talks at
The Hague and the blame they were apportioned in bringing that about,
and wanted to take some eye-catching initiative that would place them in
a more positive light. If so, it somewhat backfired in the sense that the
main international reaction was that this validated the thinking behind the
Annan Plan and demonstrated that a bi-zonal, federal Cyprus should have
a good chance of working. Other baser motives were possibly at work.
Denktash may have expected a violent incident or two to strengthen his
case. H e may have intended to boost the electoral prospects of his son's
party in the parliamentary elections due in December. The huge flood of
Greek Cypriots coming to the north (which, of course, had not been
anticipated) certainly gave a boost to the Turkish Cypriots' ailing econ-
omy. And there were some recognition and status crumbs to be lovingly
gathered up as Greek Cypriots showed their passports to Turkish Cypriot
policemen. But all in all the story is more one of the law of unintended
consequences in full operation than of careful planning and foresight.

Negotiating stasis
With the temporary withdrawal of the United Nations from an active role
in promoting a Cyprus settlement and with the removal of short-term
external pressure in support of their efforts, the scene rapidly reverted to
one in which tactical manoeuvre and the playing of the blame game
dominated. Papadopoulos, while insisting that he was ready to accept a
settlement on the basis of the Annan Plan, developed an eloquent attach-
ment to a mantra called 'a viable and workable settlement'. What this
might mean in terms of changes to the Annan Plan was never explained,
perhaps fortunately, but it seemed to signal a desire to unpick some of the
EU derogations which had formed such a crucial part of the Annan Plan.
Denktash, as so often before when he was in a tight corner, tried to
change the subject. IIe launched proposals for bilateral face-to-face
meetings with Papadopoulos without the presence of the U N and quite
explicitly designed not to negotiate on the basis of the Annan Plan. H e
also went back to some of the old Confidence-Building Measures of the
1993-94 period, proposing that the ghost town of Varosha could be
opened up to the Greek Cypriots. None of the ideas had any attraction to
Papadopoulos. In Ankara denunciation of the Annan Plan was eschewed
and repetition of the 'no solution is no solution' slogan continued. But
there were few signs yet that Turkey was ready to come to terms with the
reality of the Annan Plan or was willing and able to rein in Denktash.
Indeed the dislocation in Turkey's Cyprus policy was again underlined
by the decision on 8 August to form a customs union between Turkey
and the TKNC. This move, of little practical significance or benefit to the
Turkish Cypriots, was part of the preexisting agenda of the Ecevit gov-
ernment to match any move to integrate the south into the European
Union with similar moves between the north and Turkey. Its main effect
was to put Turkey in the wrong in its own dealings with the European
Union (since Turkey's Association and Customs Union Agreements with
the EU required prior consultation before Turkey entered into any such
new commitments), and to undermine the view which the AK govern-
ment was anxious to propagate that it was still seriously working for a
settlement.
 What Went Wrong, and
Will It Ever Go Right?

'o one who has participated in a failed negotiation can duck the
q ~ m t i o nof what went wrong. Indeed they should not do so,
because the answers to that question will be needed by the next
person or organization to pick up the baton. Nor is it enough to point the
finger at one person or country to the exclusion of all others as being
responsible for the failure, because things are seldom as simple as that.
The Cyprus settlement negotiations may have been many things, but
simple they were not. Some readers may think that I have indeed pointed
my finger at Rauf Denktash as that one person whose actions explain
what went wrong in Cyprus. It is true that I believe he bore the lion's
share of the responsibility for frustrating what was the most far-reaching
and the most hopeful of the attempts so far made to resolve the Cyprus
problem, as he had done earlier ones. But I do not believe it makes sense
to demonize him or to overlook the many other factors that contributed to
the setback.
Some of the problems the negotiators faced in Cyprus were generic
ones, which could have arisen almost anywhere in the world. T o get
agreement to a territorial adjustment at the negotiating table and not on
the battlefield is one of the most difficult challenges for any negotiator
and it has not often been successfully achieved. In this case it was made
even more problematic by the fact that 'l'urkey, which ultimately had to
agree to the adjustment, remained the militarily dominant force in the
immediate region and on the island, not seriously challenged even by the
frantic and costly armament programmes initiated by successive Greek
Cypriot administrations. T o get agreement to making the painful com-
promises necessary for a solution when the status quo was not urgently
unsustainablc and when the two parties had not been worn down by
conflict, was also a challenge. The Greek Cypriots had made a remarkable
recovery from the dog days of 1974 and had built a strong economy on
the foundations of their tourist and service industries. They were making
their way into the European Union in the happy position of being the
most prosperous of the ten candidates and the one that needed the least
adjustments to meet the requirements of EU membership. The Turkish
Cypriots were less comfortably placed, with a weak and dysfunctional
economy, but the annual subsidy from Turkey in the region of $200
million - approxinlately $1,000 for every man, woman and child in the
T R N C - and the Turkish troop presence guaranteeing their security,
took the edge off their predicament.
And then there was the ineluctable fact that the Cyprus problem was
not right at the top of anyone's agenda. So, however many international
meetings issued statements calling for a settlement in Cyprus, the harsh
reality remained that the leaders making those statements invariably had
more urgent things on their minds and more immediate calls on their
time. In the event it proved possible on this occasion to enlist a more
sustained effort by those principally concerned - the US, the UK and the
other main European countries, the U N and the European Commission -
than had ever been the case before. But this concentration of effort was
fragile and vulnerable to external distractions. The crisis over Iraq gradu-
ally overshadowed the final stages of the negotiations and distracted the
attention of some of the main players, especially those in Ankara. I am not
suggesting that without a crisis in Iraq a settlement would have necessar-
ily been reached in Cyprus in the spring of 2003. This factor was not that
important or fundamental. But it certainly was not helpful.
Two other generic problems plagued the Cyprus negotiations: the
blame game and the zero-sum game. The blame game was a speciality of
the Greek Cypriots and, to a lesser extent in the early years of this nego-
tiation, of the Greeks. They played it day in day out, and they played it
well. If there had been an Olympic medal for playing the blame game,
they would have won it. The Turks and Turkish Cypriots played it very
badly, except in the eyes of their own public opinion which did not
signify much in this contest. Their mistake was not to realize how much
tactical damage to their position arose from their i~~ability or unwilling-
ness to raise their presentational game. But the really pernicious aspect of
the blame game was its incompatibility with a commitment to negotiate
effectively and seriously. If you are playing the blame game you pick the
most extreme and unreasonable of your opponent's public statements and
make the most use of it you can; if you are negotiating seriously you pick
2 30 CYPRUS: T H E SE,\RCH 1.'011 I\ SOLU'I'ION

the most useable and reasonable of your opponent's statements and try to
make something of them. Points scored in the blame game are points lost
at the negotiating table. Neither side understood this or, if they did, drew
the right conclusions. The Greek Cypriots believed they could play both
games at the same time and were unwilling to recognize the damage they
caused to the fabric of the negotiation by continuing with the blame
game.
Treating the Cyprus settlement negotiations as a zero-sum game was
even more endemic and more pernicious. At its simplest this meant that
any of one side's problems that the UN successfully addressed was in-
stantly regarded as a loss to the other side and one which had to be
compensated for somewhere else. In the final stages of the negotiations,
once the UN plan of 11 November 2002 was on the table, there was no
escape from zero-sum calculations; there had to be a balance in any revi-
sions proposed, and the U N achieved that balance with considerable skill.
But the failure of many, although not all of those concerned, to realize
that getting a Cyprus settlement and getting a reunited Cyprus into the
European Union was not a zero-sum game at all was a serious handicap.
In the security field, it was essential to understand that achieving a feeling
of security only at the expense of creating a feeling of insecurity on the
other side (as was the effect of the large 'Turkish troop presence in the
north and of the south's sequence of arms purchases) was not a contribu-
tion to achieving lasting and sustainable security, which was much more
likely to be obtained by lower troop presences and the demilitarization of
indigenous forces. In the economic field, all experience with previous
enlargements of the European Union had shown that far from being a
zero-sun1 game, bringing less prosperous countries and regions within the
scope of the single market and of the European Union's structural funds
tended to result in a substantial increase in overall prosperity and the
narrowing of gaps between disadvantaged regions and their better-off
neighbours. The importance of appreciating these aspects and of getting
away from a zero-sum mentality was all the more crucial in Cyprus
because the smallness of the island and the duration of the attempts to get
a settlement had meant that the negotiating pitch had long since been
trampled into a quagmire; only if the pitch could be enlarged and the
mentality changed was the will going to be found to make the necessary
compromises.
But, when all was said and done, the generic problems were not the
most difficult ones the negotiators had to face: the Cyprus-specific prob-
lcms were even more daunting. I well remember the fate of Holbroolte's
efforts to use historical analogies to impress on the Cypriots of both
persuasions the need for and the possibility of overcoming their antago-
nisms and hatreds. T o preach this sermon he produced Dick Spring,
former foreign minister of Ireland and a man who had played a distin-
guished role in overcoming the differences between Britain and Ireland
over Northern Ireland. Spring spoke eloquently and well. For a brief time
his Cypriot audience looked dazed and impressed. And then with one
accord they chorused 'Ah, yes. But Cyprus is different.' The truth of that
could not be gainsaid by careful academic analysis because it was in the
bloodstream of all concerned.
Most fundamental of the Cyprus-specific problems were what I
named the two nightmares. The Turl<ish Cypriot nightmare was that,
however many precautions you took, however many counter-provisions
you made in the paperwork of a comprehensive settlemcnt, and even with
Turkish troops on the island guaranteeing its constitutional provisions,
those wily Greek Cypriots would end up dominating a reunited Cyprus
and repressing the Turkish Cypriots as they had done in the Cyprus of
the 1960 agreements. The Greek Cypriot nightmare was that, however
many times you said that secession was banned and that the new Cyprus
was an indissoluble union, Denktash would in fact be able to use to his
advantage all the concessions made to him, would cause stalemate in the
institutional arrangements (as the Greek Cypriot version of the history of
the 1960s had it), and, after a brief time, would walk off into the sunset
with the independent, sovereign state he had al\vays been determined to
achieve. What could be done to banish these nightmares was done by the
UN in the successive iterations of the Annan Plan. But it had to be recog-
nized that only the experience of succesfully operating the new, reunited
Cyprus was going to banish them for ever. So this was one of several
Catch 2 2 elements.
Another Cyprus-specific problem arose from the complexes the vari-
ous players had about each other. The Turkish Cypriots had an
inferiority complex about the Greek Cypriots, who ol~tnumberedthem
and were thought to be richer and more astute than they were. The Greek
Cypriots had an inferiority complex about Turkey because Turkey domi-
nated their island militarily. I once said to Clerides that it looked as if we
were going to have bad weather coming from the Taurus Mountains (in
Turkey). 'Yes', he said, 'That's where it always comes from.' IIe was not
talking about the weather. Both lots of Cypriots, as I have observed
232 CYI'RUS: 71'I-IE S E A R C H F O R I\ SOI.U'I'ION

earlier, had complexes about their motherlands. And Greece also had a
complex about Turkey. All these interlocking co~nplexeshad somehow to
be unlocked if there was to be a settlement and if it was to work. But, as
with the interlocking complexes in Northern Ireland, between Protestants
and Catholics and between them and their motherlands and between
Ireland and Britain, that was easier said than done.
In Cyprus these complexes were exacerbated, particularly in the
south, by the weird politically correct vocabulary in which all matters
relating to Cyprus had to be discussed. The T R N C was the 'pseudo
state', its land 'the occupied territories', its people 'the Turkish Cypriot
community', its politicians 'so-called ministers' and so on. In the north
there were some equally egregious examples, the Turkish military inter-
vention of 1974 being invariably referred to as 'the peace operation' and
Greek Cypriot harassment referred to as 'genocide'. Turkish Cypriots
were slightly less devoted to the textual exegesis of their visitors' state-
ments than were the Greek Cypriots. For any British minister going to
Cyprus for the first time, the first document in the briefing folder was not
a list of objectives for his or hcr visit but a glossary of the various words
and terms to be used or avoided. All this was translated by the politicians
on both sides into highly vitriolic political discourse about the others. I
used to ask Cypriot audiences (both in London and on the island) whether
it might not make more sense to show some respect for the institutions of
the other side. After all, the politicians, judges, civil servants and others
whom they so freely denounced and denigrated were the self-same peo-
ple, and, largely, with name changes, the self-same institutions, that
would be running the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot constituent
states of a reunited Cyprus. This thought seemed quite strange and rather
heretical to most of them. However, probably the worst and most dam-
aging manifestation of these complexes was in the educational curricula
on either side of the Green Line. Children are brought up to regard the
other side as the 'enemy', taught bigoted songs at nursery and given time
off to demonstrate on significant anniversaries. I remember sitting next to
a Greek Cypriot businessman flying to Larnaca who said that, as someone
who had lived in a mixed community pre-1974, he could never and would
never regard Turkish Cypriots as his enemies; but his children all did so
automatically. The history syllabus taught to each side is a travesty.
As if all this was not bad enough, there were some astonishing gaps in
human contact, let alone political dialogue, between some of the key
players. 'I'his was partly, but not exclusively, due to the peculiarities of
travel arrangements and diplomatic protocol arising from the fact that no
one but Turkey recognized the T R N C and that Turkey did not recognize
the Republic of Cyprus. But the Turkish Cypriot authorities did their
level best to supplement such obstacles and to harass and obstruct bi-
communal gatherings. They seemed to feel that, if they could not be fully
recognized, they would prefer to be a hermit state, a view not shared by
most of their citizens. The worst gap was that between the Turks, the
ultimate arbiters of any settlement, and the Greek Cypriots. There was
something surreal about sitting in an office in the foreign ministry in
Ankara listening to a row of senior Turkish diplomats telling me in great
detail about the objectives, intentions and motivation of Clerides, whom
none of them had ever met or talked to. I, of course, would have seen him
a few hours before, but that did not seem to register. The only Turks who
ever did talk to Clerides were journalists like Mehmet Ali Birand of
CNN-Turk, to whom he would from time to time give a conciliatory
interview, but that did not register either. And indeed what was needed
was some discreet dialogue, not necessarily conducted by diplomats or
politicians. But then there was the problem of Denktash, who would have
regarded any such dialogue as a personal betrayal. So nothing was ever
done.
N o consideration of what went wrong would be complete without
some consideration of the European Union dimension, if only because
Denktash invariably tried to cast the European Union as the villain of the
piece, without whose involvement all would have been fine. Elsewhere in
Europe, even in some quarters of Ankara, the contrary view was taken
and the European Union was seen as a catalyst for reaching a settlement
and as likely to provide the cement that would hold one together. I am in
no doubt myself that the second thesis is closer to the truth than the first.
But it was all a bit more complex than this simple black and white choice
can make it appear. Cyprus's EU application and the implementation of
the acquis communautaire in the island were seen by many Greek Cypri-
ots as a tactical stroke of genius enabling them to gain points painlessly
without the concessions that would be required of them at the UN's
negotiating table. Moreover there was much loose talk on the Greek
Cypriot side of how the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee would be invalidated
by membership of the European Union and of how the emerging Euro-
pean Security and Defence Policy would miraculously turn into a mutual
defence commitment between its members. Much persistence and skill
was required, mainly from the European Commission, to dissipate these
214 CYPRUS T H E SEARCH FOR A [Link]

illusions and to establish the sort of adjustments when applying the acquis
communautaire which would ensure it was compatible with the U N
proposals for a settlement. Once this process had been completed, as it
was by late 2002, it became clear to most Cypriots, including most Turk-
ish Cypriots, that European Union membership by a reunited island was
the keystone of any settlement.
Turkey's own relationship with the European Union was a less un-
mitigated success story. The ambivalent attitude of many member states
towards the prospect of Turkey joining the European Union was an
endlessly complicating factor, as were the problems Turkey itself had in
meeting the Copenhagen political criteria for membership. Above all the
sequencing of Turkey's slow and halting progress towards membership
and the Cyprus negotiations presented a virtually insoluble problem. N o
one much doubted that if Turkey's candidature had been proceeding to a
positive conclusion in parallel with Cyprus's and with the negotiations for
a settlement, all three would have passed the finishing post together. But
that was not on offer. The 1995 commitment to the Greek Cypriots was
clear. And Turkey's accession date could not be predicted. Were the
Turkish Cypriots' EU aspirations and a Cyprus settlement to be left in
limbo until then, as Denktash and many in Ankara wanted? Not only was
that bad news in the meantime for the Turkish Cypriots but it was far
from clear that they would avoid ending up with the short straw in any
such grand deal. The implications for both Turkey and for the Turkish
Cypriots of the Greek Cypriots by then being entrenched as a member
inside the European Union were seriously negative. T o anyone except
Denktash, who wanted neither Turkey nor the T R N C to be in the Euro-
pean Union, and who regarded the European Union as some kind of
plague sent to trouble him, these concerns would have provided pause for
thought.
There was one further European Union complication. A Greek Cyp-
riot business, egged on by their government, had, in the early 1990s
brought a case to the European Court of Justice arguing that Turkish
Cypriot exports to the European Union should not be admitted or given
preferential treatment because they did not have origin and phyto-
sanitary certificates issued in accordance with the EU/Cyprus Customs
Union Agreement. Although the case was contested by the British gov-
ernment (most of the exports went to the UK) and by the Commission,
the Court found for the plaintiff and so, from 1994, virtually all direct
trade between north Cyprus and its natural market in the EU ceased.
This was known to Turl<ishCypriots as 'the embargo' and was treated as
if the European Union had imposed sanctions on the TKNC. In fact it
was partly their own fmlt since the problem over certificates was com-
pounded by Denktash's declaration of independence. The effect,
however, was to damage further the economy of the north and to lend
credibility to Denktash's own view that the European Union was hostile
to Turkish Cypriots. Unfortunately, although most members of the EU
and the Commission believed the 'embargo' was counter-productive,
finding a way around the Court's edict was not straightforward. On
numerous occasions I tried to persuade Clerides that it made more sense
politically to help the Turkish Cypriots resume exports and thus to dem-
onstrate, contrary to what Denktash was saying, the benefits the EU
would bring them. Furthermore I pointed out that, contrary to public
belief in the south, the 'embargo' did not give them leverage over the
north, but simply made Turkish Cypriots feel angry and sorry for them-
selves. But to him the political cost of a move always outweighed the
benefits and nothing was done. Even in 2003, when the Green Line was
open and the Commission was trying to find ways in which trade with
the north could be resumed, the Greek Cypriots were dragging their feet
and making difficulties. It was the epitome of zero-sum calculation.
So far in this chapter I have concentrated on the underlying indirect
factors that militated against a successful settlement negotiation and thus
contributed to its failure. The more obvious direct factors have been fully
described in the narrative chapters on the negotiations themselves and in
the account of Annan's analysis of what went wrong. Ought one to be
more self-critical? Were there mistakes made by the U N and those who
supported its efforts? Of course there were, and I hope they have been
identified in those same narrative chapters, the mistake in pushing the
negotiations a bit too far, too fast in November 2000 being the most
obvious one.
Another major weakness was that it was never possible to synchronize
the moments at which both sides were under pressure to settle. When the
Greek Cypriots were under the greatest pressure (up to March 2003) the
Turks were not ready to handle Denktash. And when they finally were
ready (outside the time-scale of this book, in 2004) the pressure on the
Greek Cypriots had eased off.
There remains one big question: should the negotiations have been
started at all, knowing, as everyone concerned did, that Denktash was
fundamentally opposed to any outcome that was even remotely negotia-
236 C Y P R U S : '1'111- SlIi\RC11 F O R I\ SOLUTION

ble? The person who would have been happiest if that question had been
answered in the negative would have been Denktash. Negotiations put his
position in north Cyprus and as the controller of 'l'urkey's Cyprus policy
at risk; the absence of negotiations consolidated it. The hard fact was that
the UN was never going to find out whether the Denktash roadblock
could be circumnavigated without putting it to the test. I am sure they
were right to do so.
So much for what went wrong. What about the more difficult and
speculative question of will it ever go right? Many of those who have
struggled with the Cyprus problem over the years and broken their teeth
on it have concluded that it is insoluble. I do not share that view. The
problem is soluble, although only with the greatest difficulty given the
inherent negative factors discussed earlier in this chapter. Moreover it is
in the general interest of those who live in the island, of those who live in
neighbouring countries in the region and of the wider international com-
munity, that it should be solved. That is not, however, a confident
prediction that it will be solved, and certainly not a prediction that it will
be solved, in I h f i Annan's phrase, 'any time soon'. Another reason for
believing the problem is soluble is that the material for a comprehensive
solution is now on the table. The Annan Plan is not the result of a few
months or even years of negotiation; it was built up slowly and painstak-
ingly over a period of 20 years which began with Pe'rez de Cue'llar's work
on the island and afterwards when he became UN secretary-general, and
which continued through Routros-Ghali's Set of Ideas and which only
reached its final and complete form in the negotiations described in this
book. It is not, as Denktash and, later, Papadopoulos have attempted to
depict it, yet another externally devised and imposed settlement like that
of 1960, into which Cypriots have made no input. O n the contrary it has
been pieced together in a process that has involved Cypriots at every
stage. Clearly it is not perfect, and some balanced changes can still be
negotiated. Rut it is an illusion to suppose that there is some alternative
approach out there waiting to be found, which will prove to be both
negotiable and viable. As A m a n frequently said, the choice is not be-
tween this approach and another one, it is between this approach and no
solution at all.
However, the negotiations between 1999 and 2007 did, in my view,
demonstrate that external pressures and assistance do have their limita-
tions and cannot, unaided, deliver a settlement. O n no previous occasion
were external pressures applied so consistently and in such a sustained
 WUAT WENT WKONC? 237

manner; on no previous occasion was the raw material that emerged from
the views of the two sides so skilfully blended and merged. And yet all
that was not enough to achieve an agreement. The conclusion to be
drawn, surely, is that it is not to an increase in external pressure and
assistance that one must look in the future, important though those ele-
ments will remain, to produce a positive outcome; it is rather to an
increased positive input from Cypriots themselves and from the two
motherlands. This switch in emphasis would be no bad thing in its own
right. One of the most corrosive characteristics of Cypriot politics on both
sides is the belief that Cypriots are mere pawns on the international chess
board, that 'they' (sometimes defined as Greece and Turkey, sometimes
as the 'great powers') will settle matters and impose their preferred solu-
tion on the Cypriots. This attitude has encouraged the growth among
politicians on both sides of irresponsible politics, of an unwillingness to
accept responsibility for the consequences of the policies being promoted.
In any case a solution imposed from outside will risk being as unstable
and as fragile as the 1960 settlement, which lasted only three years and
had few supporters on either side in Cyprus. If, next time, there is to be a
durable solution it will surely have to be one for which the majority of
Cypriots claim ownership and one which they are prepared to support
and to make work.
One further important regional element will be the development of
relations between Greece and Turkey. Will the present fragile and in-
complete rapprochement between the two countries be consolidated to
the extent of resolving all the disputes between them, including the key
ones over the continental shelf in the Aegean and the sea and air bounda-
ries there? O r will the rapprochement stall or even fall apart? Whether or
not the two governments go further than that will be a key factor for the
chances of solving the Cyprus problem. There cannot be a complete
resolution of all the disputes between Greece and Turkey without a
settlement of the Cyprus problem. So if the two governments put their
hands to settling their bilateral disputes, they will need also to put more
effort into helping bring about a settlement of the Cyprus problem. But if
they leave the Cyprus problem to fester, then the chances of their being
able to settle their bilateral disputes will lessen and the risks of regression
in their relationship will increase.
Do these regional elements have to fall into place simultaneously?
That would indeed be a triumph of hope over experience. A less clearcut
outcome is more likely. But each one will affect the prospects for settling
2 18 CYPRUS T H E SEARCH FOR A [Link]

the Cyprus problem. Outside the region the most important elements
relate to the European Union and the evolution of its policies. The Euro-
pean Union is debarred from becoming itself a facilitator or mediator by
the fact that Greece and Cyprus will now be members and Turkey is not
yet one. That role remains for the UN. But, as has been said before, the
European Union's handling of the Turkish candidature will be vitally
important, as will be its continued willingness to 'accommodate' a U N
settlement within the terms of accession that will apply to the north of the
island. Any weakening of that commitment, and there are plenty on the
Greek Cypriots' side who would be happy to see, and even to work for, a
weakening of it, would be damaging, perhaps fatally damaging, to the
prospects for a settlement. O n the contrary the European Union should
be working systematically to demonstrate to Turkish Cypriots that they
should have no fear about joining ahead of Turkey and that the institu-
tions of the European Union will be there to protect a settlement once
reached, not to undermine it.
 Envoi

I
stepped down from my job as the British government's Special
Representative for Cyprus at the end of May 2003 with some relief
and some regret. I had done the job for seven years. What had started
as a part-time retirement post had gradually come perilously close to
being a full-time commitment. When, in April 2001, I was appointed to
the House of Lords and almost simultaneously became Pro-Chancellor of
the University of Birmingham, I had tried to escape, but the Foreign
Office would have none of it: John Kerr (the permanent under-secretary)
and Emyr Jones Parry (the political director) persuaded me to carry on.
Now, with the breakdown of the negotiations, the indicators all pointed
the other way. Moreover I had the feeling that I had done what could be
done from the outside to help the process forward. The pieces needed to
complete the jigsaw were on the table.
It was a relief to be spared the continuing carping criticism of the
Cypriot press, in particular in the south. I had grown my extra skin or
two and had evolved a technique of never responding even to their wild-
est fantasies about the plots I was said to be hatching. It was a relief too to
be spared the burden of suspicion about British intentions, which was
pervasive almost everywhere on the Cyprus circuit. I had started my
diplomatic career in Iran and Afghanistan, two countries whose history
had left them convinced that the long, hidden hand of British diplomacy
could be held responsible for almost anything that happened; but that was
a mere aperitif for Cyprus. As I learned more about our role there in the
1950s, 1960s and 1970s, I came to understand better some of the hostility
and suspicions towards Britain. We had indeed not covered ourselves
with glory during that period. But the prevalence of that same suspicion,
so long after the justification for it had disappeared, was saddening and a
trifle wearing.
There was also regret. I did not like leaving a job unfinished. If I had
believed that continuing would have made a real difference I would have
 CYPRUS. T H E SEARCH FOR I\ SOI.U1'ION

been ready to do so. I felt in a way that I had let down those many Cypri-
ots, Creek and Turkish, who thanked me quietly (no one ever thanked me
publicly) for what I and others were doing to get a settlement. Most of all
I regretted severing my last official link with my colleagues in Britain's
Diplomatic Service with whom I had worked for 44 years and whose
professionalism, capacity for hard work and cheerfulness were as notable
when I left as the day I joined their ranks in 1959.
 Postscript

F
rom the breakdown of the negotiations in May 2003 until the
Turkish Cypriot parliamentary elections in December of that year,
there was a complete absence of activity, let alone of movement, in
attempts to resolve the Cyprus problem. The United Nations camped
firmly on the position, endorsed by the Security Council in April, that
there would need to be a firm commitment of all concerned to work on
the basis of the Annan Plan before it could contemplate re-engagement.
The Turkish Cypriot scene remained dominated by a weakened Denk-
rash in full rejectionist mode, regularly denouncing the Annan Plan; the
Turks retired to lick their wounds and wait for a shift in the political
situation in the north of the island; the Greek Cypriots reclined comforta-
bly on their laurels, occasionally repeating a vague mantra expressing
willingness to negotiate on the basis of the Annan Plan (while demanding
greater 'viability', whatever that might mean) and coasting towards EU
accession on 1 May 2004.
All that changed with the Turkish Cypriot parliamentary elections in
December. Although the outcome was a dead-heat (25 seats each for
parties supporting a resumption of negotiations on the basis of the Annan
Plan and for the rejectionists), the result in fact reflected a substantial
shift away from the rejectionists and a repudiation of Denktash's domi-
nance of the Turkish Cypriot handling of the settlement negotiations.
Difficult negotiations then ensued over the formation of the new govern-
ment, it being clear from the outset that to achieve any sort of stability or
sense of direction, there would need to be a coalition that in some way
straddled the differences over the Annan Plan. Eventually a coalition was
formed with Mehmet Ali Talat, the leader of the firmly pro-Annan Plan
CTP, as prime minister and Serdar Denktash, leader of the less funda-
mentally rejectionist of the two centre-right parties, as deputy prime
minister and foreign minister. More significantly the coalition agreement
committed the new government to work for a resumption of the settle-
242 C Y P R U S : '1'141; S E A R C H F O R 11 S O L U . I ' I O N

n x n t negotiations on the basis of the Annan Plan. This government was

accepted and installed with ill grace by Kauf Denktash towards the end of
January 2004.
It was clearly the signal for which the Turkish government had been
waiting with some impatience, having in the interim, since the breakdown
of negotiations in March 2003, resolved its own internal contradictions
and concluded that an early settlement on the basis of the Annan Plan
offered a potentially acceptable outcome and the only sure way of fur-
thering its major policy objective of getting a green light for the opening
of its own accession negotiations with the E U at the end of 2004. T h e
Turkish prime minister moved rapidly, through a series of high-level
meetings with the EU, the U N secretary-general and the president of the
United States, to indicate that he was anxious for a resumption of the
negotiations on the conditions laid down by Annan and that he and the
Turkish Cypriots intended this time to negotiate in good faith for a posi-
tive result. How the Denktash obstacle was to be removed or
circumnavigated remained, however, at this stage unclear.
With both Greek Cypriots and the Greeks continuing to repeat their
commitmc:lt to a settlement on the basis of the Annan Plan, and with the
whole international community, with the US, the UK and the E U in the
lead, keen to have one final try to see whether a settlement could be
reached in time to enable a reunited Cyprus to join the E U on 1 May, the
U N secretary-general called the parties to New York in early February
2004. Three days of difficult and tense negotiations led to agreement on
the following:

1. Negotiations between the two Cypriot sides under the aegis of the UN
and on the basis of the Annan Plan would resume on the island without
delay.

2. If, after a month (by 21 March), these negotiations had not reached a
comprehensive agreement, thc Greek and Turkish governments would
join the negotiations and try to hclp the Cypriots to rcach an agreement
within a further week.

3. Should this second phase not succeed, Annan would, on his own re-
sponsibility, complete a definitive new version of his plan, which would
be submitted to refercndums in both parts of Cyprus at the cnd of April
(at first envisaged for 2 1 April but subsequently shifted to 24 April).
 POSTSCRIPT 243

4. Meanwhile the technical work needed to draft legislation for a rcunitcd

Cyprus, including its international commitments (begun in the run-up to
The Hague meeting in March 2003), would be completed.
T h e negotiations in New York revealed rifts on both sides. Those
between the Turkish government and Talat on the one hand and Denk-
tash on the other were more evident than ever before. Papadopoulos for
his part showed increasing signs of unease about the game plan to which
he was committing himself, while for the Greek government the shadow
of its own general election on 7 March loomed ever closer and limited its
scope for manoeuvre and forceful intervention.
The first phase of the resumed negotiations was a pure charade. Nei-
ther side negotiated seriously. Papadopoulos and Denktash pressed for
long lists of unnegotiable changes to the Annan Plan and showed no
interest in negotiating trade-offs. The unholy alliance between them was
already taking shape. The second phase, which the U N moved to Biirgen-
stock in Switzerland, was more serious. For one thing, Denktash declined
to participate, thus (not for the first time) reneging on an agreement into
which he had himself freely entered. His absence proved, however, to be
a positive development, since his potential for spoiling manoeuvres was
removed and the Turkish government was relieved of the necessity of
taking the initiative to override him. For another, the Turks themselves
came to Biirgenstock with a limited number of proposed changes to the
Annan Plan and a determination to settle.
O n the other side the situation was neither so clear nor so positive.
Not only did Papadopoulos reject any of the symbolic gestures that might
have demonstrated his belief that he was on the verge of a historic agree-
ment and was working for a positive outcome in good faith (refusing to
shalte Talat's hand and declining any direct contact with the Turkish
government), but, by refusing to prioritize his own list of demands for
changes to the Annan Plan, he effectively frustrated any serious negotia-
tion in this phase too. The new Greek government (in office for little
more than a week, following the 7 March election, which the opposition
New Democracy party won), while making positive noises, clearly felt in
no position to bring effective pressure to bear on the Greek Cypriots. So
the second phase ended in deadlock too, despite an attempt by Annan to
get agreement on a package of amendments (Annan IV) to the earlier
versions of the plan.
Annan was therefore compelled to table his own definitive version of
the plan (Annan V), which he duly did on the last day of the Burgenstock
244 CYPRUS THE: S K A R C I I I ' O K A SOLU'I'ION

talks, and it was this version that was submitted to the 24 April referen-
dums. For all the allegations of both sides (naturally, in a contradictory
sense), Annan V did not differ in any fundamental respect from the
earlier versions of the plan. The territorial adjustments proposed in An-
nan 111 were not changed at all, nor were the basic structures of a bi-zonal,
federated state. Some changes strengthened bi-zonality; provisions ena-
bling property to be partially repossessed were included; token Turkish
and Greek troop presences, even beyond accession to the EU (the num-
bers of troops being those in the 1960 Treaty of Alliance), were to be
permitted. But if the plan itself was not greatly changed, the reactions
were. The Turkish government and Talat embraced and supported
Annan V as warmly and vociferously as Denktash, from afar, rejected it.
Papadopoulos, while taking a few days before fully declaring his hand,
soon moved to outright and emotional rejection. And the new Greek
government wrung its hands on the sidelines, concentrating on limiting
the damage to Greek-Turkish relations of any eventual rejection by the
Greek Cypriots.
Everything now turned on the referendums. The UN, by definition,
could not campaign itself, so its plan and the explanations of it were left to
the tender mercies of Cypriot politicians. Nor could the international
community afford to play too prominent a role; to have done so would
only have confirmed the conviction of many Cypriots that this was yet
another settlement being imposed on them from the outside. What could
reasonably be done was done. But both U N and EU attempts to explain
neutrally what the plan meant were countered by Greek Cypriot gov-
ernment obstruction and by the predominantly rejectionist Greek
Cypriot press.
The EU made it clear that, whatever rejectionist Greek Cypriot politi-
cians might say, there was nothing in Annan V that could not be
accommodated with the acquis. A donor conference was held in Brussels
at which substantial sums of international aid were pledged to help re-
settle those Turkish Cypriots who would be displaced by the settlement
and to underpin the objective of reducing the economic discrepancies
between Greek and Turlush Cypriots. The Security Council would have
endorsed the whole package and committed itself to its prescribed role in
its implementation had there not been a disgraceful last-minute veto by
the Russian Federation, acting at the behest of Papadopoulos who then
argued in the closing days of the campaign that it was impossible to have
 POSTSCRIPT 245

confidence in the settlement because it had not been endorsed by the

Security Council.
The two campaigns on either side of the island were sharply con-
trasted. In the north the outcome was never in much doubt, with the
Turkish government's clear support for the Annan Plan a crucial factor.
Denktash fought to the bitter end, with support from right-wing allies,
but he no longer cast a spell over his compatriots, either on the mainland
or the island. The outcome was a 64.9 per cent vote in favour of the
Annan Plan. In the south the rejectionists had a field day. When Papado-
poulos did declare his hand, in a lengthy, rambling and emotional
television presentation, he did not confine himself to the details of the
changes in Annan V but rather launched a root-and-branch onslaught on
the fundamentals of the UN's approach (which had not in fact changed
much over the last 20 years). H e thus disposed of any illusion that he
might in fact have been negotiating in good faith up to the last moment.
Most Greek Cypriot parties, with the exception of Clerides's Democratic
Rally and Vassiliou's small liberal party, followed this lead; and the Greek
Orthodox Church campaigned vigorously for rejection. The key thus lay
with AKEL, the communist party, whose rock-solid one-third of the
popular vote could have swayed the outcome either way. With the pusil-
lanimity that had characterized its position under its leader Christofias
throughout the last five years, they finally opted for a procedural device,
calling for a delay in the vote, which they knew would not be conceded,
and, when it was not forthcoming, recommended a 'no' vote. With that
decision the outcome was not in doubt. The Greek Cypriots voted 'no' by
75.83 per cent.
So ended a negotiation that had seemed, against all the odds, to offer a
real opportunity for an equitable outcome of substantial benefit to all
concerned. The Turks and Turkish Cypriots had made a number of
serious tactical errors which meant that they missed the best moment to
settle when the Cypriot application for EU membership was still in the
balance. l'hey could have negotiated something like the outcome pro-
posed in Annan V a year or more earlier if they had got their act together
in time. And there would have been a reasonable chance of its being
endorsed by both sides. They paid dearly for not doing so. Rut the Greek
Cypriots made a strategic error. Yet again, as in 1961 and 1974, they
opted for a narrow, crabbed vision of their future, dictated more by
emotional memories of the past than by a rational view of the future. Let
down by their leadership, they chose, just when they were on the point of
entering the European Union, to demonstrate that they had not under-
stood the first thing about the fundamental objectives of that Union.
They will now have to live with the consequences of that decision. T h e
Greeks, who eventually spoke out in favour of the plan, had learned yet
again that the Cypriot tail had a tendency to wag the Greek dog. As to the
international community in general, and the U N in particular, it had
nothing to be ashamed of but much to regret. After years of neglect, and
then of inadequately supported efforts to get a solution, it had shown
commendable ingenuity and determination. But in the last resort it de-
pended on rational self-interest overcoming the demons of history and
prejudice, and in this instance that was not achievable.
What will happen now? Much will depend on the prospects for Turk-
ish accession to the EU. If Turkey's candidature prospers, and as the
reality of Turkish accession comes closer, a solution to the Cyprus prob-
lem will become a necessity; and it is difficult to see any solution straying
far away from the Aman Plan which has been so widely endorsed. But if
Turkey's candidature stalls or is blocked, it is not easy to be so sanguine.
 Index

Accession Partnership Denktash, meeting with (3-4

(EUITurkey), 135, 146 October 2002), 177-8
acquis cornmunautaire, 28,45,46, 011equality of the parties issue,
108, 134, 154, 170, 171-2, 179, 129, 131
221, 233-4, 244 and face-to-face talks (2002), 163-
Agenda 2000,76,78 4
AKEI, (Greek Cypriot con~n~unist at Glion (August 1997), 79
party), 6, 15, 16, 34, 84, 122, 200, at The Hague (March 2003), 2 18
245 new initiative (Febnlary 2004),
Akinci, Mustafa, 20, 124 242-3
AKP (Turkish Islamist party), 24, news blackouts, attempts at, IS,
26, 174, 181,205 79, 119
Akrotiri, 4, 7 and proxinlity talks, 110, 119, 129
Al-Qa'eda, 154 report on negotiations
Albright, Madeleine, 75 (S/2003/398), 223-4
Amsterdam Treaty (1997), viii statement to Clerides and
ANAP (Turkish centre-right party), Denktash (8 November 2000),
109, 111, 181 136-42, 145
Anastasiades, Nikos, 15 at Troutbeck (July 1997), 78
Annan, Kofi visits to regional capitals (2003),
attitude to the Cyprus problem, 211-13
105 PLANS:
becomes U N secretary-general, Annan I,178, 181, 182-5
74 Annan 11, 188-91, 192
Clerides, meeting with AnnanIII, 207-11, 213, 215, 223,
(September 2002), 176 224,244
Clerides, meeting with (3-4 Annan IV, 243
October 2002), 177-8 Annan V, 243-5
Denktash, meeting with (August Apostolos Andreas, monastery of,
2001), 154 36
Denktash, meeting with AVRUPA (later AFHIKA)
(September 2002), 175-6 (newspaper), 2 1
248 CYPRUS: THE SEARCH FOR A SOLUTION

Bakoyanni, Dora, 23 Annan's praise for, 22 3-4

Batu, Inal, 60-1, 79 background and character, 13-14
Beattie, Richard, 49, 75 becomes president (1993), 9
'Berlin-plus' arrangements, 116 Blair and Cook, meeting with, 89
Bir, General Cevik, 62 on demilitarization of Cyrpus, 32,
Birand, Mehmet Ali, 167, 223 121-2
Blair, Tony, 82, 84, 86, 89, 193-4 Denktash, relationship with, 12
Boutros-Ghali, Boutros on deployment of S300 missiles,
Denktash, relationship with, 55, 94-5
64, 164 election (1998), 84-5
Set of Ideas (1992), 8-9, 29, 35, on equality of the parties issue,
38,44,48, 52-3, 54, 64, 74, 128, 130-1,135-6
198, 199 and face-to-face talks (2002), 159-
Biirgenstock talks (2004), 243-4 60, 162, 165
Bush, George W., 145, 205 at Glion (August 1997), 79-80
and National Council, 15-16, 121
Camilion, Oscar, 52 negotiating team, 14-1 5
Cem, Ismail on proximity talks (2000), 12 1-2
attitude to the Cyprus problem, Rifkind, meeting with, 67
24,25, 100, 127-8, 146-7 on Set of Ideas (1992), 48,52, 54
and EUITurkey Association at Troutbeck Uuly 1997), 78
Council, 87 Clinton, Bill, 106, 109
Papandreou, relationship with, C N N Turk, 167, 175, 176,233
23, 25, 98 Confidence-Building Measures
resignation (2002), 173 (1993-94), 9, 48,49, 52, 54, 64,
and 'vision first' approach, 167 227
Ceyhan, 33 Cook, Robin, 87, 89, 136
Chirac, Jacques, 192, 193 Copenhagen European Council
Chizov, Vladimir, 72 (December 2002), 117, 191-6
C H P (Turkish centre-left party), Cordovez, Diego, 74-5,77,79,80,
26, 174, 181 104
Christofias, Dimitris, 16, 204, 2 15, Cox, Pat, 192
245 C T P (Turkish Cypriot centre-left
Ciller, Tansu, 24,49, 60, 67,73 party), 16, 20, 124, 241
Clark, Joe, 49 Cypriot National Guard, 4-5, 32, 33
Clerides, Glafcos Cyprus
as acting president (1974), 6 British rule, 2-3
Annan, meeting with (September constitution of 1960, 3-4, 13, 28
2002), 176 early history, 1-2
Annan, meeting with (3-4 EU accession, 9,28, 3 1,44-7,48-
October 2002), 177-8 9, 59, 61, 78, 81-3, 88-91, 92-3,
on Anna11 I, 185-6 112-13, 123, 124, 147, 169-72,
on Annan 11, 193,201 185, 195,204,220-1
 INDEX 249

international treaties on, 3-4, 3 1- and SC Resolution 1475 (2003),

2 224
partition (1974), 6-7 and Set of Ideas (1992), 8-9, 29,
referendums (April 2004), 208, 35, 38,44,48, 52-3, 54, 64, 74,
211,212,215,244 128, 198, 199
Republic of, 5,40 and Seville European Council
Turkish invasion of (1974), 6 (June 2002), 169-70, 171
see also Cyprus problem; Greek terminology of, 232
Cypriots; Turkish Cypriots and Troutbeck meeting uuly
Cyprus problem 1997), 77-9
Annan I Plan, 178, 181, 182-5 Turkish attitudes to, 23-6,60-3,
Annan I1 Plan, 188-9 1,192 179-80
Annan I11 Plan, 207-11, 213, 215, Turkish Cypriot 'nightmare', 28,
223,224,244 231
Annan IV Plan, 243 'virgin birth' approach, 157, 160,
Annan V Plan, 243-5 179
and Confidence-Building ISSUES:
Measures (1993-94), 9,48,49, 52, anthem of new state, 200, 2 12
54,64,227 continuity, 42-3, IS 1
and Copenhagen European equality of the parties, 129-32,
Council (December 2002), 117, 135-6
191-6 EU accession, 28, 3 1,44-7,48-9,
face-to-face talks on (2002), 157- 59,61,78,81-3,88-91,92-3,
65, 172, 178 112-13, 123, 124, 147, 169-72,
face-to-face talks on (2003), 200-3 185, 195,204,220-1
and G8 Summit (June 1999), 100, federal v. confederal system, 29-
101, 102 30, 125, 127-8
and Glion meeting (August 1997), flag of new state, 200, 2 12
77,79-80 governance, 27,28-31, 122, 150,
Greek attitudes to, 2 1-3,60 176, 183-4
Greek Cypriot 'nightmare', 28, international recognition of
231 TKNC, 5,27, 39-41,93, 123,175
and The Hague meeting (March 'linkage', 99-100
2003), 214-19 name of the new state, 161-2
and Helsinki European Council property, 27, 37-9, 123, 125, 150,
(December 1999), 112-14, 116 160,176,180,184-5
and High-Level Agreements security, 27, 31-4, 121-2, 150,
(1977 and 1979), 8,28 164-5, 184
proximity talks on (1999-2000), sovereignty, 41-2, 15 1-2, 177,
110, 115-16, 119-23, 135, 142-3 179, 183
and SC Kesolution 1250 (1999), Supreme Court, 30, 3 1, 150, 200,
40,102-4, 108,110, 128 2 12
250 CYPRUS: T H E SEARCH FOR A SO1,UTION

territory, 27, 35-7, 121, 122, 125, background and character, 18-19
149-50, 176, 184,200-1,207,244 Boutros-Ghali, relationship with,
troop presence on the island, 32- 55,64, 164
3, 3 3 4 , 6 2 , 121-2, 150, 164-5, Clerides, relationship with, 12
179, 184,204,211,244 election (2000), 123-4
Turkish 'settlers' in the north, 27, Eroglu, relationship with, 181
43-4, 160, 185 on equality of the parties issue,
130, 131, 132-3
Dann, Robert, 105,224 and establishment of T R N C
de Soto, Alvaro (1983), 8
and Annan I, 186, 187 on EU accession, 45,46-7, 83, 89,
and Annan 11, 192 90, 123, 124
and the A m a n statement of 8 and face-to-face talks (2002), 155-
November 2000, 145 6, 160, 162, 165
consultations with UK, US, EU 'final effort' (August 1998),93-4
and Turkey (October 2002), 178- at Glion (August 1997),79
80 heart surgery, 177, 178, 180
draft document (July 2001), 152- and High-Level Agreements
4 (1977 and 1979), 8, 127
and face-to-face talks (2002), 157, 'history lesson', 58-9
162, 168 on international recognition of
at The Hague (March 2003), 218 TRNC, 5, 39-40,59,93, 123, 128
new posting (April 2003), 224 and lifting of restrictions on the
news blackouts, attempts at, I5 Green Line, 225-6
'Preliminary Thoughts' (July negotiating team, 19-20
2000), 125-8, 134 new initiative (2003), 227
and proximity talks, 119-20 Pe'rez de Cue'llar, relationship
'Three Noes' statement with, 55
(September 2000), 131, 144 pressures on, 197-8
as U N Special Kepresentative for on property issue, 125
Cyprus, 105, 134 on proximity talks (2000), 122-3
Democratic Kally (Greek Cypriot proximity talks, walks out of,
centre-right party), 13, 245 142-3, 144
Denktash, Rauf on referendum idea, 198-9, 2 15-
Annan, meeting with (August 16,217
2001), 154 and referendums (April 2004),
Annan, meeting with (September 245
2002), 175-6 responsibility for breakdown of
Annan, meeting with (3-4 negotiations, 220, 223, 228, 235-6
October 2002), 177-8 Rifkind, meeting with, 67
on Annan 1, 186, 188 on Set of Ideas (1992), 52
on Annan 11,200 on territorial issue, 200-1
authority, 12, 17-18, 108 at Troutbeck Uuly 1997),78
 on Turkish immigrants to the accession of Turkey to, 78-9, 8 1-
north, 44 3,84, 85-7, 11 1-15, 134-5, 146-7,
Turkish support for (2003), 214 186-7, 192, 193-6,234,238,246
vetoes Egeland's appointment, sccpis cornn~u~ia~itaire,28, 45, 46,
104 108, 134, 154, 170, 171-2, 179,
Denktash, Serdar, 20, 241 221,233-4, 244
Dhekelia, 4 Common Foreign and Security
Diamantopoulou, Anna, 135 Policy, 107
DIKO (Greek Cypriot centre-right EUITurkey Association Council,
party), 15, 16, 199 87
D P (Turkish Cypriot centre-right EUITurkey Custonls Union
party), 20 Agreement (1995), 50, 61, 83, 85,
Droutsas, Dimitri, 2 15 99
DSP (Turkish centre-left party), 63, European Security and Defence
109, 111, 173, 181 Policy (ESDP), 116-18, 171, 185,
DYP (Turkish centre-right party), 233
173. 181 relations with Turkey, 234
role in Cyprus negotiations, 65,
Ecevit, Bulent, 11, 24, 63, 108-9, 80-3, 107-8,233-4
143, 173 Evren, General Kenan, 37
Egeland, Jan, 104
erlosis (union with Greece), 2, 3 Famagusta, 35
EOKA B, 4 Feissel, Gustave, 52, 54
Erbakan, Necmettin, 24,60 Filon, Alecos, 60
Erdogan, Recep Tayyip, 24, 174, 'fishing net', 3 8, 123
181-2, 186-7, 193, 194, 198,205,
211,213, 214 G 8 S ~ m n l iUune
t 1999), 100, 101,
Erel, Ali, 20 102
Eroglu, Dervish, 20, 12 3-4, 181 Glion meeting (August 1997), 77,
Ertugruloglu, Tahsin, 170-1, 188, 79-80
192, 194 Gonensay, Imre, 6 1
ESDP see European Union Greece
European Court of Human Rights, on A ~ m a n111, 2 10-1 1
property claims brought before, attitude to the Cyprus problem,
39 21-3,60
European Court of Justice, and on deployment of S300 missiles,
'embargo', 2 34-5 94-5
European Union earthquake (September 1999), 98
accession of Cyprus to, 9, 28, 3 1, emergency aid to Turkey (August
44-7,48-9,59,61,78,81-3,88- 1999), 98
91,92-3, 112-13, 123, 124, 147, relations with Turkey, 49-50, 98-
169-72, 185, 195,204, 220-1 100, 237
252 CYPRUS: T H E SEARCH FOR A SOLUTION

support for Turkish EU early experiences of the Cyprus

membership, 99 problem, vii
Greek Cypriots as EU Presidency Special
on Annan 111,210-1 1 Representative for Cypms, 84
complexes, 2 3 1-2 first visit to Cypn~s,55-9
coup d'e'tat (July 1974),6 at The Hague (March 2003), 214-
elections (1998), 84-5 19
elections (2003), 199-200 interview on C N N Turk (June
and government of Cyprus, 5 2002), 167-8, 175, 176
guerrilla war against the British, 2 on the key players, 10-1 1
media, 17 on the making of Cyprus policy,
National Assembly, 6, 13, 131 11
National Council, 15-1 6, 121 mission, 50-5
'nightmare', 28, 2 3 1 mission, end of, 224-5, 239
property claims, 6-7, 27, 37-9 on prospects for the future, 236,
purchase of S300 missiles, 70-2, 246
94-5,96 reasons for becoming involved in
relations with Greek government, the Cyprus problem, vii-viii
11-12 reasons for failure of negotiations,
Greek Orthodox Church, campaign 228-36
for 'no' vote in referendum (April reasons for writing book, viii-ix
2004), 245 and Rifkind's visit to Cyprus, 66-
Green Line, 6, 27, 34, 225-6 9
Greenstock, Jeremy, 50 speech to Turkish Cypriot
Grivas, General George, 2 Chamber of Commerce, 92-3
Grossman, Marc, 187 at Troutbeck (July 1997),79
guarantor powers (Greece, Turkey, visit to Cyprus (January 1999),
UK), 4, 3 1-2 96-7
Giil, Abdullah, 24, 73-4, 181, 186, visit to regional capitals (January-
193, 194, 198,205, 213,214 Febnmy 2003), 203-5
Giirel, Siikrii Sina, 24, 25, 173, 174 MEETINGS/CON'TACTS:
Annan, 105
The Hague meeting (March 2003), Batu, 60-1
214-19 Bir, 62
Hain, Peter, 166 Cem, 127-8, 146-7
Haktanir, Korkmaz, 25, 120, 128 Chizov, 72
Han Sung Joo, 64-5,74,77,80 Ciller, 73
Hannay, David Clerides, 57, 135-6, 155, 175, 180,
at Copenhagen European Council 193,204
(December 2002), 191-4 Cordovez, 74-5
deplores absence of face-to-face Denktash, 58-9, 175, 204-5
meetings, 57-8, 120, 232-3 Ecevit, 63
Gonensay, 61
 Giil, 7 3-4 KlBRIS (newspaper), 2 1
Han Sung Joo, 64-5 KISOS (Greek Cypriot centre-left
Hercus, 97 party), 16
Holbrooke, 76-7 Kissinger, Henry, 100
Kranidiotis, 60, 96 Kokkina, 35
Miller, 97 Kouros, Pantelis, 14
Oymen, 72-3 Kranidiotis, Ioannis, 22, 60, 96
Pangalos, 59, 60 Kyprianou, Spyros, 8, 15, 16
Papadopoulos, 2 14-1 5
Papandreou, 203-4 Lipponen, Paavo, 114-1 5
Verheugen, 134 Logoglu, Faruk, 25
Yilmaz, 86 Loizidou, Titina, 39
Ziyal, 192, 194, 215 Lyssarides, Vasos, 16,94
Heads of Mission conference
(January 1999), 96 Major, John, 66
Helsinki European Council Makarios, Archbishop, 2, 3, 6, 8, 13,
(December 1999), 112-14, 116, 32,58
134-5, 146 Markides, Alecos, 14, 160, 163, 176-
Hercus, Dame Ann, 97, 104 7, 186, 199,200
High-Level Agreements (1977 and Maurer, Leopold, 120
1979), 8, 28 media
IHolbrooke, Kichard Greek Cypriot, 17
and Imia crisis (1996), 49 Turkish Cypriot, 2 1
as Presidential Special M H P (Turkish right-wing
Kepresentative for Cyprus, 75-7 nationalist party), 109, 111, 181
on Turkey's EU accession Miguel, Kamon de, 169
application, 82 Miller, Tom, 91, 97, 106
as US ambassador to the U N , 106 Morphou, 35,198
visit to Cyprus (May 1998), 91-2 Moses, Alfred, 106, 128, 129, 134,
Hurd, Douglas, 66 135,144,145

lacovou, George, 84 NATO

Imia crisis (1996), 22, 49 and ESDP, 116
Iraq war (2003), 205, 213-14, 229 proposal for troop presence in
Cyprus, 34, 122
Johnson, Lyndon B., 5 New Democracy (Greek centre-
Jones Parry, Emyr, 239 right party), 23, 243
Juncker, Jean-Claude, 82 Nicosia Airport
face-to-face talks at (2002), 157-8
Karamanlis, Costas, 23, 203 reopening of, 9,48
Karpas Peninsula, 6, 36, 184, 192
Kasoulides, Ioannis, 14, 166 Ocalan, Abdullah, 97-8, 109
Kerr, John, 239 Olgun, Ergun, 20, 17 1, 180, 186
254 CYPRUS: T H E SEARCH FOR A SOLUTION

Omirou, Yannakis, 16 Set of Ideas (1992),8-9,29,35, 38,

Organization for Security and 44,48,
52-3,54,64,74,128,198,
Cooperation in Europe, 102 199
Oymen, Onur, 25,72-3 Seville European Council Uune
0za1, Turgut, 12 2002),169-70,171
Sezer, President, 214
Pangalos, Theodoros, 22,59,60,65, Sirnitis, Constantinos, 22,49
67,97 Solana, Javier, 106,134,196
Papadopoulos, Tassos, 15,16,199- Sovereign Base Areas, 2,4, 6,37,
200,204,211-12,214-15,218, 107,206-7
226,227,236,243,244,245 Soysal, Mumtaz, 19-20,147,162,
Papandreou, Andreas, 98 176-7,180
Papandreou, George, 22-3,25,98, Spring, Dick, 23 1
100,l3O-l,203-4 Steel, Henry, 75
Papapetrou, Michalis, 14 Straw, Jack, 167,225
Paphos military airbase, 70
PASOK (Greek centre-left party), taksin~(partition), 3
16 Talat, Mehmet Ali, 20,124,241,
PPrez de Cudlar, Javier, 55 243,244
'Petersberg' tasks, 116,117 T K P (Turkish Cypriot centre-left
Petersen, Friis Arne, 169 party), 20,124
Pfirter, Didier, 105,177,186,224 T M T (Turkish Cypriot guerrilla
PKK (Kurdish terrorist movement), organization), 4
97 Treaty of Alliance (1960),3,4, 3 1-
Powell, Colin, 146 2,33, 142,150,164,207,
217,244
Prodi, Romano, 106,169 Treaty of Establishment (1960),3,
4,207,217
Quin, Joyce, 58 Treaty of Guarantee (1960),3,4,6,
31-2,33, 41,52,57,61,62,93,
Kasmussen, Anders Fogh, 191 122,142,150,164,179,184,207,
Kifkind, Malcolm, 50,66-9 217,233
Russia T R N C see Turkish Kepublic of
arms sales to Greek Cypriots, 70, Northern Cyprus
72,94 Troutbeck meeting (July 1997),77-
attitude to the Cyprus problem, 9
100,222,244-5 Turkey
on Annan I, 186
S300missiles, deployment on on Annan 111,209-10,227
Cyprus, 70-2,94-5,96 attitude to the Cyprus problem,
Sampson, Nikos, 6 23-6,60-3,179-80,201-3,205
Sandhis, Alecos, 120 attitude to the deployment of
Schroeder, Gerhard, 1 1 1, 192,194 S300missiles on Cyprus, 70-1
Schiissel, Wolfgang, 94 attitude to ESDP, 116-18
 INDEX

'Basic requirements' papers relations with Turkish

(2003), 201-3, 205 government, 12
earthquake (August 1999), 98-9 reliance on Turkey, 2, 7
election (November 2002), 181-2 support for E U accession, 124
E U accession, 78-9, 8 1-3, 84, 85- withdrawal from 1960
7, 111-15, 134-5, 146-7, 186-7, constitution, 4
192, 193-6,234,238,246 Turkish Republic of Northern
and face-to-face talks (2002), 165 Cyprus (TKNC)
government collapse (2002), 173- customs union with Turkey
4 (2003), 227
and Iraq war (2003), 205, 2 13-14, declaration of (November 1983),
217,229 8
military presence in Cyprus, 7, international recognition of, 5, 27,
33,62 39-41,93, 123, 175
relations with Greece, 49-50,98-
100,237 UBP (Turkish Cypriot centre-right
relations with EU, 234 party), 20, 123, 124
USITurkey scenario (2001), 148- UK, role in negotiating process,
9, 154 165-8,206-7
Turkish Cypriot Assembly, 20 UNFICYP, 74,97, 102, 104
Turkish Cypriot Chamber of UNFICYP 11, 179
Commerce, 20, 88, 92, 171, 181 United Nations
Turkish Cypriots Confidence-Building Measures
on Annan 111,209-10 (1993-94), 9,48,49, 52, 54, 64
complexes, 23 1-2 on equality of the parties issue,
customs union with T R N C 129-32,135-6
(2003), 227 Good Offices Mission, 64, 102,
demonstrations in support of 104
Annan Plan and EU accession, initiative post-proximity talks,
197-8,212 149-54
elections (December 2003), 241-2 involvement in Cyprus (1964), 5
E U aid projects, 22 1-2 involvement after partition, 7-9,
exports to EU (the 'embargo'), 27
2 34-5 SC Resolution 1250 (1999), 40,
Green Line, lifting of restrictions 102-4, 108,110,128
on, 225-6 SC Resolution 1475 (2003), 224
international recognition, demand Set of Ideas (1992), 8-9,29, 35,
for, 5, 27, 39-41, 93, 123, 175 38,44, 48, 52-3, 54, 64, 74, 128,
media, 2 1 198, 199
'nightmare', 28, 23 1 troop presence in Cyprus, 34
pro-settlement parties, 20-1,47, USA
181, 198 Bush administration, 146
interest in Cyprus, 3,65
256 CYPRUS: T H E SEARCH FOR A S O L U T I O N

US/Turkey scenario (2001), 148- Western European Union, 116-1 7

9, 154 Westmacott, Peter, 167
USSR Weston, Thomas, 106, 145-6, 148,
interest in Cyprus, 3 158, 180
see also Russia World Trade Center, attack on (1 1
September 2001), 154
van den Broek, Hans, 64, 85,88,89,
93 Yakis, Yasar, 24, 186, 2 13
Varosha, 9, 35,48, 227 Yilmaz, Mesut, 24, 60, 79, 82, 83,
Vassiliou, George, 8, 12, 14, 245 86, 109, 173, 174, 186
Verheugen, Gunther, 106-7, 134,
154, 172 Ziyal, Ugur, 25, 165, 179, 192, 193-
4,205,211,214,215,218