I asked the experienced diplomat, whose hair had turned white from struggling with Turkish foreign policy problems if several more generations were going to live with this problem. Smiling, he said he was not optimistic that a solution could be found in the near future.
Due to the policies of the Greeks, who have the support of the European Union, it is normal for Turkish diplomats to be hopeless. However, Turkish Cypriot President Mehmet Ali Talat fills public meeting squares in the name of a Cyprus “solution” and is a national hero, thrown out of the ring, whose name has become synonymous with Cyprus. Has he, too, lost hope of a solution?
In Zaman’s latest think tank meeting, which has become a tradition, I saw that after discussing Cyprus for more than two hours, he had become very pessimistic. Don’t misunderstand me; I do not mean to say that because President Talat says a solution is hard that he is tending to veer off into no-solution politics. On the contrary, he still believes that there is no alternative except pressure. However, he sees it as highly improbable that the Greeks, with their strong position in the European Union, will accept a solution that will satisfy Turkey. He says, “If there is not going to be a solution, the world should be shown that the Greeks are responsible for this.”
In fact, Sanberk supports the assessment that, with the influence of Hellenic and Orthodox traditions, the Greeks will never accept sharing sovereignty and that this process is going toward a two-state structure. He thinks that Greek politics under the leadership of Papadopoulos consolidates the division of the island.
When one of the participants said that 70 percent of Greek youths do not want to live among the Turks, Talat explained how Turkish youths see living together: “After stating this view of the Greeks, I ask Turkish young people what they think. They said that if they don’t want to live with us, we don’t want to live with them.”
In order to explain how the two peoples living on the island are estranged from one another, he relates the experience of his neighborhood butcher friend: “I cut off all my relations with the Greeks. Only one family remains that I speak with. They don’t like us and don’t want us.” Listen carefully; this is not Denktas talking. This man, who is looked upon skeptically in Turkey because he advocates ending the division on the island and because he contacted Greek political parties, is saying these things.
Meanwhile, Professor Eser Karakas presents another painful point that puts forth the difficulty of a solution. It cannot be expected that the Greeks, who have raised their per capita income to over $20,000, will feel their former need for land in the North. Views indicating the difficulty of a solution like the world wants or at least like what the United Nations recommended are not limited to these. For example, giving the China case, Professor Ali Karaosmanoglu says that the delay in official recognition of Turkish Cyprus is not very abnormal.
Since the EU process is not going to progress without resolving the Cyprus issue, this is bad news for Turkey, isn’t it? Yes, it is bad news in respect to the EU process. However, is this situation good news for the Greeks who consider resisting a solution to be to their gain? No, because if even Talat has given up hope it means that the United Cyprus ideal is rapidly becoming a fantasy. Under these conditions, both Turkey and the world have to re-think what we understand by a solution to Cyprus.
Positive effects in the EU process from the weakening of the probability of finding a solution of uniting with the Greeks are not completely absent. The most important of these is the gradual disappearance of the polarization that peaked on the island before the Annan Plan. It is important for those who thought that Denktas and Turkey’s official policy were the only obstacles to peace to see the inadequacy of this attitude. In addition, it is apparent that during this process the Turkish side has developed its own self-confidence. Authorities say that the per capita income in Turkish Cyprus has risen from $4,000 to $11,000 in the last three years. While previously paychecks comprised only 42 percent of those on the Greek side, now this figure has risen to 78 percent. As the economy develops, self-confidence will definitely increase as well.
