A Time Of Reckoning

For a moment I thought I was reading a column written by Ahmet or Mehmet Altan or Etyen Mahcupyan:
“Turkish-Cypriots are complaining from the rigid Jacobean state model imported from Turkey and Turkey`s protectionism.” ("Halk, Türkiye’den ithal edilen kati jakoben devlet modelinden ve Türkiye’nin vesayetinden sikáyetçidir.")
Tough words. But for the liberal and anti-status-quo Turkish commentators like the Altan brothers or Mahcupyan, such broadsides aimed at the Turkish establishment are pretty much the norm.
But the writer was a distinguished diplomat (now retired) who has served as Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs in the past: Ilter Turkmen. His Hurriyet piece, “The New Equation in Cyprus,” published on April 27, is a testimony to the political earthquake that is scrambling the political equations and allegiances in Turkey in the aftermath of the Cyprus referanda.
If a veteran establishment insider like Minister Türkmen, who owes his whole career and reputation to the lifelong service he offered to the Turkish state, can characterize it as the “the rigid Jacobean state model” then it means (as they say down in Texas) “pardner, you ain`t seen nothing yet.” This time around the reckoning between those who defend the statist status-quo and those who want to change it for good will likely have far-reaching results.
The overwhelming “No” by the Greek-Cypriots (GC) and the pretty strong “Yes” by the Turkish-Cypriots (TC) have created strong centrifugal forces in Turkish body politics that will take a while to sort out and resolve.
It all boils down to this central irony: GC voted just the opposite of what TRNC President Rauf Denktas and his closest advisers like Prof. Mümtaz Soysal have predicted.
They claimed that the GC would vote an overwhelming “Yes” to eliminate TRNC, drown out the Turkish presence on the island within a sea of rich Greeks, and get rid of both the Turkish troops and the Turkish settlers in one fell swoop.
That`s why President Denktas threw his supposedly bi-partisan status to the winds and campaigned very strongly to secure a “No” vote in the North. His warning that after the unification the Greek Orthodox clergy would show up “to drink Turkish blood” were criticized severely in the Turkish press as an insult to the intelligence of the Turkish public.
Right now the Turkish press is awash with calls for Denktas to resign since 65% “Yes” is interpreted as a refutation of everything the President has stood for in the referendum. Denktas and his supporters now find themselves in the uncomfortable position of sharing the Greek Cypriot views on the Annan Plan, contrary to the 65% of the Turkish-Cypriots that he represents. Thus it is easy to understand the argument that, in effect, President Denktas right now does not represent those who have voted for him in the last Presidential election.
However, what complicates this unexpectedly stark picture is the fact that the Greek-Cypriots, while acting contrary to the Denktas` expectations, have also validated beyond any doubt the core of Mr. Denktas` long-standing beliefs – that the Greek-Cypriots would never accept the Turks as their equals, would never agree to share political power with Turks on an equitable basis, and would always continue to see the Turks as “a minority” who could at best be “tolerated” to live alongside the Greek majority. So, from that point of view, the TRNC President has been vindicated as well.
This point is important because even if Mr. Denktas resigns from the Presidency (which he already said that he would not do) and even if Mehmet Ali Talat and his pro-EU team takes over the administration it does not mean that there will be any change of heart in the South. The going will still be tough and rough.
Currently Turkey has won a bright diplomatic victory by debunking the decades-old Greek-Cypriot public relations facade and showing the whole world who the real obstructionists on the island are.
But this is also a time when Turkey must be extremely careful not to lose this advantage by losing ground to the Byzantine diplomatic maneuvers launched by the GC side.
Greek-Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos, a former political head of the EOKA, took a tremendous gamble by convincing his people to vote “No” to the Annan Plan.
But I do not think his was an ad hoc gesture. I believe there is a plan behind this gambit that we will see unfold in the months ahead.
One important move would be strongly endorsing in December the onset of membership negotiations with Turkey! That way Papadopoulos, representing only 600,000 Greek-Cypriots, may hope to extract further concessions from 70-million-strong Turkey until the “Annan Plan” transforms into a “Papadopoulos Plan.” Losing Turkey altogether to the EU process would split the island for good, which would mean the collapse of the “Papadopoulos Gambit.”
I believe Mr. Papadopoulos, a lawyer by training who prided himself during the GC Presidential elections as a “tough negotiator,” believes that he can pull this one off ... that the Greek-Cypriots can enjoy EU membership and get rid of the Turkish army and the Turkish settlers while getting back all their properties, that they can do all that without sharing their state with the Turkish-Cypriots and accord them political equality.
Whether he can do that will depend on how strong, disciplined and uncompromising Turks will turn out to be in hanging on to their current advantages and use them for lifting the embargo on TRNC and perhaps even secure the de facto (if not de jury) recognition of TRNC.
The EU, by approving a fresh loan to the TRNC, has already signaled that the Greek-Cypriots will be punished for their violation of EU`s trust and expectations. So the odds are right now against Papadopoulos but in politics the seeds of defeat are sown the minute one stars to underestimate one`s adversary.
Turks, although a few chess pieces ahead, will still have to win this game for themselves and not rely on EU`s or any other party`s “justice" or "sympathy."