BY FERAI TINC
HURRIYET- The situation on Cyprus has grown more complicated since Greek Cyprus adopted the euro at the beginning of this year. President Abdullah Gul's meeting with Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) President Mehmet Ali Talat yesterday in Ankara was meant to raise the international profile of this issue. If the European Union is implementing monetary union - the final stage of integration - with a country that hasn't been able to completely fulfill the acquis communautaire, this is a real problem. The EU isn't bothering to hide anymore that with this step, it's prepared to forsake the TRNC. When the common currency entered into force, the Turkish Cypriots were left to their own fate. This situation raises the issue of the right to self-determination. I don't argue that the Kosovo model should be followed and a campaign initiated for recognition of the TRNC, but the process of searching a new solution for the TRNC has clearly begun.
Besides Greek, there is also Turkish on the island's euros. But Greek Cypriot policy can't be said to be following suit. Speaking on the common currency, Greek Cypriot Foreign Minister Erato Markulli said that adoption of the euro would be a new initiative for a resolution on the island and that the closer they get to the euro and the deeper relations get between the two sides, the easier unification will be. She claimed that unification would be facilitated and the problems solved with the Turkish side's accession to the other state. The Greek Cypriot government, which will grow stronger and richer through the euro, is calculating that the North won't be able to resist the money's attractive force.
The Greek Cypriot administration is pushing two issues internationally. The first is former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's plan. This plan doesn't exist anymore in the new process of talks to start under UN supervision. The second point is one that they're trying to exclude from EU documents. They are trying to make people forget that Turkey supported Annan's plan and thus supported a solution on the island. The administration celebrated exclusion of this fact from official documents at an EU summit last month as a great success.
Next the Greek Cypriots hope to go back to the situation before the Annan plan and paint Turkey as the side obstructing a solution. The Greek Cypriot strategy for 2008 is to block ending the TRNC's isolation and to ensure the continuing embargo puts pressure on the TRNC and Turkey. Could this plan work? If Turkey and the Turkish side can produce confident and creative policies and end their inactivity, the plan will fail. No initiative which doesn't guarantee the Turkish side's equality or make the Greek Cypriots feel comfortable can succeed. The EU has completed the separation on the island with the euro, and they should be made to see this.