AKSAM- Columnist Semih Idiz comments on the Cyprus issue and the urgent need to find a workable peace plan. A summary of his column is as follows:
Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) President Rauf Denktas and his Greek Cypriot counterpart Glafcos Clerides are both trying in earnest to bury UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s recent solution proposal for the island. Yet, no matter how hard they try, the current dizzying diplomatic traffic in Ankara shows that it’s high time to reach a settlement. Let’s be realistic. It is apparent that a solution, if one is reached at all, will be built, more or less, upon the framework Annan drew with the UN proposal. However, this in no way means that a settlement is a done deal.
We see that those who are firmly opposed to any solution on the island are still very influential and powerful. Moreover, it’s as clear as day that neither Denktas nor Clerides is sincere in calling the UN proposal a basis for negotiations, for I’m sure that they only said so under duress. As if they had mutually agreed to not to find a middle way, what one of them calls white the other then calls black. It’s like a seesaw; when one of them is up the other is down, or vice versa. This game has been continuing for 20 years now, and Denktas and Clerides assume that it will do so in the future.
However, both sides also know very well that rejecting the proposal wholesale would cost them a great deal. This is even more so for Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots who really want a solution on the island. I hear some saying, ‘We’ve seen so many of these missed “last chances” in the past, and couldn’t the recent proposal be just another of them?’ However, they don’t seem to realize that the whole world is being in the midst of a realignment. Their arguments could have been valid during the Cold War, but today they are obsolete.
Current developments make it quite clear that Turkey, though it knows quite well that it would cost the country dearly, isn’t likely to abandon its standard stance aimed up to now at maintaining the island’s status quo. And unfortunately, Ankara has a strong tendency to be hemmed in once again by the shallow perspective of Mr. Denktas.
Yet there is a problem. The UN proposal, whether it is good or bad, is fiercely supported by the United States, Great Britain and other members of the UN Security Council, and of course the European Union. The most enthusiastic supporter is the US. Speaking to Greek Cypriot newspaper Politis a few days ago, Thomas Weston, the US special coordinator for Cyprus, said that Annan’s proposal was perfect and that it constituted a well-founded basis for negotiations. He added that a solution to the Cyprus issue would also serve US interests and stressed that the US administration had no intention of abandoning its efforts until the problem is solved.
In other words, both Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots opposed to a peace solution are headed towards further international isolation in the days to come. Without a doubt, this will in turn have negative consequences in certain other areas.
SOURCE: OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER, DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF PRESS AND INFORMATION