HURRIYET- Columnist Oktay Eksi comments on Turkey’s policy concerning the Cyprus issue. A summary of his column is as follows:
Diplomats know how to present you with the bitterest truths all wrapped up just like a birthday gift. The problem is what lies beneath the pretty wrappings. Yesterday’s statements by Foreign Ministry spokesman Ambassador Yusuf Buluc were a prime example of this. ‘Our government is making new arrangements to our policy on Cyprus with the contributions of all relevant institutions,’ said Buluc. ‘As part of this, our policy will be revised. Work concerning this is underway.’ So what is the content of this revision? Foreign Ministry Deputy Undersecretary Baki Ilkin, trying to explain the meaning of Uluc’s words, had this to say: ‘Turkey’s policy on Cyprus, which has been one based on the threat of annexation, isn’t this government’s priority.’ Translation: ‘Let’s forget about equal sovereignty, Turkey’s role as active guarantor and the acceptance of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus [TRNC] as a founding state. Now the government is putting together a new arrangement. As for our old principles on this matter, you can send them to the waste bin.’ Actually the Turkish government has never once said ‘We will annex Northern Cyprus into Turkey’ since 1960, when the London-Zurich agreements were signed. As a matter of fact, it couldn’t have said this because if it had, it would have stood in violation of those agreements. However, it has said, many times, ‘The Republic of Turkey and the TRNC will be united as much as the European Union and Southern Cyprus are united.’ The Parliament, which convened a special session in July 1999 for the 25th anniversary of the 1974 Cyprus Peace Operation, declared then in a statement, ‘One cannot reach a solution without accepting the fact that there are two states on Cyprus, two equal states. Turkey won’t allow the violation of the TRNC’s rights and interests. The Turkish Parliament’s full support for the TRNC on the Cyprus issue, which is a national matter for us, will continue unconditionally and without interruption.’ Do yesterday’s words mean that this decision will be changed and a new policy forged without taking that declaration into consideration? If this is the case, then was Parliament lying when it said that our policy on Cyprus was a national one? We had better make this clear.
SOURCE: OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER, DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF PRESS AND INFORMATION