I have been watching Cyprus closely ever since my first visit to the island to report on Glafkos Clerides’ election to the presidential office in 1993.
In those days, it was rare for a Turkish journalist to travel to both sides of Cyprus. Having to fly in and out of the north and the south, instead of being able to cross a few hundred meters through the Green Line, made the costs prohibitive for most news organisations. Making contacts and getting either side’s leaders and officials to agree to interviews with a journalist from the enemy side were even greater obstacles.
In 1993, I was lucky enough to arrive in Cyprus with meetings arranged both with Glafcos Clerides and Rauf Denktas, as well as several other prominent politicians. The cherry on the cake during my week-long stay in the Greek Cypriot part of the island was my meeting with a political anthropologist for the first time and my renewed aquiantance with a Greek Cypriot journalist that I had met in a Europan summit some years previously. Over the years, those two have become two of my closest, dearest friends and my trusted compass in all things Cypriot.
In the North, too, I met many wise people. Some were opposition politicians who gave me an invaluable insight into the Turkish Cypriot’s thinking. Others were fellow journalists who explained the often unfathomable intracies of the Cyprus problem to me.
Later on, as a correspondent based in Ankara, I went back to Cyprus several times to witness the 38 month-long UN effort to bring a solution to the island. During that time, I got to know and admired the UN general-secretary’s special representative, the Peruvian diplomat Alvaro de Soto and his team.
I was there, standing under torrential rain, soaked to the bone, when De Soto announced the dinner invititation by Denktas to Clerides on December 2001. We were wildly excited that a new chapter might be opening in the long-running dispute that so brutally divided the two communites.
From my well-informed sources, I heard stories of the two old friends, Denktas and Clerides cracking jokes and enjoying each other’s company in those encounters. Many of us had moments of hope that their pragmatic and warm personalities and their shared histories and understanding of each other would lead the way to a meaningful progress.
Then, hours later, we would come crashing down to earth when time and time again they walked away from the negotiation table.
Alvaro de Soto, a highly skilled diplomat and an experienced negotiatior, had a strong personality of his own and a sense of humour to match those two towering figures of the Cypriot politics.
Another key figure during that time was Lord Hannay (then Sir David), the British Special Representative for Cyprus, working with Alvaro de Soto.
In my formal interviews and informal conversations with both, even at the most optimistic times while they tried to put together a settlement package, I learnt some very valuable lessons.
Caution and confidentiality were crucial requirements. In Cyprus, you never took anything for granted either. Things could take a totally unexpected turn just when you least expected it.
Despite their experince and wisdom, I don’t think either of them expected such a decisive rejection of the Annan Plan by the Greek Cypriot side in the 2004 referendum.
It was said at the UN that the Cyprus problem was like a padlock that needed four different keys to open. Turkey, Greece, Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots all had a key each and the challenge was to get all four hands to reach to the padlack to turn the key at the same time.
The events of the past 24-hours, with hopes for the resemption of talks being raised and a fast-diplomatic traffic ensueing , brought back these memories.
Following his official visit to Greece, Turkish FM Davutoglu talked about a possible comprehensive solution being on the horizon. “ The decades-old problems in Cyprus are fast-approaching a critical juncture” he said. “From here on, you either show a political will to move toward a solution or you just say that this is not working out”.
Before his meeting with the Turkish Cypriot president Dervis Eroglu on the island, Davutoglu had been conducting a series of discussions with his US and British counterparts via telephone.
Turkish foreign ministry officials have been calling these intensified efforts, a new initiative.
While following Davutoglu’s talks in Athens and Nicosia, I couldn’t help remembering the lessons of the past, along side these memories.
When I read Kathimerini newspaper’s optimistic account of the meeting in Athens between the Greek Foreign Minister Evangelos Venizelos and Mr Davutoglu, I momentarily thought perhaps my usual caution was somewhat outdated.
Along came the statement from another experienced Turkish diplomat, the foreign affairs spokesman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) in Turkey. Retired ambassador and CHP deputy president Faruk Loğoğlu expressed concern that the Foreign Minister Davutoğlu was conducting a not-so-transparent initiative on Cyprus which may end up with concessions harmful to Turkish Cypriot interests.
Some hours later, I heard about the UN special advisor Alexander Downer’s suprising turnaround at Larnaca airport, delaying his departure.
Davutoğlu had held a meeting in Nicosia with the Turkish Cypriot leadership on Saturday morning. Based on previous comments by Davutoğlu and the warning from Mr Loğoğlu, I half expected a compromise on the Greek Cypriot insistance that there should be a joint declaration to get both sides to commit before talks, to the idea of a some kind of federative formula.
Davutoğlu’s joint press conference with Eroğlu soon brought an end to this expectation.
If there was any optimism left, Alexander Downer’s unusual meeting with Davutoğlu at the Turkish Embassy destroyed my last glimmer of hope that something major could be happening.
Sure enough, Greek Cypriot government spokesman Christos Stylianides responded angrily. He said that the joint statement by Davutoğlu and Eroğlu “torpedoed any possibility for the resumption of a substantive dialogue in Cyprus”.
With a worsening situation in the Middle East increasing pressure on the Turkish government to re-think its foreign policy, with no light at the end of the tunnel for both Greece and Cyprus in their economic crisis and the the Greek presidency of the EU approaching , Mr Davutoğlu clearly once again thought the time for another opening was ripe.
Once again, he read the situation drastically wrong.
For those of us seasoned Cyprus watchers, it wasn’t altogether suprising. Because the fine line between pragmatism and opportunism in international relations has always been even thinner in Cyprus.
This post is also available in: Turkish
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