Turkey is attempting to turn European involvement in the Cyprus issue into a boomerang by directing it exclusively towards ending what it describes as the \u201cisolation\u201d of the Turkish Cypriot community.<\/p>\n
Ankara\u2019s objective is twofold: to neutralize any substantive EU role in the settlement process, which Nicosia wants in order to ensure that a solution complies with the European acquis, and to redirect Brussels\u2019 involvement towards the proposed direct trade regulation, which has remained frozen since 2004.<\/p>\n
Such a move, in the author\u2019s view, would lay the foundations for the \u201cTaiwanisation\u201d of the occupied areas and the gradual de facto recognition of the breakaway entity.<\/p>\n
Turkey has conveyed these positions at the highest levels in Brussels, citing the conclusions adopted by the EU in April 2004, when the Council declared its determination to end the isolation of the Turkish Cypriot community.<\/p>\n
Fitto, the Commission\u2019s envoy on the Cyprus issue, is fully aware of Ankara\u2019s demands. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has also been informed.<\/p>\n
The renewed effort by the Erdo\u011fan government is linked to outgoing UN Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres\u2019 decision to make agreement on a negotiating \u201cmethodology\u201d a prerequisite for convening the multilateral conference he has announced.<\/p>\n
Diplomatic circles interpret this as a new UN condition covering both an update of past convergences and Ankara\u2019s demand for guarantees over what happens to the Turkish Cypriot community if another round of talks ends in failure.<\/p>\n
This is one of the four points included in the procedural methodology advanced by Erh\u00fcrman and supported by Turkey. It seeks assurances from the United Nations and the international community that, in the event of another deadlock, the Turkish Cypriot side will not remain trapped in the status quo and that its \u201cisolation will be lifted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ankara puts the \u201cThree Alphas\u201d on the table<\/strong><\/p>\n Turkey has presented the EU and Fitto with its full list of demands: direct trade, direct relations with the international community, and direct flights from the airports operating in the occupied areas.<\/p>\n In Greek, the three demands are known as the \u201cThree Alphas,\u201d because each begins with the same letter: ‘apefth\u00edas emp\u00f3rio’\u2014direct trade; ‘apefth\u00edas sch\u00e9seis’\u2014direct relations; and ‘apefth\u00edas pt\u00edseis’\u2014direct flights.<\/p>\n According to reports, UN envoy Mar\u00eda \u00c1ngela Holgu\u00edn has urged President Nikos Christodoulides to agree to these demands as a means of bringing the Turkish Cypriot side back to the negotiating table.<\/p>\n She is also said to have told the president that he \u201cknows what he needs to do,\u201d signalling an expectation that the Greek Cypriot side make an additional gesture.<\/p>\n Nicosia, however, considers such a move impossible to accept. Its concern is that granting these concessions before negotiations even begin would entrench the breakaway entity in practice and transform what is presented as an incentive for a solution into the solution itself.<\/p>\n Guterres left the issue of methodology deliberately open, using what diplomatic sources describe as constructive ambiguity. He referred to the need for the two sides to discuss methodology alongside confidence-building measures and the substance and basis of a settlement.<\/p>\n The Turkish Cypriot side, however, treats the methodology as part of Guterres\u2019 political legacy and therefore as something that should bind the UN leadership that succeeds him.<\/p>\n Former Turkish Cypriot negotiator \u00d6zdil Nami has underlined the importance of the four-point methodology, arguing that the way negotiations are conducted may prove just as important as their substance.<\/p>\n The methodology raises three central questions: whether talks should operate within a fixed timetable, whether a mechanism should be created to break future deadlocks, and whether the communities should be offered substantive choices instead of merely being asked to approve or reject an entire settlement package.<\/p>\n Turkish Cypriot information campaign planned<\/strong><\/p>\n Erh\u00fcrman is expected to launch an international information campaign after the summer promoting the lifting of the Turkish Cypriot community\u2019s \u201cisolation,\u201d working alongside the Turkish Foreign Ministry.<\/p>\n During his contacts with Fitto, he reportedly made clear that the EU would not be accepted as a participant in consultations over a Cyprus settlement. Instead, he argued, the most useful contribution Brussels could make would be to end Turkish Cypriot isolation.<\/p>\n He also called for pressure on the Greek Cypriot side over citizenship applications concerning children born from marriages between Turkish Cypriots and Turkish settlers.<\/p>\n In addition, according to EU sources, Erh\u00fcrman asked Fitto to intervene so that \u201cobstacles raised by the Greek Cypriot administration\u201d to trade across the Green Line are removed.<\/p>\n The Turkish Foreign Ministry is similarly seeking to restrict the EU\u2019s role to matters concerning isolation and the development of what it calls \u201cgood-neighbourly relations between two sovereign entities living side by side.\u201d<\/p>\n Ankara believes that the EU must eventually deliver on what it regards as promises made in the April 2004 Council conclusions, as well as through the draft direct trade regulation that remains frozen in the European Parliament.<\/p>\n The Commission\u2019s \u201csinful past\u201d encourages Ankara today<\/strong><\/p>\n Turkey\u2019s current strategy draws strength from decisions taken in Brussels more than two decades ago.<\/p>\n Following Cyprus\u2019 accession to the EU in 2004\u2014and the Greek Cypriot community\u2019s rejection of the Annan Plan in separate referendums\u2014the European Commission proposed allowing direct trade between the occupied north and the European Union.<\/p>\n The proposal would have created an autonomous trading relationship between the EU and the \u201cTRNC,\u201d effectively legitimizing commerce through ports operating in the occupied areas and, in the author\u2019s assessment, turning the north into a \u201cTaiwan of the Mediterranean.\u201d<\/p>\n The most controversial element was the legal basis chosen by the Commission. It relied on Article 133 of the European treaties\u2014now Article 207\u2014which governs trade with third countries.<\/p>\n That approach would effectively have treated the \u201cTRNC\u201d as a separate third country. It would also have allowed the regulation to be approved by a qualified majority, bypassing Cyprus\u2019 right of veto.<\/p>\n The proposal was promoted by then-European Commissioner G\u00fcnter Verheugen, with Britain also playing an active role. Turkey supported it, as did several EU member states, including Germany and the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n At Nicosia\u2019s request, however, the Council\u2019s Legal Service examined the matter and concluded that the correct legal basis was Protocol No. 10 of Cyprus\u2019 Accession Treaty. That would have required unanimous approval from all member states, giving the Republic of Cyprus the power to block the proposal.<\/p>\n The Council\u2019s lawyers also rejected the idea that the \u201cTRNC\u201d could be treated as a third country.<\/p>\n Despite this, the Commission continued to pursue the regulation and forwarded it to the European Parliament\u2014a development that caught the Cypriot government and diplomatic service off guard.<\/p>\n Former president Demetris Christofias described the Commission\u2019s move as a \u201cfoul.\u201d<\/p>\n The issue triggered an intense confrontation in the European Parliament in October 2010. Ioannis Kasoulides, then a vice-president of the European People\u2019s Party and a member of DISY, played a decisive role in blocking the regulation.<\/p>\n Parliament\u2019s Committee on Legal Affairs ultimately rejected the proposal after the institution\u2019s own Legal Service agreed with the Council that the Commission had selected the wrong legal basis.<\/p>\n Yet the issue was never formally brought to an end.<\/p>\n Then-European Parliament president Martin Schulz should have returned the rejected proposal to the Commission. Instead, it remained frozen in Parliament, keeping it technically alive.<\/p>\n That decision gave the regulation a political \u201ckiss of life\u201d\u2014one Ankara is now seeking to exploit as it pushes the EU to fulfill what it considers its commitments to end the Turkish Cypriot community\u2019s isolation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Turkey is attempting to turn European involvement in the Cyprus issue into a boomerang by directing it exclusively…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1164726,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[8612,316162,2000,299,5187,1699,461],"class_list":["post-1164725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-cyprus","tag-cyprus-problem","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-european-union","tag-turkey"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1164725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1164725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1164725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1164726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1164725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1164725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1164725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}