Turkish and Greek Cypriot leaders have spent the past week on a secluded Swiss mountaintop in tough negotiations about reunification, but the trickiest issue is still unresolved: Turkey’s future role on the island.
The window for closing a deal is narrowing fast, and, in the end, the deal will hang on the outcome of two separate but simultaneous referendums to end 42 years of separation.
Greek Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and his Turkish Cypriot counterpart Mustafa Akıncı have been locked in closed-door talks in Mont Pèlerin since Monday, debating where to lay the border between the two states that would form a reunited country.
Negotiation-watchers are looking for one key assurance when they emerge on Friday evening: that the leaders are ready to begin talks with the three countries legally allowed to intervene if Cyprus is invaded — Turkey, Greece and the U.K.
“That would be the most optimistic scenario,” said Ahmet Sözen, a political science and international relations professor at the Eastern Mediterranean University in Northern Cyprus, who took part in reunification talks in 2008. “Are we going to have that? I’m not 100 percent sure, but it sounds like there have been a number of considerable convergences.”
The question of if and how Turkey withdraws its 30,000-plus troops from Northern Cyprus, and relinquishes its role as a security guarantor, will likely be the thorniest of all the issues Akıncı and Anastasiades have tackled over the year and a half since they started U.N.-facilitated reunification talks.
The compromise will likely be a gradual phase-out over several years, as the two sides get used to living together with the U.N. border between them.
The meeting with the three security guarantor countries needs to happen by about mid-December if the two leaders want to meet their goal of reaching a deal this year and putting it to a vote in early 2017. Greece and the U.K. have said they will relinquish the role if that’s what Cypriots want. The question is what Turkey will do.
Greek Cypriots want all Turkish troops to go home, whereas the smaller Turkish Cypriot population is worried about severing Turkish ties and being swallowed up by the Greek side.
The troops have been in Cyprus since Turkey invaded the island in 1974, following a Greek Cypriot coup aimed at unifying with Greece. Since then, Cyprus has been divided by a U.N. buffer zone known as the Green Line. Anastasiades’ government is now recognized everywhere except in Turkey, while Akıncı’s is not recognized anywhere but in Turkey.
The compromise will likely be a gradual phase-out over several years, as the two sides get used to living together without the U.N. border between them.
Greek Cypriots are particularly concerned about whether Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan would agree to this, especially in the aftermath of the failed military coup against him in June and his purge of the alleged plotters.
Others counter that resolving the Cyprus division and ending Turkey’s standoff with the Greek Cypriot government works in Ankara’s favor because it would eliminate an obstacle in relations with the European Union as well as potentially allowing Turkey to import natural gas from Cyprus. That said, the chances of Turkey joining the EU have dimmed in recent months, especially after Brussels accused Ankara of backsliding on its accession criteria on Wednesday.
Democracy can be a messy thing
A deal that only gradually diminishes Turkey’s presence could be “indigestible” for Greek Cypriots, said Matthew Bryza, a former senior U.S. State Department official responsible for the region.
“There’s no way the Turkish Cypriot side will agree to the complete elimination of Turkish military presence and the complete elimination of guarantees,” Bryza said. “But Turkish Cypriots still worry about their security. Even though it seems outrageous, it’s still a visceral issue.”
But even if Ankara gives its blessing to end the Cyprus division, next year’s vote will be far from certain.
“That’s the most important thing, we should look at 2004 and learn from the mistakes that polarized us” — Andromachi Sophocleous from the Cypriot Puzzle
In 2004, Greek Cypriots rejected a plan to reunify while Turkish Cypriots voted in favor.
Stunning vote outcomes this year to pull the U.K. out of the EU, reject Colombia’s peace agreement with FARC rebels and elect Donald Trump as U.S. president all show the unpredictability of holding a referendum.
“It does worry me, definitely,” said Sözen. He carries out periodic polls about whether Greek and Turkish Cypriots would vote for or against reunification, and has found that while Turkish Cypriots tend to be more in favor, they’re gradually turning negative. There are also growing nationalist movements on both sides of the Green Line dividing the island, he said.
Ultimately, however, the most glaring indicator of what could go wrong lies in Cyprus’ first attempt at reunification 12 years ago, said Andromachi Sophocleous from the Cypriot Puzzle, a non-partisan initiative of Greeks and Turks.
That time around, Cypriots weren’t given enough time or detail to understand the U.N.-led deal on the table, and the Greek Cypriot leader’s call to reject it swayed his side of the island. Anastasiades and Akıncı, who both supported reunification in 2004, have acknowledged the need for an informed campaign before the vote.
“That’s the most important thing, we should look at 2004 and learn from the mistakes that polarized us,” Sophocleous said. “It wasn’t a pleasant moment for Cypriots.”