THE SHAPE, STRUCTURE, and status of Cyprus's government have been
sources of bitter controversy for most of the nation's history since
independence in 1960, and have become the "national" question
for both Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. Politics in both
communities, governed separately since 1964 and physically separated
since 1974, have been dominated by the lack of consensus, both between
and within the two communities, over the very identity of the state and
the structure of its government and political institutions.
The original political arrangements outlined in the 1960 constitution
were in effect for only three years. By 1963, after proposals by
President Archbishop Makarios III (1960-77) to amend the constitution in
ways widely viewed as favoring the majority Greek Cypriot population,
Turkish Cypriots withdrew from many national institutions and began
self-government in the Turkish quarters of the island's towns and cities
and in villages in Turkey.
A more significant change occurred after the 1974 Turkish
intervention. Following the dislocation and resettlement of large
segments of both communities, the current situation emerged: two
separate governments--only one of which enjoys international recognition
as the legitimate government--functioning in two discrete geographic
zones. In February 1975, the provisional Turkish Cypriot administration
declared itself the "Turkish Federated State of Cyprus"
("TFSC"), although it stated its intention to move toward a
federal solution with the Greek Cypriots and pledged not to seek
recognition as an independent state. In October 1983, after continued
stalemate of United Nations (UN) efforts toward a settlement, Turkish
Cypriots renamed their "state" the "Turkish Republic of
Northern Cyprus" ("TRNC"). While restating their
commitment to working toward a federal solution, Turkish Cypriot
authorities launched an international campaign for recognition of their
state, arguing that recognition would facilitate a solution by according
the island's two political entities equal status. As of the early 1990s,
however, only Turkey had recognized the "TRNC."
Greek Cypriots maintained that the Republic of Cyprus established in
1960 continued to exist, with functioning institutions, absent Turkish
Cypriot participation. The status of the 1959 treaties that established
the republic in 1960 remained in dispute, posing a challenge to the
Greek Cypriot claim of legal authority and sovereignty over the whole
island (except for the 256 square kilometers that are sovereign British
base areas). The Greek Cypriot position on the legal status of the 1959
agreements is not completely clear. The late president Makarios
attempted to invalidate the Treaty of Guarantee, and later Greek Cypriot
leaders claimed it violated their sovereignty, but on occasion they have
tried to invoke it. For example, after the 1983 Turkish Cypriot
declaration of statehood, the republic's president tried to persuade the
British government to intervene under the terms of that treaty's Article
IV.
Since the 1974 crisis and the emergence of the Cyprus question as an
international political problem, the Republic of Cyprus has had three
presidents. Makarios, the dominant political and religious figure for
Greek Cypriots, died of a heart attack in the summer of 1977 at age
sixty-three. He was succeeded by Spyros Kyprianou, leader of the ruling
Democratic Party, and Makarios's ecclesiastical responsibilities were
assumed by Bishop Chrysostomos of Paphos. Kyprianou was reelected
unopposed in January 1978 and was reelected in contested elections in
1983. In February 1988, Kyprianou was ousted in an upset by newcomer
George Vassiliou, a successful businessman with no party affiliation,
who campaigned on a promise to bring fresh ideas and energy to the
settlement process.
Leadership of the Turkish Cypriot community has remained since 1974
in the hands of Rauf Denktas, elected president of the "Turkish
Republic of Northern Cyprus" ("TFSC") in July 1975 and
reelected in 1981. In 1985, under a new constitution in the newly formed
"Turkish Federated State of Cyprus" ("TRNC"),
Denktas again won at the polls, by a margin of 70.4 percent, and in
April 1990 received 67.1 percent of the vote, defeating two opponents.
The search for a settlement through creation of a new federal
republic continued in the late 1980s and in 1990. Talks intensified
after Vassiliou's election, and the UN-sponsored negotiations between
Greek and Turkish Cypriots in 1988-90 aimed at outlining a framework for
establishing a federal republic that would be bicommunal with respect to
constitutional issues and bizonal with respect to territorial concerns.
Early optimism that Vassiliou would be the catalytic force to bring the
talks to a successful conclusion was dampened when talks broke down in
early 1990. Despite tentative progress on closing the gap between Greek
Cypriot demands for freedom of movement, property, and settlement and
the Turkish Cypriot demand for strict bizonality with considerable
authority to the two provinces or states, the process was encumbered by
deep mistrust between the two sides and a growing conviction that the
Turkish Cypriot side was more inclined to work for its separate status
than for power sharing in a unitary state with Greek Cypriots.
<>BACKGROUND
At independence, Cyprus's constitution called for a government
divided into executive, legislative, and judicial branches, headed by a
president, with strong guarantees for the Turkish Cypriot community. The
constitution arranged for a Greek Cypriot president and Turkish Cypriot
vice president, elected by their respective communities for five-year
terms of office. Members of the island's other minorities--Armenians,
Maronites, and Roman Catholics--were given the option of joining one of
the communities for voting purposes. All chose to be identified as
Greek, although some have continued to live in the Turkish zone since
the 1974 division of the island. Greek and Turkish were designated as
official languages, and the two communities were given the right to
celebrate, respectively, Greek and Turkish national holidays.
The constitution further provided that executive power in all but
communal matters be vested in the president and vice president. The two
executives had the right of veto, separately or jointly, over certain
laws or decisions of both the Council of Ministers and the House of
Representatives, the legislative body. The constitution spelled out in
detail their powers and duties.
The Council of Ministers was to be composed of seven Greek Cypriots
and three Turkish Cypriots, with the former appointed by the president
and the latter by the vice president. Decisions of the council were to
be taken by absolute majority. Of three key portfolios--defense,
finance, and foreign affairs--one was to be held by a Turkish Cypriot.
The unicameral House of Representatives was designed to legislate for
the republic in all matters except those expressly reserved to separate
communal chambers. The constitution provided that thirty-five of its
members be Greek Cypriots and fifteen Turkish Cypriots. (Representation
in proportion to communal strength would have resulted in a forty-to-ten
ratio.) Members, elected from separate communal rolls, were to serve for
terms of five years. The House of Representatives's president was to be
a Greek Cypriot and its vice president, a Turkish Cypriot.
Voting in the House of Representatives was to be by majority, except
that separate majorities in the two communities were required for
imposition of taxes or duties, modification of the electoral law, or
laws relating to the separate municipalities in the five main towns. The
establishment of these municipalities became one of the most
controversial intercommunal issues. While the constitution called for
their establishment, implementing legislation was never passed, because
the Greeks were convinced that such laws could lead to partition.
Turkish Cypriots have long cited this issue as evidence of the Greek
Cypriots' intention to undermine the Turkish Cypriots' separate communal
identity.
The constitution also called for the creation of two communal
chambers, composed of representatives elected by each community. These
chambers were empowered to deal with religious, educational, and
cultural matters, questions of personal status, and the supervision of
cooperatives and credit societies. To supplement an annual provision to
the chambers from the government budget, the constitution enabled the
communal chambers to impose taxes and fees of their own to support their
activities.
The judicial system broadly outlined in the Zurich-London accords and
stipulated in detail in the constitution included the Supreme
Constitutional Court, the High Court of Justice, district and assize
courts, and communal courts. At the summit was the Supreme
Constitutional Court, composed of three judges: a Greek Cypriot, a
Turkish Cypriot, and a contracted judge from a neutral country who would
serve as president of the court. The president, who was entitled to two
votes, would serve for six years, while the Greek Cypriot and Turkish
Cypriot judges would serve until age sixty-eight. The court was to have
final jurisdiction on matters of constitutional interpretation and
adjudication of disputes centering on alleged discrimination in law
against either of the two communities.
This bicommunal structure was duplicated in the High Court of
Justice, which exercised appellate jurisdiction over lower courts in
civil and criminal matters. The lower courts were assize courts, with
criminal jurisdiction, and district courts, with civil jurisdiction
except in questions of personal status and religious matters. Disputes
between plaintiffs and the defendants belonging to the same community
were to be tried by tribunals composed of judges belonging to the
appropriate community. Disputes between members of different communities
were to tried by mixed tribunals whose compositions were to be
determined by the High Court of Justice.
Civil disputes relating to questions of personal status and religious
matters were to be tried in communal courts. These courts were rigidly
limited in jurisdiction and could not impose restraint, detention, or
imprisonment.
The constitution set forth other safeguards for the Turkish Cypriot
minority in sections dealing with the civil service and the armed forces
of the republic. According to the 1960 census, Greek Cypriots composed
77 percent of the population, Turkish Cypriots 18.3 percent, and other
minorities the remainder. The constitution required that the two groups
be represented in the civil service at a ratio of 70 to 30 percent. In
addition, the republic was to have an army of 2,000 members, 60 percent
Greek Cypriot and 40 percent Turkish Cypriot. After an initial period, a
2,000-member security force consisting of police and gendarmerie was to
be 70 percent Greek Cypriot and 30 percent Turkish Cypriot.
The organizational structure and qualifications of the civil service
were laid down on the model of the British civil service, with
provisions for tenure, career status, and promotion through a
grade-level system. The ten-member Public Service Commission determined
the rules of conduct and qualifications for the various positions.
Cyprus - 1963 Constitutional Breakdown
The 1960 constitution did not succeed in providing the framework for
a lasting compromise between Greek and Turkish Cypriots. Rather, its
bicommunal features impeded administration and gave rise to continuing
dissension, which culminated finally in armed violence between members
of the two communities. Beginning in late 1963, Turkish Cypriots
withdrew from the government, and by 1965 the Greek Cypriots were in
full charge.
The constitution failed to allay the suspicion and distrust that had
increasingly divided the two communities, especially since the eruption
of intercommunal violence in 1958. Many Greek Cypriots viewed the
Zurich-London agreements as imposed on Cyprus from outside, and
therefore illegitimate. Their main objection to the agreements, however,
was that they barred the unification, or enosis, of Cyprus with Greece.
Greek Cypriots also viewed the constitutional provisions drafted to
safeguard minority rights as granting the Turkish Cypriots
disproportionate privileges that the Turkish Cypriots abused. Therefore,
some politically active elements of the Greek Cypriot community were
motivated to undermine the constitution, or at least press for
modifications.
Turkish Cypriots, some of whom also would have preferred different
arrangements than those contained in the independence documents, such as
taksim, or partition, of the island and union of its two parts
with the respective motherlands (so-called double enosis), nonetheless
maintained that the separative provisions of the constitution were
essential to their security and identity as a separate national
community.
A number of quarrels broke out over the balance of representation of
the two communities in the government and over foreign policy, taxation
by communal chambers, and other matters, bringing the government to a
virtual standstill. The leading cause of disagreements was the ratio of
Greek Cypriots to Turkish Cypriots in the civil service. Turkish
Cypriots complained that the seventy-to-thirty ratio was not enforced.
Greek Cypriots felt that the provisions discriminated against them,
because they constituted almost 80 percent of the population. Another
major point of contention concerned the composition of units under the
sixty-to- forty ratio decreed for the Cypriot army. President Makarios
favored complete integration; Vice President Fazil K���k accepted a
mixed force at the battalion level but insisted on segregated companies.
On October 20, 1961, K���k used his constitutional veto power for the
first and only time to halt the development of a fully integrated force.
Makarios then stated that the country could not afford an army anyway.
Planning and development of the national army ceased, and paramilitary
forces arose in each community.
From the start, Greek Cypriots had been uneasy about the idea of
separate municipalities, which Turkish Cypriots were determined to
preserve. Also, the Greek Cypriot Communal Chamber never set up a
communal court system, whereas Turkish Cypriot communal courts were
established.
Still another issue that provoked strong Greek Cypriot criticism was
the right of the veto held by the Turkish Cypriot vice president and
what amounted to final veto power held by the Turkish Cypriot
representatives in the House of Representatives with respect to laws and
decisions affecting the entire population. Turkish Cypriot
representatives had exercised this veto power with respect to income tax
legislation, seriously limiting government revenues.
In late 1963, after three years' experience of unsteady
selfgovernment , Makarios declared that certain constitutional
provisions "threatened to paralyze the State machinery."
Revisions were necessary, he said, to remove obstacles that prevented
Greek and Turkish Cypriots from "cooperating in the spirit of
understanding and friendship." On November 30, 1963, Makarios
proposed thirteen amendments to be considered immediately by the leaders
of the Turkish Cypriot community.
These proposals, outlined in a presidential memorandum entitled
"Suggested Measures for Facilitating the Smooth Functioning of the
State and for the Removal of Certain Causes of Intercommunal
Friction," reflected all the constitutional problems that had
arisen. The president's action had far-reaching implications. Most
important, it deeply eroded Turkish Cypriot confidence in the fragile
power sharing arrangement. The proposals also automatically involved
Greece, Turkey, and Britain, which as signatories to the Treaties of
Guarantee and Alliance had pledged to guarantee the status quo under the
constitution.
The proposed amendments would have eliminated most of the special
rights of Turkish Cypriots. For instance, they would have abolished many
of the provisions for separate communal institutions, substituting an
integrated state with limited guarantees for the minority community. The
administration of justice was to be unified. Instead of the separate
municipalities that the constitution had originally called for in the
five largest towns, municipalities were to be unified. The veto powers
of the president and vice president were to be abandoned, as were the
provisions for separate parliamentary majorities in certain areas of
legislation. Turkish Cypriot representation in the civil service was to
be proportionate to the size of the community. By way of compensation,
the Turkish Cypriot vice president was to be given the right to deputize
for the Greek Cypriot president in case of his absence, and the vice
president of the House of Representatives was to be acting president of
the body during the temporary absence or incapacity of the president.
K���k reportedly had agreed to consider these proposals. The
Turkish government, however, rejected the entire list. In any case,
intercommunal fighting erupted in December 1963, and in March 1964 the
UN Security Council authorized the establishment of an international
peace-keeping force to control the violence and act as a buffer between
the two communities.
Cyprus - 1964-74 Situation: Separate Communal Life
By the spring of 1964, the legislature was effectively a Greek
Cypriot body. Turkish Cypriot representatives, like their counterparts
in the civil service, feared for their safety in the Greek-dominated
parts of Nicosia, and did not participate.
Turkish Cypriots have argued that what they considered their
involuntary nonparticipation rendered any acts of that parliament
unconstitutional. Greek Cypriots have maintained that the institutions
continued to function under the constitution, despite Turkish Cypriot
absence.
In 1964 the Greek Cypriot-controlled House of Representatives passed
a number of important pieces of legislation, including laws providing
for the establishment of an armed force, the National Guard, and for the
restoration to the government of its rights to impose an income tax.
Other laws altered the government structure and some of the bicommunal
arrangements, including abolishing separate electoral rolls for Greek
and Turkish Cypriots, abolishing the Greek Cypriot Communal Chamber, and
amalgamating the Supreme Constitutional Court and the High Court of
Justice into the Supreme Court.
Reaction of the Turkish Cypriot judiciary to this judicial change was
apparently not unfavorable, since a Turkish Cypriot was named president
of the Supreme Court. He assumed his post, and other Turkish Cypriot
judges returned to the bench. For about two years, Turkish Cypriot
judges participated in the revised court system, dealing with both Greek
and Turkish Cypriots. In June 1966, however, the Turkish Cypriot judges
withdrew from the system, claiming harassment. The Turkish Cypriot
leadership directed its community not to use the courts of the republic,
to which, however, they continued to be legally entitled, according to
the Greek Cypriots. In turn, the judicial processes set up in the
Turkish Cypriot community were considered by the Greek Cypriot
government to be without legal foundation.
The establishment of a separate Turkish Cypriot administration
evolved in late 1967, in the wake of renewed intercommunal hostilities. Turkish Cypriot leaders, on December 29, 1967,
announced the formation of a "transitional administration" to
oversee the affairs of the Turkish Cypriot community "until such
time as provisions of the 1960 constitution have been fully
implemented." The administration was to be headed by K���k as
president and Rauf Denktas (the former president of the Turkish Cypriot
Communal Chamber, who had been living in exile in Turkey) as vice
president.
The fifteen Turkish Cypriot former members of the republic's House of
Representatives joined the members of the Turkish Cypriot Communal
Chamber to constitute a Turkish Cypriot legislative assembly. Nine of
the members were to function as an executive council to carry out
ministerial duties. President Makarios declared the administration
illegal and its actions devoid of any legal effect.
On February 25, 1968, Greek Cypriots reelected Makarios to office, in
the first presidential election since 1960, by an overwhelming majority.
Running against a single opponent campaigning for enosis, Makarios won
about 96 percent of the votes cast.
Intercommunal talks for a solution to the constitutional crisis began
on June 24, 1968, and reached a deadlock on September 20, 1971. Talks
resumed in July 1972, in the presence of UN Secretary General Kurt
Waldheim and one constitutional adviser each from Greece and Turkey.
Both sides realized that the basic articles of the constitution,
intended to balance the rights and interests of both communities, had
become moot and that new constitutional arrangements had to be found.
At the same time, extralegal political activities were proliferating,
some based on preindependence clandestine movements. The emergence of
these groups, namely, the National Organization of Cypriot Fighters
(Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston B--EOKA B) and its Turkish Cypriot
response, the Turkish Resistance Organization (T�rk Mukavemet Teskil�ti--TMT),
were eroding the authority of conventional politicians. There were
mounting calls for enosis from forces no longer supportive of Makarios,
notably the National Guard, and there was a radical Turkish Cypriot
reaction.
Cyprus - The 1974 Crisis and Division of the Island
Pressures mounting within the Cypriot communities and within the
military junta ruling Greece converged in the summer of 1974. Greek
military officials, angered by Makarios's independence from Greece and
his policy of nonalignment, backed a coup d'�tat by Greek Cypriot
National Guard officers intent on enosis. The coup imposed Nicos Sampson
as provisional president.
The Turkish response was swift. On July 20, Turkish troops reached
the island and established a beachhead in the north. A ceasefire was
reached two days later, with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) allies of Greece and Turkey working urgently to avoid an
intra-alliance confrontation. Peace talks were hastily convened in
Geneva, but those talks did not satisfy Turkish concerns. On August 14,
the Turks began a second offensive that resulted in their control of 37
percent of the island. The ceasefire lines achieved after the extension
of Turkish control formed the basis for the buffer zone manned by the
United Nations Peace-keeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP), which has been
in place since 1964.
The events of 1974 dramatically altered the internal balance of power
between the two Cypriot communities and coupled their prevailing
political and institutional separation with stark physical and
geographical separation. In a grim historical echo of the widely praised
1930 Greek-Turkish exchange-of-population agreements, roughly a third of
each community, displaced by the war, was transferred to the side of the
island that its community controlled. As a consequence, in 1990 nearly a
third of the people of Cyprus lived outside their birthplaces or places
of residence in 1974.
Institutionally, Turkish Cypriots simply consolidated what had been a
separate administration run out of Turkish Cypriot enclaves across the
island into the northern third, made secure by Turkish troops. That
presence altered the political life of the Turkish Cypriots, however.
Many decisions affecting the life of the community had a security
dimension, and the economy of the small entity has been dependent on
Turkish subsidies and trade. Thus, the extent of the real autonomy of
Turkish Cypriot authorities from their mainland protectors and
benefactors was the subject of continued speculation and uncertainty.
Cyprus - SEARCH FOR A NEW POLITICAL FORMULA
Clearly, the debate over government and politics on the island of
Cyprus is more fundamental than in many other countries. The lack of
consensus between the two major communities over how to govern and
administer the island shapes daily life in each community and dominates
the island's relations with the outside world. At issue is whether the
island should have one government or two, whether the two communities in
fact constitute two distinct political entities and "nations,"
and whether some form of cooperation and power sharing between the two
communities is possible.
After 1974, the debate over these issues resumed, mainly in a formal
process under the auspices of the UN secretary general. Political
leaders in each community asserted that there was general agreement on
how to proceed with the settlement negotiations, and that both sides had
minimum requirements that had to be recognized. These mainstream
positions fell along a continuum from a concept of federalism, in which
major powers and functions would be retained at the federal level and
residual powers at the level of the province or state, to something more
like confederalism, with emphasis placed on maximum authority in the
constituent states and more symbolic power for the overarching
apparatus.
The interests of the two communities diverged over this range, with
Greek Cypriots seeking to maximize prospects for functional
reunification of the island and internal mobility of people and goods,
and Turkish Cypriots arguing that separation of the communities and
their authority best served their security interests. As a consequence,
the two sides did not share the same sense of urgency about settlement.
Greek Cypriots believed that time was not on their side, and that
continued division of the island favored the separation preferred by
Turkish Cypriots. Greek Cypriots thus felt a greater sense of urgency
than Turkish Cypriots, who were more satisfied with the status quo.
At the same time, dissident voices, with little political
significance, argued for options other than the federal solution,
including returning to preindependence proposals such as enosis,
possibly with certain rights provided to Turkey, or double enosis, in
which the two parts of the divided island would become states or
provinces of their respective motherlands.
As of 1990, the governments of the Greek Cypriots and Turkish
Cypriots and the world community had embraced the idea that settlement
of the Cyprus question was possible through negotiations aiming to
reestablish a single government, bizonal with respect to territory and
bicommunal with respect to constitutional aspects. This process
continued to dominate national life and political debate in both
communities.
Cyprus - Milestones in the United Nations Settlement Process
In the immediate aftermath of the 1974 crisis, acting Greek Cypriot
president Glafkos Clerides met with Rauf Denktas in September. These
intercommunal talks were initially limited to humanitarian issues, such
as the exchange of population between the two sides of the island.
Later, at the urging of the United States, the two men, with Clerides
the intercommunal negotiator in a restored Makarios government, resumed
a substantive agenda and met in Vienna in January 1975. They both
declared their support for the principle of an independent, nonaligned,
and demilitarized Cyprus. Beyond these broad concepts, however, there
were serious differences over the form of government, the size of the
area to be retained by Turkish Cypriots, the return of refugees and
compensation for property losses, and the timing of the withdrawal of
Turkish troops.
By February 1976, the two sides, according to statements, had
discussed territorial and constitutional issues and had agreed to
exchange written proposals before May. Before the May meeting, however,
difficulties arose within the Greek Cypriot camp. Clerides resigned as
negotiator because of differences of view with Makarios and allegations
that he was willing to accept a bizonal federation, an idea that
Makarios opposed at the time.
Makarios appointed Tassos Papadopoulos, deputy president of the House
of Representatives, to replace Clerides. Denktas, who declined to deal
face to face with Papadopoulos because he had been an active member of
the EOKA, appointed �mit S�leyman Onan to serve as negotiator.
Cyprus - 1977 Makarios-Denktas Accords
After intensive efforts by Waldheim, Makarios and Denktas met on
January 27, 1977, the first meeting between the two men since the
Turkish Cypriots had withdrawn from the government of the republic in
1964. By then Makarios was leaning toward negotiation on the basis of a
bizonal federation, provided that there be some Turkish Cypriot
territorial concessions. He continued to insist on a strong central
government and freedom of movement for all Cypriots. He demanded 80
percent of the territory, proportionate to the size of the Greek Cypriot
population, but indicated that he might accept 75 percent if it included
Varosha, the formerly prosperous tourist area of Famagusta to which
35,000 Greek Cypriots wanted to return. Denktas apparently indicated
readiness to consider about 68 percent.
On February 12, 1977, the two men met and agreed on four guidelines.
The first was that Cyprus would be an independent, nonaligned,
bicommunal federal republic. Second, the territory under the
administration of each community was to be discussed in light of
economic viability, productivity, and property rights. Third, questions
of principle such as freedom of movement and settlement, rights of
ownership, and certain special matters were to be open for discussion,
taking into consideration the fundamental decision for a bicommunal
federal system and certain practical difficulties. Finally, the powers
and functions of a central government would be such as to safeguard the
unity of the country.
This achievement raised hopes among Cyprus's foreign friends that a
settlement could be reached. These hopes were dashed when President
Makarios, the central figure in the Greek Cypriot community, died of a
heart attack in August 1977. Spyros Kyprianou, his successor, pledged to
adhere to positions he believed Makarios would have taken.
Over time, it became clear that Kyprianou enjoyed less political room
to maneuver than his predecessor, partly because of the growing
political strength of the refugees and displaced persons. Kyprianou
found in this group a ready-made constituency, and he embraced their
advocacy of their right to return to homes and property and their call
for a permeable border and unimpeded free movement and unrestricted
settlement. This position sharpened differences with the Turkish Cypriot
advocacy of a tightly controlled border and guarantees that the ethnic
balance established by the de facto partition would remain undisturbed.
In April 1978, a new set of Turkish Cypriot proposals was made
public, but was quickly rejected by the Greek Cypriot negotiator,
Papadopoulos, who objected to both the proposals constitutional and
territorial aspects. Kyprianou dismissed Papadopoulos in June over
disagreements.
Later in 1978, external powers tried their hand at a Cyprus proposal.
President Jimmy Carter had convinced a slim majority in the United
States Congress to lift the arms embargo imposed against Turkey because
of its intervention on Cyprus; Carter pledged to renew diplomatic
efforts to resolve the Cyprus problem. The United States then worked
with Britain and Canada to launch a new settlement plan. The
twelve-point plan (often called the ABC plan because of its American,
British, and Canadian sponsorship) proposed a biregional, independent
federal republic. The state's constitutional structure would conform to
the Makarios-Denkta guidelines of February 1977, as well as to pertinent
clauses of the 1960 constitution. There would be two constituent
regions. The federal government would be responsible for foreign
affairs, defense, currency and central banking, trade, communications,
federal finance, customs, immigration and emigration, and civil
aviation. Residual functions would rest with the two regions. A
bicameral legislature would be established, with the upper chamber
evenly divided between the two communities, and the lower one divided on
a population-ratio basis. The Council of Ministers would be jointly
selected by the president and vice president, one of whom would be a
Greek Cypriot and the other a Turkish Cypriot. On territorial issues,
the plan envisioned significant Turkish Cypriot geographic concessions,
although the size and locale of the two regions would take into account
factors such as economic viability, security, population distribution,
and history. The plan addressed the refugee issue, and called for
essentially a demilitarized republic and withdrawal of all foreign
forces except for an agreedupon contingent.
The Republic of Cyprus government objected to many points in the
plan, largely because it preempted various positions of the two sides.
The Greek Cypriot foreign minister said he would have preferred an
agenda that did not go into so much detail. Other Greek Cypriot forces,
including the church and some political parties, also opposed the plan.
In the Greek community, only Glafkos Clerides urged its acceptance as a
basis for talks. Turkish Cypriots also formally rejected the plan as an
overall settlement package.
However, the ABC plan stimulated further efforts toward a settlement,
and the UN Security Council acted quickly to resume intercommunal talks,
on the basis of an agenda that combined the Makarios-Denktas guidelines
with some aspects of the allied plan.
Two other effects of the American initiative should be noted. The
plan was the last American-drafted proposal for Cyprus and convinced
some in the Western policy community that even a fairminded effort had
little chance of winning Cypriot acceptance. Second, it reinforced
Cypriot anxiety about having solutions imposed from outside. By the
early 1990s, many features of the initiative remained part of the
UN-brokered negotiating effort, but Cypriots remained committed to
writing their own plan.
Cyprus - 1979 Kyprianou-Denktas Communiqu�
In early 1979, President Kyprianou was persuaded by his political
advisers to resume talks with Denktas, and Javier P�rez de Cu�llar,
then undersecretary general of the UN, called the two to a meeting in
Nicosia in June. The two intercommunal negotiators, Minister to the
President George Ioannides for the Greek Cypriots and �it S�leyman
Onan for the Turkish Cypriots, pursued talks aiming at a communiqu�
stating the broad agenda for further talks. This process stalled
temporarily when Greek Cypriots sought to give the Varosha issue
priority above all other issues. On May 18 and 19, the two leaders held
a second summit that led to the successful conclusion of a ten-point
agreement that called for a resumption of talks on all territorial and
constitutional issues; placed priority on reaching agreement on the
resettlement of Varosha; stated the parties' commitment to abstain from
actions that could jeopardize the talks; and, envisaged the
demilitarization of Cyprus. The agreement also repeated past statements
about guarantees against union with any other country, partition, or
secession. The ten points were largely a tactical means to secure
further negotiations and did not resolve any substantive issues. One
more meeting was held in June 1979, but the talks were then suspended
until August 1980.
The UN-established common ground on which the talks resumed was a
four-part agenda addressing, on a rotating basis, the resettlement of
Varosha under UN auspices, initial practical measures to promote good
will, constitutional issues, and territorial issues. The talks,
conducted in Cyprus under the chairmanship of the UN secretary general's
Special Representative on Cyprus, Ambassador Hugo Gobbi, continued
without a major breakthrough and were temporarily suspended for the
spring 1981 parliamentary elections on both sides of the island. In
August and October 1981, the two sides made substantive presentations,
which were welcomed as signs of commitment to compromise, but which also
revealed the serious gap in the two sides' concepts of a solution.
The Turkish Cypriot proposal, submitted in August 1981, named four
fundamental principles: a bicommunaand bizonal federal republic shall be
established, but the two federated states will not form a unitary state;
the Turkish Cypriot community will be regarded as an equal cofounder
with the Greek Cypriot community and all government institutions will be
staffed on a fifty-fifty ratio; the federal or central government will
not be so strong as to imperil the independence of its component states;
and the three freedoms of movement property, and settlement, will be
restricted as set out by the 1977 guidelines. The proposal identified as
"federal matters" six functions, including foreign affairs;
foreign financial affairs; tourism and information; posts and
telecommunications; federal health and veterinarian services; and,
standards of weights and measures, patents, copyrights, and trademarks.
The Turkish Cypriots also submitted two maps, one defining a proposed
boundary line between the two federated states and one focused on
Varosha in particular. The Turkish Cypriot proposal treated the federal
concept narrowly, limiting federal authority.
The Greek Cypriots submitted their proposal on October 1, 1981. It
contrasted sharply with the Turkish Cypriot proposal, with a heavy
emphasis on the unity of the island and the powers of the federal
republic. The plan's six principles included the indivisibility of the
territory of the federal republic; the federal republic as sole subject
of international law, to the exclusion of the provinces; and the use of
the federal legislative and executive powers to ensure Cyprus's economic
reintegration. The Turkish Cypriots considered this proposal merely an
elaboration of a 1977 Greek Cypriot plan.
Despite the failure to make headway on the core political issues,
this phase had one notable achievement: the agreement on terms of
reference for a Committee on Missing Persons, consisting of
representatives of the two communities and an international participant
designated by the International Committee of the Red Cross. The
committee's first meeting was held on July 14, 1981. The committed met
sporadically throughout the 1980s, and new proposals to invigorate its
work were discussed in early 1990. The work of the committee was
hampered by sensitivity about exchanges of dossiers and information.
Sensitivity areas included security matters and religious questions,
such as whether graves should be disturbed.
By late 1981, UN officials and other supporters of the settlement
process had concluded that the talks needed new stimulus. Secretary
General Waldheim issued an evaluation of the negotiations in November,
in what he called a "determined effort to lend structure and
substance" to the negotiating process. The evaluation identified
major points of "coincidence and equidistance" in the two
sides' positions and proposed that the contemplated republic's executive
authority be exercised by a federal council composed of six ministerial
functions, corresponding roughly to the narrow Turkish Cypriot concept.
Waldheim also suggested a bicameral legislature, provincial chambers,
and a territorial compromise in which the Greek Cypriot side would
administer at least 70 percent of the island.
The settlement process in the early 1980s was affected by the need
for President Kyprianou to establish his credibility and demonstrate his
loyalty to the national cause after the death of the charismatic
Makarios. To many observers, it appeared that Kyprianou had less room
for maneuver and was less inclined, by political preference or
capability, to put forth new strategic positions. The election of a
socialist government in Athens in October 1981 may also have affected
the attitudes of the parties; Greek Cypriots welcomed Greek prime
minister Andreas Papandreou's desire to "internationalize" the
Cyprus problem, which effectively gave Greek Cypriots some breathing
room in the intercommunal process. Meanwhile, the Turkish Cypriot
leaders were developing new formulas and concepts of their own, and
generally disapproved of efforts to internationalize the issue.
On November 15, 1983, after months of speculation, Rauf Denkta
declared Turkish Cypriot statehood, on the basis of the universal right
to self-determination. His proclamation, which cited the United States
Declaration of Independence, declared the establishment of the
"Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus" ("TRNC"). The
move was not intended to block progress toward creating a federal
republic, Denktas said. Rather, the assertion of the political identity
and equality of the Turkish Cypriots would, in his view, enhance
prospects for a new relationship between the two sides of the island. He
also pledged that the new state would not join any other state, meaning
Turkey.
The move was widely condemned by Western powers and the UN. The
secretary general considered the declaration contrary to past Security
Council resolutions and at odds with the high-level agreements of 1977
and 1979. The United States urged nonrecognition of the entity and
joined a nearly unanimous Security Council resolution (541) which called
for reversal of the declaration. (Jordan voted no; Pakistan abstained.)
Cyprus - 1984 Proximity Talks
At the January 1985 summit, UN officials presented a draft framework
agreement for the establishment of a bizonal, bicommunal federal
republic. The parties, according to many accounts, had been briefed on
its contents but not directly involved in its drafting. Denktas
indicated his willingness to sign the draft, on the understanding that
details would be worked out in separate talks. However, Kyprianou
declined to sign, saying he considered the draft a basis for
negotiations but that such a commitment was premature.
The collapse of the summit redounded to Turkish Cypriot favor, in the
reactions of the news media and Cyprus's Western friends. By 1990,
however, Turkish Cypriots referred to the 1985 summit as a regrettable
Turkish Cypriot acquiescence to external pressure, from Turkey and the
United States in particular.
The UN worked intensively with the two parties after the summit, on
the assumption that a tactical misstep need not undermine the
considerable achievement of drafting an outline reflecting broad areas
of agreement. Yet UN efforts in the months that followed showed the
near-impossibility of bridging the gaps; drafts proved acceptable to one
side or the other, but never both. In April 1985, a draft framework
agreement won acceptance by Greek Cypriots and was rejected by the
Turkish Cypriot side. After extensive consultations a new draft was
promulgated; it was embraced by the Turkish Cypriots and rejected by the
Greek Cypriots.
Cyprus - 1988-90 Vassiliou-Denktas Meetings
The politics of the settlement process appeared to change
significantly when Greek Cypriots elected George Vassiliou president in
February 1988. Vassiliou, a successful businessman with no important
political party base (although his parents were founding members of the
island's communist party, the Progressive Party of the Working People
(Anorthotikon Komma Ergazomenou Laou-- AKEL), campaigned on a pledge to
solve the Cyprus problem with new vigor and creativity. His upset
victory over Spyros Kyprianou seemed to indicate popular support for a
new approach and for more rapid progress on a settlement. The UN and
Cyprus's western partners welcomed Vassiliou's election and his
statements about the settlement process.
The UN arranged for informal meetings between Vassiliou and Denktas
at the Nicosia home of the UN special representative, Oscar Camillion.
The first round of these meetings took place between August and November
1988. A second round occurred between December 1988 and April 1989, but
the talks faltered when the two sides began submitting papers and drafts
that began to dominate the discussions. These two rounds raised new
concerns that the UN had lost control of the process, and that reaching
agreement on a fixed agenda or schedule might prove difficult.
In May 1989, a more formal process began, after Secretary General P�rez
de Cu�llar assigned his two aides, Camillion and Gustave Feissel, to
meet separately and jointly with the parties to draft an outline, which
could be based on an "ideas paper" that the UN circulated on a
noncommittal basis to the parties. This third round was stalled for the
second half of 1989, over procedural and substantive difficulties, with
the Turkish Cypriots' objecting to the "ideas paper." The
parties met in New York with the secretary general to discuss their
progress in February and March 1990.
The secretary general reported that the gap between the two sides
remained wide and that he was not convinced there was an agreed-upon
basis on which to proceed. He turned to the Security Council for
clarification of his good offices mission, and the clarification was
passed unanimously in Resolution 649 on March 13.
The two sides separately indicated satisfaction with the UN
resolution, Greek Cypriots emphasizing the active role proposed for the
UN, including the right to make suggestions, and Turkish Cypriots
pleased with the resolution's references to the separate status of the
two communities and to bizonality as an enshrined principle in a
prospective settlement.
This eighteen-month round of settlement efforts had begun hopefully.
A period of creative tension and groping to create new understandings
occurred in mid-1989, when Vassiliou and his advisers privately and
informally offered important concessions to the Turkish Cypriot side.
That is, none of the Greek Cypriot proposals or suggestions were binding
or formally entrenched in official documents, but were offered
discreetly as the basis for discussion. These concessions included a
willingness to phase in the three freedoms, beginning with freedom of
movement and holding freedom of settlement and property in abeyance. New
thinking and flexibility on the territorial issue was displayed, with a
range of options presented to the Turkish Cypriot side, such as a
smaller but nearly exclusively Turkish Cypriot zone, rather than various
larger but more demographically mixed zones. Greek Cypriots tried to
link the size of the territorial swap with the degree of communal
purity. They were more flexible than in the past on the issue of the
presidency, offering alternatives such as rotating the position between
the two communities or having joint elections with Turkish Cypriot votes
weighted. Turkish Cypriots found themselves challenged by a more
flexible interlocutor and reacted with caution, expressing new legal
reservations about the proposals. At that point between October 1989 and
February 1990, the Greek Cypriot side seemed to withdraw some of its new
ideas, and the president found his freedom of maneuver limited by new
domestic resistance to further concessions.
When the talks collapsed in early 1990, both sides appeared to be
turning away from the UN process. The two governments seemed able to
withstand domestic criticism of the talks; opposition complaints on both
sides appeared to focus on tactics, and did not challenge the
fundamental government positions. Both leaders appeared to be preparing
to defend their positions to outside partners. Greek Cypriots mounted a
renewed effort to win international support for their position, and for
the need for international pressure on Turkey to win concessions from
the Turkish Cypriots. For Turkish Cypriots, the end of the talks
heralded a period of active domestic politics. A push for new diplomatic
recognition of the "TRNC" was under consideration.
Cyprus - POLITICS
Political Institutions
In 1990 the Republic of Cyprus operated under the terms of the 1960
constitution as amended in 1964. It consisted of three independent
branches: executive, legislative and judicial. The republic's president,
George Vassiliou, was head of state and presided over a council of
eleven ministers.
Presidential authority remained as outlined in the constitution.
Cabinet portfolios included agriculture and natural resources, commerce
and industry, communications and works, defense, education, finance,
foreign affairs, health, interior, justice, labor and social insurance.
Policy making was in the hands of administrative directors who were
appointed civil servants with lifelong tenure. In an effort to make
government more of a meritocracy, Vassiliou reassigned a number of
ministerial directors to other positions, but encountered resistance
from the parties when he tried to replace some of these directors.
The legislative body, the House of Representatives, consisted of
fifty-six Greek Cypriot members, with twenty-four seats held for Turkish
Cypriots, who had not recognized or participated in the republic's
legislative life since the constitutional amendments of 1964. Originally
a chamber of fifty, with thirty-five Greek Cypriots and fifteen Turkish
Cypriots, the House of Representatives was enlarged in 1985.
The Republic's judicial branch largely followed the original
structure outlined at independence. The 1964 amalgamation of the Supreme
Constitutional Court and the High Court of Justice into the Supreme
Court, combining the functions of the two former courts and eliminating
the neutral judge, also led to the establishment of the Supreme Council
of Judicature. Assigned the judicatory functions of the former high
court, it was composed of the attorney general of the republic, the
president and two judges of the Supreme Court, the senior president of a
district court, a senior district judge, and a practicing advocate
elected every six months by a general meeting of the Cyprus Bar
Association.
As a result of the withdrawal of Turkish Cypriot public servants from
the government, the Public Service Commission could not function as
provided for in the constitution. Therefore, the Public Service Law of
1967 established a new commission to exercise the same functions. Its
five members were appointed by the president. President Vassiliou's
effort to replace the incumbents with members of his choice was thwarted
when the parliament would not provide funding to complete the contracts
of the replaced members.
At the district level, a district officer coordinated village and
government activities and had the right to inspect local village
councils. The mayors and councils for municipalities were appointed.
At the village level, there had been since Ottoman times councils,
each composed of a village head (mukhtar) and elders (aza;
pl., azades). Large villages that prior to 1974 had sizable
mixed populations had separate councils, one for each community. Under
the Ottoman empire, the village head and elders were elected by the
villagers. In the British period and after independence, the village
heads were appointed by the government and then chose the elders. New
legislation in 1979 provided that village and town government officials
should be elected rather than appointed, and elections for village
councils and their presidents have occurred every five years beginning
in 1979. The cycle for municipal elections was different: elections were
held every five years, most recently in 1986. These election results
generally followed the national pattern, in terms of the relative shares
won by each of the parties. In some cases, however, parties were able to
cooperate at the village level, while competing nationally.
Cyprus - Political Parties
In the early postindependence period, Greek Cypriot political party
life was centered around a loose coalition of Makarios supporters called
the Patriotic Front, plus the communist party, AKEL. The front dissolved
in the late 1960s; its major factions broke into discrete parties. The
House of Representatives afterwards maintained a fairly stable balance
among four parties that ranged from a communist party to one that was
right of center. Each of these parties generally received at least 9
percent of the vote, more than the 5 percent being the minimum required
to win seats in the legislature.
Three of the four parties so divided the vote that none ever won a
clear majority. The Republic of Cyprus has a modified proportional
representation system. There were occasional proposals for a simple
proportional system, and the electoral law has been modified five times
in the 1980s.
As of 1990 the Democratic Rally (Dimokratikos Synagermos--DISY) was
the largest parliamentary party. Created in 1976 and led by Glafkos
Clerides, it evolved from the Unified Democratic Party (Eniaion), which
was one of the factions that emerged from the Democratic Front in the
1970 parliamentary elections. DISY's platform focused on free enterprise
economic policies and a practical solution to the intercommunal problem.
It was the most explicitly pro-Western and pro-NATO of Cyprus's parties,
and drew its support from middle-class professionals, businessmen, and
white-collar employees. Its shares of parliamentary election votes were
24.1 percent in 1976 (but no seats because of the electoral law), 31.9
percent in 1981 (twelve seats) and, 33.6 percent in 1985 (nineteen
seats).
The Democratic Party (Dimokratiko Komma--DIKO), formed in 1976, was
seen as the closest to President Makarios and was headed by his
successor, Spyros Kyprianou. The party platform in its first electoral
campaign emphasized a nonaligned foreign policy and a long-term struggle
over Turkish occupation in the north. Over the years, this party formed
uneasy alliances with the two more leftist parties, the communists and
socialists. The Democratic Party won twenty-one seats in 1976, eight
seats in 1981 (19.5 percent), and sixteen seats in 1985 (27.7 percent).
In June 1990, Kyprianou was reelected party leader.
The socialist party, the United Democratic Union of Cyprus (Enie
Dimokratiki Enosis Kyprou--EDEK), generally called the Socialist
Party--EDEK (Socialistiko Komma), was formed in 1969 by Makarios's
personal physician, Vassos Lyssarides. The party advocated socialized
medicine and nationalization of banks and foreign-owned mines. It was
anti-NATO and pro-Arab, and favored a nonaligned foreign policy,
although those positions seemed to have softened in the late 1980s. The
party supported enosis with a democratic Greece, opposed continued
British sovereignty rights on the island, but differed from the
communists in keeping its distance from the Soviet Union. Its appeal was
strongest among noncommunist leftists, intellectuals, and white-collar
workers. Its electoral strength was the weakest of the four parties. In
1976 EDEK won four seats, three in 1981 (8.2 percent), and six in 1985
(11.1 percent).
The communist movement has been a major force on the island since the
1920s, often vying with the Church of Cyprus for the role of dominant
political player. The first communist party was formed in 1924 in
Limassol, was banned in 1931, and reappeared in 1941 with the creation
of the Progressive Party of the Working People (Anorthotikon Komma
Ergazomenou Laou--AKEL). Banned in the preindependence emergency from
1955 to 1959, AKEL has been in every parliament since 1960. AKEL won
nine seats in 1976, twelve in 1981 (32.8 percent) and, fifteen in the
enlarged chamber in 1985, which represented a drop to 27.4 percent.
Reflecting the serious crisis in the communist movement since the
collapse of East European regimes in late 1989, AKEL held internal
conferences in early 1990, but resisted reform proposals. As a
consequence, AKEL dissidents formed a new leftist grouping called the
Democratic Socialist Renewal Movement (Anorthotiko Dimokratiko
Sosialistiko Kinima--ADISOK) in May 1990. The reformers included five
members of parliament elected in 1985 as AKEL leaders. ADISOK selected
House Deputy Pavlos Dhinglis as chairman and criticized AKEL for
undemocratic behavior and an anachronistic mentality. It petitioned
President Vassiliou for representation on the National Council, a forum
in which all political groups met to discuss political issues.
The parties had held fairly constant positions on key policy issues
since the second half of the 1970s. AKEL and DISY, while at opposite
ends of the ideological spectrum, were regarded as most flexible and
forthcoming on settlement matters. EDEK and DIKO took a harder line,
pushing for a more punitive approach to Turkey. On social and economic
policy, the parties' ideological predilections prevailed: EDEK and AKEL
advocated greater government support for workers and free public health
services; DISY favored free enterprise. Some Cypriot analysts believe
that DISY and DIKO have an overlapping constituency and could merge into
a single centrist party if DIKO were to drop its far-right support,
estimated at 5 percent of its strength.
Cyprus - Media
The politics of Cyprus have gradually evolved from the shadow of the
dominant figure of Makarios, who embodied the struggle for independence
from Britain and enosis with Greece. After independence was achieved
without enosis, Makarios's own thinking changed, and Cypriot politics
struggled with its internal ghost-- enosis. Makarios became persuaded
that true national independence for Cyprus had advantages, and Greek
political trends by the mid1960s convinced him that Cyprus had a destiny
distinct from that of Greece. The Greek Cypriot population did not let
go of the dream of enosis as quickly, and pro-enosis forces eventually
turned on Makarios, leading to the 1974 coup.
While the drive for enosis subsided as a mobilizing force, the
difficulties of creating a nation out of a bifurcated society took
center stage. Makarios failed to draw the Greek and Turkish Cypriot
communities together, but, helped by his unusual position and special
gifts, he created a consensus among Greek Cypriots. Although the
authority of the Church of Cyprus diminished with the rise of new
secular institutions, Makarios, as its head, Hellenism and, as elected
president, had legitimate political authority. Coupled with these
advantages were an extraordinary charisma and a mastery of diplomacy
that his adversaries saw as deviousness and duplicity. By the time of
the 1974 coup, however, it was clear that Makarios's total domination of
Cypriot politics was coming to an end. From July to December 1974,
Makarios was out of the country, and the government of the truncated
republic was run competently by Glafkos Clerides. Makarios and Clerides
then competed as heads of rival political groups, with the differences
between them focused on the intercommunal process. Makarios reportedly
welcomed this competition as a sign of growing Cypriot political
maturity.
After Makarios's death in 1977, Kyprianou succeeded to the
presidency, and Clerides continued as the principal opposition leader.
The two men differed, among other things, over how to deal with the
intercommunal talks.
Sharing the stage with Kyprianou were several other major figures,
including Archbishop Chrysostomos, who had succeeded Makarios as head of
the Church of Cyprus. Although the archbishop traveled the world meeting
with overseas Greeks, Chrysostomos's personal political impact was
judged by many to be far less significant than that of Makarios or that
of the church as a whole.
Kyprianou was in many ways typical of the centrist, noncontroversial
political figures who often follow charismatic leaders. He sought to
preserve the Makarios legacy and pursue policies that would further
Makarios's goals. But Kyprianou did policies that would further
Makarios's goals. But Kyraianou did not have the tactical dexterity or
diplomatic skill of Makarios, and he became associated with an approach
to the settlement process that preserved the status quo, rather than
displaying the openness and initiative that characterized Makarios at
the end of his life. The Kyprianou presidency, by the late 1980s, was
considered weak and passive, unable to break the stalemate in the
settlement process and losing respect at home. At the same time,
Kyprianou's less authoritative style did allow more competition in Greek
Cypriot politics, permitting independents and other party leaders to
contest presidential elections with greater prospects for success.
Cyprus - Political Culture in the Vassiliou Era
The election of George Vassiliou in February 1988 was unexpected.
Although many Cypriots were increasingly disaffected because of the lack
of progress in the intercommunal talks and the incumbent's reputation
for passivity and ineffectiveness, the results were an upset. The first
round, held on February 14, gave a plurality and 33.3 percent to Glafkos
Clerides of DISY. Vassiliou, an independent, came in second, with 30.1
percent, and the incumbent, Spyros Kyprianou of DIKO, came in third with
27.3 percent. Kyprianou was defeated, according to Cypriot press
opinion, because of inflexibility in the settlement talks and because of
party maneuvering, including an unpopular tactical alliance with the
communist party, AKEL.
The runoff between Clerides and Vassiliou was held on February 21,
and Vassiliou won by a little over 10,000 votes. He polled 51.6 percent;
Clerides, a veteran of Cypriot politics and acting president in 1974,
polled 48.4 percent. Ironically, in the final contest the two men were
in substantial agreement over the settlement issue; both expressed
eagerness to engage in talks with Denktas, and neither made withdrawal
of Turkish troops a precondition for talks. Some believe that Clerides
narrowly missed victory because of his past associations with right-wing
political groups.
Born in Famagusta in 1931, Vassiliou completed secondary school in
Cyprus, and spent more than a decade studying and working in Europe. He
received a doctorate in economics in Hungary. Upon his return to Cyprus
in 1962, he founded and remained president of the Middle East Marketing
Research Bureau, the largest consultancy in the region, with offices in
eleven countries.
Vassiliou's campaign emphasized his wish to invigorate the settlement
process. He offered to meet directly with both thenPrime Minister Turgut
�zal of Turkey and his Turkish Cypriot counterpart, Denktas. Without a
strong party base, Vassiliou also decided to resurrect the National
Council, first created by Makarios, with the hope that the political
parties meeting together could forge a collective and consensus-based
policy toward the settlement process. Vassiliou proceeded to work out
new rules with the party leaders, including guidelines on which issues
required their unanimous consent. He pledged to put any settlement plan
to the people in a referendum. But his seemingly liberal views on a
settlement were tempered by his policy commitment to reorganize and
reinforce civil defense and increase defense spending.
A number of factors brought Vassiliou to power. The electorate, to be
sure, was frustrated by the impasse in the settlement process and
welcomed someone who spoke of new ideas and energy. More broadly, the
vote may have signaled the end of the Makarios era, and the desire for
new leaders, rather than Makarios's heir apparent.
Vassiliou brought to the presidential palace skills learned in the
private sector, such as prompt decision making, cost-benefit analysis,
marketing, and open competition, that promised livelier and more
effective policy making. Some Cypriots welcomed his attempt to bring
corporate boardroom concepts into politics. Others resented it. In his
first two years in office, Vassiliou was constrained by the island's
experienced politicians, who had different agendas, and by Turkish
Cypriot strategies that did not embrace the spirit of Vassiliou's
settlement message.
The new president tried to introduce fresh faces into the executive
branch. His first cabinet had only two ministers who had previously held
office: George Iacovou continued to serve as foreign minister, ensuring
continuity in external relations, and Christodoulos Veniamin took the
post of interior minister, which he had held, along with other cabinet
posts, between 1975 and 1985. In May 1990, President Vassiliou replaced
four of his cabinet ministers and appointed several who had not served
in previous cabinets. For the most part, the outside appointees were
people who had the approval of one or more of the major parties.
Vassiliou had promised first and foremost to achieve progress in the
talks with Turkish Cypriots, through intercommunal talks and
negotiations with Turkey. However, in his first two years he made no
breakthrough toward a settlement.
He achieved more in other areas. In the 1988 election campaign,
Vassiliou spoke of his desire to make changes in the civil service, to
end the spoils system that had created a large and inefficient public
sector. He pledged moves toward a meritocracy, and promised to bring
into government energetic, talented people from private sector. During
his first two years in office, he was unable to replace the incumbent
appointees to the Public Service Commission with his own candidates,
because the parliament did not approve funds for it. Nor did another
campaign promise, to create a government ombudsman as a clearinghouse
for complaints, make headway in the first two years of his presidency.
He was also unable to wrest from the political parties appointments to
quasigovernmental posts such as utilities boards. He failed to pursue
vigorously a campaign pledge to investigate charges of corruption in the
police force.
Vassiliou's modest gains in these efforts were constrained by the
parties' resistance to the businessman-president's ideas. The parliament
failed to approve many of his requests for new positions, such as
political appointments for ministerial special assistants and even
experts to assist the president.
Vassiliou did manage to dilute the parties' power to some extent.
Political patronage jobs, formerly the perquisites of the largest party,
were shared among the major parties, reflecting Vassiliou's desire for a
consensus-based political system. Vassiliou often chose for appointed
positions associates whose skills he respected but who were also
acceptable to one or more of the major parties. This power sharing with
the parties, however, kept the new president from keeping his promise to
reduce the size of the public sector.
Yet Vassiliou's intelligence, energy, and worldliness were valued by
Cyprus's friends overseas. Vassiliou visited all major European
capitals, traveled in the United States, and attended multilateral
conferences to explain the Cyprus situation and enlist support for new
settlement efforts. He was troubled that the dramatic and triumphant
world events of 1989 and 1990 distracted world attention from the Cyprus
problem, and he was concerned about the prospects for its neglect. His
presidency, nevertheless, although it did not produce dramatic results,
won respect and attention from a number of friendly governments.
Cyprus - FOREIGN POLICY
Beginning with independence, Cypriots saw their problem on several
levels. First and foremost, it was an intercommunal problem that
required local, domestic political solutions. Next, and very close to
this level, was the relationship of the island to its motherlands,
Greece and Turkey; the two Cypriot communities struggled with the
question of how much their foreign policies should be determined by the
foreign policy interests and resources of the motherlands. At another
level, many Cypriots considered their island a pawn in the superpower
struggle, often exaggerating its strategic significance. Because the two
motherlands, Greece and Turkey, were North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) members, Cyprus was by definition a problem within the Western
camp, a circumstance the Soviet Union and its allies, during the Cold
War, occasionally sought to exploit. As a response to these constricting
relationships, Cypriot foreign policy was nonaligned, and both
communities found support among Third World countries for whom the
Cyprus problem resonated with their own problems, be it the matter of a
larger nearby state occupying territory of a smaller one, or the matter
of a religious minority suffering discrimination at the hands of the
majority.
Cyprus's relations with the outside world were shaped profoundly by
the chronic dilemma of the island's political identity. The two
communities conducted narrow foreign policies focused on this single
issue. Yet the Republic of Cyprus conducted active and effective
diplomatic efforts in many countries to win support for its position in
UN settlement talks and in support of sympathetic resolutions in
multilateral forums of which Cyprus was a member. The "TRNC"
by the mid-1980s tried to break out of its isolation and began to
conduct its own foreign policy, in some ways mirroring the efforts of
its Greek Cypriot neighbors. Recognition as a state was the primary
foreign policy objective of the regime in the north. Foreign policy in
general was considerably more important for the republic; the
"TRNC" was persuaded that its cause would benefit from
"benign neglect" by the world community, allowing the two
communities to develop normal relations without external pressure.
Cyprus - FOREIGN POLICY - The Republic of Cyprus
Greek Cypriots have focused most of their foreign policy energies
since 1974 on winning broader international support for a Cyprus
settlement providing for a withdrawal of Turkish troops and, to the
extent possible, a restoration of the status quo ante of a single
government on the island and the free flow of people and goods
throughout its territory. The republic continued to enjoy international
recognition as the legal government of Cyprus, and Cyprus's membership
in the Nonaligned Movement (NAM), the Conference on Security and
Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), the United Nations, and the Commonwealth
Conference provided opportunities to promote these aims. Resolutions
passed by these organizations called for the withdrawal of foreign
troops, condemned Turkey's settler policy, urged the immediate
implementation of UN resolutions, and called for sanctions against
Turkey.
Cyprus placed considerable importance on its membership in the NAM.
It hosted a number of NAM meetings and headed an effort in 1989 and 1990
to redefine the NAM's objectives in light of the dramatic changes in
East-West relations and the virtual end of superpower rivalry and
competition. Support from the nonaligned states was particularly
important during UN debates. Greek Cypriots were aware that UN
resolutions lacked direct effect on Turkey unless accompanied by
substantive sanctions, but they hoped that collective international
pressure might yield some results. On occasion, the republic was
persuaded by its Western allies to forego the annual UN General Assembly
resolution debate, avoiding repetitious and largely ineffective rituals
and allowing the UNsponsored talks to proceed without undue pressure.
President Vassiliou adapted the traditional Greek Cypriot strategy to
his new thinking by occasionally modifying his language, avoiding
punitive measures, and emphasizing positive incentives to engage Turkish
Cypriots in negotiations. After the collapse of the 1990 UN talks,
however, Greek Cypriot positions in international organizations returned
to earlier phases, seeking direct condemnation of Turkish and Turkish
Cypriot policies and practices.
The strategy of internationalization became more Europeoriented in
1990. After the fall of the Berlin wall and the commitment to
unification of the two Germanies, the Greek Cypriot republic perceived
its situation as increasingly anomalous and unacceptable. It argued
that, after Soviet troops completed withdrawing from Eastern Europe,
Cyprus would be the only country in Europe with foreign occupying
troops. The unification of Germany also underscored the deep Greek
Cypriot yearning for reunification, and Greek Cypriots held candlelight
processions around the old walls of the capital, Nicosia, calling for an
end to the division of the island.
The decline of the relative importance of NATO among European
institutions had both advantages and disadvantages for Greek Cypriot
foreign policy. On the one hand, it appeared to reduce Turkey's leverage
over its Western allies and opened the way for broader pressures on
Turkey. On the other hand, the potential loosening of Turkey's ties with
Western partners could also weaken those countries' influence on
Turkey's policies. In addition, the preoccupation with Germany and the
emergence of new violent conflicts in the Balkans made it harder to keep
the attention of European powers on Cyprus.
The proposals in mid-1990 to expand the mission and scope of the CSCE
appealed to Greek Cypriots. They had found participation in the CSCE,
along with six other neutral and nonaligned European states, less
satisfactory when the organization's main function was as a forum for
East-West confidence-building measures. In a future united Europe,
however, Cypriots could envision a greater role for the small states in
the CSCE, and some believed that the CSCE's expanded conflict-mediation
role might have benefits for Cyprus. The Italian proposal for a southern
variant of the CSCE, the CSCMediterranean , found tentative support from
both Cypriot communities.
Cyprus - Relations with Greece
After the troubles of 1963-64 and the effective separation of the two
communities, the Greek Cypriots controlling the republic's institutions
did not, ironically, orient their foreign policy more toward Greece.
Instead, the growing authority and confidence of President Makarios and
divergent trends in Greek and Greek Cypriot politics led to the
republic's foreign policy becoming more independent. Greek Cypriots were
disappointed that Greece had placed the interests of the Western
alliance above those of the island in the preindependence London and
Zurich talks. Greek Cypriots also viewed as inadequate the Greek
response to the 1963- 64 troubles, with Greece again deferring to NATO
interests.
Relations deteriorated further when the military seized power in
Athens in 1967. Makarios was anathema to the staunchly anticommunist
regime in Greece. His flirtation with Eastern Europe and Third World
nations, his refusal to stem criticism of the dictatorship, and his
charismatic appeal to Greeks everywhere were major concerns of the new
Greek leadership. The infiltration of Greek soldiers from the mainland,
in excess of levels approved in the Treaty of Alliance, became a threat
almost equal to that from the Turkish mainland. By the early 1970s the
rift between the Athens junta and the Makarios government had become
open. Athens allegedly financed operations of anti-Makarios
organizations and newspapers and was widely thought responsible for
attempts on Makarios's life. Pressures mounted, and in July 1974, after
Makarios openly challenged the junta's interference, the Cypriot
National Guard, led by Greek officers, staged a coup that ultimately
resulted in Turkish intervention and the junta's demise.
With the 1974 restoration of civilian government in Athens and the
environment of crisis in the Greek-controlled part of the island after
the Turkish intervention, relations between the republic and the
government in Greece were restored to normal, and closer coordination of
foreign policy began, particularly focused on winning support for
resolutions in international organizations and from Greeks abroad.
Greece gave full public support to policies adopted by the republic and
pledged not to interfere in domestic Cypriot politics. The two
governments agreed that Greek Cypriot participation in settlement
efforts was essential and tried to uncouple the Cyprus issue from other
Greek-Turkish disputes, such as those about territorial rights in the
Aegean Sea.
Differences remained over the two governments' priorities. Greek
prime minister Konstantinos Karamanlis was said to favor a more moderate
and conciliatory stand on Cyprus than either Makarios or Kyprianou, both
of whom advocated a "long struggle" in the face of what they
perceived as Turkish intransigence. The Greek government was also eager
to return to NATO, which it did in 1981, and to reduce tensions with
Turkey. In addition, the tripartite American-British-Canadian plan (the
ABC plan) of 1978 won Greece's approval, although it was rejected by
Greek Cypriots as a framework for negotiations.
When Greeks elected the socialist government of Andreas Papandreou to
office in 1981, the foreign policy of Greece shifted. Less inclined to
demonstrate Greece's loyalty to NATO and other Western institutions,
Papandreou sought to "internationalize" the Cyprus settlement
effort, and took a more confrontational approach to bilateral
differences with Turkey. This led to a new, and sometimes uneasy,
division of labor between Greece and the republic, with the latter
engaged in intercommunal talks and the former raising the Turkish troop
issue in NATO and other international forums. Cyprus was relinked to
bilateral GreekTurkish problems, insofar as Papandreou insisted that
relations between the two NATO allies could not improve until the Cyprus
problem was solved and Turkish troops withdrawn. This policy was
temporarily suspended in early 1988, when Papandreou and Turkish prime
minister �zal conducted talks known as the Davos process, aimed at
improving ties through Aegean confidence-building measures. The process
was stalled in late 1988 by political and health problems of the Greek
premier. For most of 1989 and early 1990, Greece was ruled by interim
governments that took no new foreign policy initiatives, although the
1988 election of the activist George Vassiliou in Cyprus gave some new
vigor and interest to the frequent consultations in Athens between the
two governments.
In April 1990 Greeks returned to power the centrist New Democracy
Party, and the new prime minister, veteran politician Constantinos
Mitsotakis, pledged to renew Greece's efforts to solve the Cyprus
problem. The two governments formed a joint committee, administered by
their foreign ministries, to share information and coordinate policies,
and thus avoid the strains that had arisen from divergent approaches to
the Cyprus problem.
Cyprus - Relations with the United States and the Soviet Union
Cyprus had ambivalent relations with the superpowers during the Cold
War. Despite its nonalignment, the cultural, political, and economic
orientation of Cyprus was to the West, and NATO allies played crucial
roles in the achievement of Cyprus's independence, the treaties
guaranteeing that independence, and the composition of the UN
peace-keeping force that was on the island continuously after 1964.
Relations with the United States after the 1974 crisis were shaped by
Cypriot convictions that the United States had been too close to the
Greek junta, could have prevented its coup against Makarios, supported
or acquiesced in the Turkish intervention, and gave insufficient
attention to solving the Cyprus problem. Relations between Cyprus and
the United States were also haunted by the 1974 assassination of United
States Ambassador Roger Davies in Nicosia. Yet, pressed by the United
States Congress and the aroused Greek-American community, the Nixon and
Ford administrations became involved in refugee resettlement and peace
talks during the 1974 crisis and its aftermath.
As the Turkish intervention was consolidated, leading to a long-term
division of the island, Greek Cypriots continued to have misgivings
about the strategic intentions of United States policy. Cypriots
occasionally pressed for new American initiatives, although none was
offered after the 1978 ABC plan. A more activist American policy was
institutionalized through the establishment in 1981 of a Special Cyprus
Coordinator in the Department of State. The position was held by
Reginald Bartholemew (1981-82), Christian Chapman (1982-83), Richard
Haass (1983-85), James Wilkenson (1985- 89), and Nelson Ledsky after
1989. Yet efforts by these diplomats to stimulate discussion about
confidence-building measures, intercommunal projects and cooperation,
and new directions in the US$15 million annual aid program to Cyprus met
resistance from the republic's government. The republic looked to the
United States Congress and the Greek-American community to correct what
they considered a pro-Turkish bias in United States policy.
Relations with the Soviet Union were more distant and reflected ups
and downs in superpower influence in the Mediterranean and in United
States-Turkish relations. The Soviets had supported the Greek Cypriot
position after 1974 and generally pursued policies that fostered strains
in intra-NATO relations. They worked with the island's communist party,
but equally well with the centrist governments. In the late 1970s, the
Soviets were cooler toward the Greek Cypriot view because of improved
relations with Turkey. The Soviets under Mikhail Gorbachev became more
interested in Cyprus settlement efforts. In 1986 the Soviets outlined
their policy for a Cyprus settlement, calling for a withdrawal of all
foreign troops and bases (presumably including the British sovereign
base areas), a demilitarization of the island, and a new federal
government. Greek Cypriots welcomed the proposal, although in subsequent
months it was interpreted by many as part of a broad Third World-Soviet
public relations exercise more than a serious diplomatic initiative to
which resources would be devoted.
Cyprus - Relations with the Europe
After the 1988 election of George Vassiliou, in an era of revitalized
European consciousness, Cyprus's attention to the EC increased
dramatically, and its foreign policy became more ECoriented and focused
less on the Third World and the NAM. On July 4, 1990, the republic
formally applied for full EC membership. In a public statement,
President Vassiliou said that Cyprus had "declared its European
orientation and its desire to participate as actively as possible and on
an equal footing with the other EC member states in the historic process
of European integration and the building of a Common European House of
peace, cooperation and prosperity."
It was clear that the membership bid, which was not expected to
culminate in actual accession until the next century, was strongly
driven by the settlement process. The application could be seen as a
tactical move intended to give new momentum and new incentives to the
Turkish side to achieve progress in talks. For Vassiliou, the EC
application and its expected decade-long waiting period was an
opportunity. He hoped that the EC accession timetable would parallel a
negotiation timetable, so that a new federal government and full
membership in the EC could be achieved at the same time. He argued that
the benefits of EC membership would be conferred on "all Cypriots
without exception." Should settlement talks fail, the EC
application would serve a second purpose, giving Cyprus a framework for
discussing the lack of progress with its EC trading partners.
It was estimated by the early 1990s that 85 percent of Greek Cypriots
favored full EC membership, with AKEL the notable exception. The Greek
Cypriot parliament pressured Vassiliou in the spring of 1990 to move
more quickly on the EC issue. Some Cypriots, including DISY leader
Clerides and some Vassiliou supporters, floated the proposal to have
Turkish Cypriots participate in future negotiations with Brussels,
although such proposals, without more formal recognition of Turkish
Cypriot separate political rights, appeared doomed to failure.
Turkish Cypriots began developing a rudimentary foreign policy after
1963, focused mainly on public relations efforts to explain the communal
perspective on the island's political difficulties. Two factors
constrained the development of a Turkish Cypriot foreign policy. First,
Turkish Cypriots lacked the personnel and resources to project
themselves on the world scene. Second, Turkish Cypriot administrations,
in their various forms since 1963, lacked international recognition and
were dependent on Turkey's acting as an intermediary to international
opinion. The situation changed gradually after 1985, although Turkish
Cypriot activism in foreign policy focused on expanding trade and
political contact, rather than on the settlement process. The view of
the Turkish Cypriot government was that less, not more, international
attention would help a Cyprus settlement.
Relations with Turkey
As was the case with Greek Cypriots and their mainland, relations
between the Turkish Cypriots and Turkey could be characterized as close
and cooperative, although many observers detected strains barely beneath
the surface. Turkey usually supported Turkish Cypriot policies in their
broadest sense, although tactical differences often occurred. On several
key occasions in the UN settlement process, Ankara pressed the Turkish
Cypriot government to be more forthcoming. From 1975 until the
declaration of the "TRNC" in 1983, for example, it was
reported on numerous occasions that Turkey had persuaded Denktas to
delay his unilateral declaration of independence.
The main institutional vehicle for Turkish-Turkish Cypriot
cooperation was the Coordination Committee (Koordinasyon Komitesi)
formed in the 1960s to administer the extensive economic relationship
between the two. The participants in these coordination activities,
which became more ad hoc as Turkish Cypriot bureaucratic competence
grew, were representatives of the prime minister's office in Turkey and
a collection of key decision makers from the Turkish Cypriot executive
branch. From 1974 to 1983 coordination was close, including Turkish
participation in Turkish Cypriot cabinet meetings. After the
establishment of the "TRNC," such contact was replaced with
more formal state-to-state relations. Turkey demonstrated in various
ways its recognition of the separateness of the Turkish Cypriot
political entity, although opposition parties and many observers
believed that the Turkish Embassy in the north was engaged in activities
beyond the normal purview of a foreign mission.
The economic dimension of bilateral relations also showed its
strains. After 1974, the Turkish contribution to the Turkish Cypriot
budget was estimated at 80 percent, but by 1990 that subsidy was
reported to be in the 30 to 40 percent range. The opposition press in
Turkey occasionally complained that aid and assistance to northern
Cyprus was an economic burden on Turkey, whose economic performance was
uneven in the 1980s. For their part, Turkish Cypriots complained of
inadequate aid, the failure as of late 1990 to establish a customs
union, and the importation of Turkey's economic problems, most notably
rampant inflation in the late 1970s and again in the late 1980s.
Relations were also strained by social differences between mainland
settlers and the higher levels of education and more urban and secular
lifestyles of most Turkish Cypriots.
The Quest for Recognition
Most Turkish Cypriot foreign policy efforts were focused on achieving
recognition of the "TRNC" and explaining the Turkish Cypriot
position on the settlement process. The "TRNC" had one
Embassy, in Ankara, two consulates, in Istanbul and Mersin, and five
representation missions, in London, Washington, New York, Brussels, and
Islamabad. These missions did not have diplomatic status. In 1990 there
were reports that additional missions might be opened in Abu Dhabi,
Canada, Australia, Italy, and Germany.
The Islamic nations were the key target of Turkish Cypriot
recognition efforts. In wooing Islamic support, Turkish Cypriot
officials emphasized the religious aspect of the Cyprus conflict and
stressed the importance of Muslim solidarity. Meetings of the
Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), in which Turkey played an
increasingly active role in the 1980s, were an important focus for the
"TRNC." The OIC passed several resolutions urging economic
support and cultural contact with the Turkish Cypriots, but stopped
short of embracing the recognition issue. Many Arab Islamic countries
had ambivalent relations with Turkey, because of the legacy of the
Ottoman Empire, and also because they wished to maintain good relations
with the Republic of Cyprus, which served as a financial center and
entrep�t for Middle Eastern business activity. These reservations
inhibited the "TRNC" in seeking to achieve its goals in the
Islamic world. Among these countries, Pakistan, Jordan, and Bangladesh
were considered the strongest supporters of the Turkish Cypriot cause.
