PEOPLE / OPINIONS / İPEK ÖZERİM
The world is awash with armchair critics:
people who know ‘oh so much’ but can’t be bothered to lift a finger to do anything
about the issues they raise. It is bad enough dealing with these passive types,
but when they talk utter nonsense it is completely intolerable.
The views of the TRNC armchair critic are
often informed by what I call “coffee shop talk”. They visit their local coffee
shop and what they hear becomes “the gospel truth”. No effort is made to
research and independently verify the so-called facts they are told. In fact
they are too lazy to even apply some basic rational thinking to the comments
they make.
On small-scale local issues, such ignorance
may not matter. It becomes a concern when those higher up the influence chain
(journalists, politicians, trade union and community leaders, etc) make ill-informed
comments on matters of national interest.
In recent weeks the term “single
sovereignty” has been bandied about by all sorts. Yet few seem to understand
what ‘sovereignty’ means, let alone its implications for Cyprus
Sovereignty refers to the supreme power or
authority that governs a specific territory. In a democracy, this power rests
with the country’s Parliament: the people elect representatives who are granted
the right to govern within the rules laid out in the State’s constitution.
When joining with other sovereign entities,
such as Britain
So when I hear the likes of former
President Mehmet Ali Talat, the current TRNC government and even some diplomats
from Turkey join the Greek Cypriot bandwagon in concurring that ‘single
sovereignty’ is acceptable, I ask myself if they really have a clue what they
are talking about.
Sovereignty goes to the very heart of Cyprus Cyprus , we could not have
signed the 1959 Treaties that established the independent Republic of Cyprus
The breakdown of these affairs in December
1963 was due to the Greek Cypriots: they seized control of the island and imposed
‘majority rule’. As they were numerically the larger community, they deemed it
unfair to share power on an equal basis with Turkish Cypriots. Their unlawful monopoly
of Cypriot power was broken by the 1974 War.
This concept of a bi-communal, bi-zonal
federal solution was incorporated into the 1977 and 1979 High Level Agreements,
overseen by the UN and signed by both Cypriot sides; they have continued to
form the basis of all political negotiations ever since. Separate sovereignty
is a prerequisite to this state of affairs.
Back in 2004, President Denktas bowed out
of the UN-sponsored negotiations in Birkenstock ,
Switzerland
Whether due to Talat’s naivety or his quest
for immediate glory, the results were he undermined the fundamental rights of
the Turkish Cypriot people. It is for this reason Denktas often said, ‘the
Greek Cypriots saved us by rejecting the Annan Plan’.
Even today though President Talat and his
former CTP colleagues, who are now in government, continue to pursue the same
policy. TRNC Prime Minister Yorgancioglu and others in his cabinet have held
meetings with Greek Cypriot politicians, followed by statements stressing they
support “single sovereignty”. As a result, they undermine the efforts by TRNC
President Derviş Eroğlu to correct the political mistakes of yesteryear.
Worse still, Greek Cypriot media report
that members of the Turkish Foreign Office, without consulting the Turkish
Cypriot side, have also passed messages to their President that Turkey
Are we so desperate for a solution that
anything goes? By removing ‘separate sovereignty’ from the equation, we Turkish
Cypriots lose our self-determination rights, taking us back to the ‘one nation,
majority rule’ scenario of 1963-1974. Why have we fought for fifty years if we
are about to accept this state of affairs?
The dangers have been spelt out by Turkish
think-tank the Besparmaklar Group, both in its October 2013 Review Paper and
again in a recent press statement. Toparlaniyoruz’s Kudret Ozersay agrees. Is
the TRNC Government heeding their warnings? Possibly.
The new and very able TRNC Foreign
Minister, CTP’s Ozdil Nami (left), released two statements this week: one on the
UK-Greek Cypriot deal over the British Sovereign Bases, the other about the “arrangement announced by the Greek Cypriot
Administration purporting to remedy the absence of Turkish Cypriot
representation in the European Parliament.” Nami slammed both developments
as “unacceptable” to the Turkish Cypriot side.
In response to both developments, Nami
highlighted the “separate rights” of the “Turkish Cypriot side/ people”, as set
out in the 1959 Agreements and 1960 Constitution. Even with these paper rights,
we are struggling to have them adhered to, so imagine if they were totally wiped…?
Yes Mr Nami, sovereignty does matter. Any
lawyer worth their salt would advise that such a core principle be explicitly
spelt out in any future comprehensive agreement in Cyprus
This article was first published in Cyprus Today on 8 February 2014
Main image from sovereignindependentuk.co.uk
