Turkey’s Bid for EU Puts Cyprus at Center Stage

Ten years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, an equally hostile barrier still separates the Greek and Turkish communities on Cyprus--an unsightly reminder that the end of superpower rivalry has brought little relief to the world’s ethnic hot spots.

But Friday, as it embraced five former Soviet bloc nations as candidates for membership, the European Union took a gamble aimed at erasing Cyprus’ infamous Green Line--a zigzagging alley of dirt bunkers, barbed-wire barricades and United Nations foot patrols that has partitioned the island since a 1974 war.

By also inviting Turkey to bid for membership, on the condition that it work for a peaceful settlement on Cyprus, European leaders were hoping to break a deadlock that has frustrated a long list of outside mediators and stoked instability in the eastern Mediterranean.

As part of their strategy, the Europeans made it clear at their summit in Finland that Turkey and its Turkish Cypriot allies, by continuing to resist the island’s reunification, would not be allowed to obstruct the Greek Cypriot government’s own path to EU membership.

That government’s claim to the whole island is recognized by every nation but Turkey.

Europe’s gamble may backfire. Turkish Cypriot leaders, having returned to the negotiating table a week ago after a 19-month walkout, said Saturday that they were infuriated by the outcome of the summit in Helsinki, the Finnish capital, and that they saw little reason to continue their indirect talks with the Greek Cypriots.

But the EU initiative, which was backed by the United States, has brought about a subtle shift in Turkey’s position, and that’s what counts in the long run, European officials say. Turkey props up the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of North Cyprus with 30,000 troops and, until now, has faced no serious pressure to end the island’s division.

“For years, Turkey has been saying, in effect, that there is no Cyprus problem--that it was settled in 1974,” one European diplomat said Saturday. “Now they’re acknowledging that there is a problem and it must be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.”

Cyprus has been split since a Turkish military invasion, in response to a Greek-sponsored coup attempt 25 years ago, triggered weeks of fighting that claimed at least 6,700 lives and created two isolated, “ethnically cleansed” communities.

Today, Greek-speaking Christians governing 600,000 people in southern Cyprus want a re-integrated country, with some autonomy for the Turkish-speaking Muslims in the north. Turkish Cypriot leaders, who rule 37% of the island’s territory and 200,000 people, demand recognition for a confederation of two sovereign states that would promise to work gradually toward unification.

U.S. and European policymakers view the lingering Cyprus dispute, along with rival claims by North Atlantic Treaty Organization members Greece and Turkey in the Aegean Sea, as untenable. They say it compounds their worries about nearby conflicts in the Balkans and the Middle East.

A relative lack of violence on Cyprus since the war has helped both sides adjust to its rigid division. But what prevails there can hardly be called peace; on Wednesday, a Turkish Cypriot police officer was shot and wounded while challenging three Greek Cypriot game hunters who had crossed the Green Line into the Turkish north.

With U.N. troops patrolling the Green Line, southern Cyprus has prospered as an attraction for tourists and offshore banking. Per capita income has soared in the 1990s to more than $13,500, about four times greater than that of the Turkish north.

At the urging of Greece, the 15-nation EU made Cyprus a candidate for membership two years ago, along with five other countries, launching a complex process of negotiations expected to lead to full membership in 2002. Greece had argued that the Turkish Cypriots, foreseeing the benefits of EU status, would move quickly toward reunification.

Instead, the EU decision drove the Turkish Cypriots into deeper isolation--in part because Turkey’s long-standing bid for candidacy status was rejected at the time.

Germany, Spain, France and other EU members, meanwhile, began to question the wisdom of admitting a divided Cyprus, and Greece complained that the island’s membership bid was being held “hostage” by the Turkish Cypriots and their Turkish patrons.

Friday’s EU decision to launch membership talks with Turkey and allow Cyprus to remain on track was a compromise offered by Greece with encouragement from President Clinton, who visited southern Europe last month.

“What we have now is a situation where Turkey is a candidate and therefore part of the wider European family,” Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou told reporters Saturday. “Cyprus is also on its way to membership. I think the Turkish Cypriots will want to be aboard.”

Greek Cypriot President Glafcos Clerides, in New York City for talks on Cyprus Saturday at the U.N., repeated his offer to accept Turkish Cypriot representatives on the Cypriot team that is negotiating terms for EU membership.

But M. Ergun Olgun, a Turkish Cypriot negotiator in New York, said by telephone Saturday that the EU had “taken away any incentive, any motivation for Clerides to come down from his pedestal” and be flexible in the talks with his side.

Arguing that Turkish Cyprus is sovereign and equal, Olgun added: “We are trying to establish a partnership [with the Clerides government] so we can negotiate in an atmosphere of trust. We ask the international community not to undermine that effort. The imbalance will not serve the interests of peace and stability.”

Olgun said the indirect talks with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan might not continue past Tuesday, when the current round is due to end.

Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit had obliged the Turkish Cypriots to return to the negotiations last week to help Turkey’s own bid for EU acceptance. But he gave no hint of withdrawing support for their demand for a separate state.

“It is undeniable that there are two different states on Cyprus,” he said Friday.

Ecevit must now balance his own hard-line views on Cyprus--he ordered the 1974 invasion during a previous term as prime minister--with Turkey’s goal of advancing toward EU membership. He must also weigh the demands of the Turkish army, which opposes a full troop withdrawal from the island.

“Obviously, Ecevit cannot say today that he has changed his position,” said Mehmet Ali Birand, a leading Turkish commentator on international affairs. “But there is no doubt that he has put Turkey under more pressure than ever to help bring about a settlement on Cyprus.

“It won’t happen tomorrow, maybe not even in a year, but eventually there will be give and take,” he added, noting the wide range of property, economic, policing and power-sharing issues that would come to the table. “The bottom line is that any talks will have to produce something vague that the Turkish side can sell as a confederation of two states and the Greek side can sell as a federated republic.”

Special correspondent Maria Petrakis in Athens contributed to this report.