North’s ruling coalition divided over Guterres visit

The north’s three-party ruling coalition found itself divided on Monday over its stance on United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ arrival in Cyprus, with one of the parties saying it hopes for “constructive results for the Cyprus negotiation process” and the other briefly calling for a protest against his visit. It was the DP which was most amenable, with party secretary-general Serhat Akpinar saying that he hopes Guterres’ contacts on the island will “contribute to strengthening lasting peace, mutual trust, and stability on the island”. “The Cyprus issue has become a process marked by unfulfilled international commitments, unimplemented decisions, and political, economic, and international injustices suffered by the Turkish Cypriot people for many years,” he said. As such, he added, the UN “should go beyond its role as a facilitator between the two parties and take the lead in fulfilling the promises made to the Turkish Cypriot people in the past”. 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He said that “despite the Turkish Cypriot people demonstrating their will for a solution, the [international] commitments to lift the isolations on them were not fulfilled”. “Removing the obstacles to the Turkish Cypriots’ political equality, sovereign rights, and direct contact with the international community is an important responsibility for the United Nations, and a lasting solution should be shaped on the basis of equality, mutual respect, security, and the sovereign will of the two peoples,” he said. Serhat Akpinar He added that the DP will “continue to support peace, stability, and cooperation in Cyprus”, and said he hopes that Guterres’ visit to the island will “contribute to a better understanding of the Turkish Cypriot people’s rights and to the beginning of a fair, realistic, and sustainable process for the future”. However, his stance was not shared by ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel, who leads the coalition’s largest party, the UBP, and who said that “if Guterres wants to go down in history by finding a solution to the Cyprus problem, this is what he must do: convene the UN general assembly and recognise the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus”. “This is an urgent necessity which can no longer be postponed in terms of accepting the existing realities in Cyprus, establishing lasting peace, and abandoning the understanding which has yielded no results for more than half a century,” he said. He added that “the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is a living state with institutions, democracy, an economy, and the will of its people”, and that “no approach which ignores this reality has any chance of success”. “For more than half a century in Cyprus, the same methods have been tried, the same cliches have been repeated. The result has not changed. Because the problem was never the Turkish Cypriot side’s will for a solution. The problem was the international understanding which ignored the realities on the island,” he said. Unal Ustel He, too, pointed out the 2004 Annan plan referendum, and said that despite the fact that the Turkish Cypriot side voted in favour of a solution to the Cyprus problem, “the promises were not kept”. “Instead of the isolations being lifted, they were further intensified. Law was used as a tool of politics. Political, legal, and economic pressures on the Turkish Cypriot people and economy were systematically increased,” he said. He added that “the main responsibility for this lies with the United Nations and the European Union”, and that given that no progress has been achieved towards a solution, “the United Nations should now abandon the concept of a federation, which has not produced results for more than 60 years”. “The reality on the island is clear. There are two peoples in Cyprus, there are two democracies, and there are two separate states,” he said. The YDP, the coalition’s third party, had briefly called a protest against the UN and Guterres for Tuesday morning, with a poster shared on social media declaring both to be “passive, unprincipled, biased, failed, not welcomed, not trusted, not wanted”. Party leader and ‘transport minister’ Erhan Arikli then said that the protest had been called off following “statements of support for the UN’s efforts from Turkey and President Tufan Erhurman”. However, he nonetheless expressed reservations about Guterres’ arrival, saying that “while there is so much bloodshed and oppression in the world, it is not normally your job to make an island where peace, tranquillity, and serenity have prevailed for 50 years a problem again and present a solution model”. Erhan Arikli “Let us see what it will bring and what it will take away. If he brings proposals for confidence-building measures, not just a solution based on a federation, then we need that, too. Let us see his hand, first, then we will evaluate the situation,” he said. He went on to say that it is “not possible for Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots to live under a common state”, but said that instead, “the two communities could live side by side with good neighbourly relations”. On this front, he pointed out the rise of Elam in Greek Cypriot politics and “its rhetoric regarding Kyrenia”. “It is impossible for us to live together with these people. We can be good neighbours, but it is impossible for us to live next to them,” he said, before issuing a warning to those in Greek Cypriot politics speaking of returns to Kyrenia. “Those who set their sights on Kyrenia should consider that they could lose Larnaca and Limassol. Our eyes are still on the Hala Sultan Tekkesi. The Hala Sultan Tekkesi is waiting there, orphaned. This is a wound in our hearts,” he said. The Hala Sultan Tekkesi is one of the holiest sites in Islam, with some scholars ranking it fourth in importance after Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem. Umm Haram, a foster sister of the prophet Mohamed’s wife, Amina, is buried there, having died during the first Arab conquest of Cyprus in the seventh century.