The Turkish Cypriot community will go to the polls to elect a new leader on October 19. This is a hotly contested race between the current energetic centre-right leader, Ersin Tatar, and the charismatic Tufan Erhurman of CTP, the centre-left, social-democratic Republican Turkish Party. But what prospects for real change does this election offer, if any?
Mr Tatar’s rallying cry, which won him the last election, was the right of a people to self-determination through a two-state solution based on “sovereign equality”. He argues that the original Cypriot constitution was itself a form of federation which collapsed within three years, and that all subsequent attempts over the past 62 years to revive that model have failed. He maintains, therefore, that the future must lie in two sovereign states coexisting on the island. He also insists that Turkey’s presence in the north remains vital to the security of Turkish Cypriots, recalling the violence that preceded the current territorial division.
He warns of the Greek Cypriot side’s military alliances with Israel, the US and France, and of new radar and missile systems as existential threats. This feeds into his push for Turkish Cypriots to consolidate their state to withstand external pressures.
Mr Erhurman argues that a federal solution would serve both Turkish and Greek Cypriots better. He defines a “federal government model” as “two politically equal constituent states under a single federal roof, each exercising self-government while sharing one international legal personality and a single seat at the United Nations”. All powers would be devolved to the constituent states, except those relating to foreign affairs, security, EU relations, banking and island-wide infrastructure.
To clarify, in April 2024 Erhurman said: “We do not speak of returning under the Greek Cypriot state. We speak of establishing a partnership on the basis of political equality, as two constituent states forming a federation recognised by the international community.” He also emphasises that the terms of any settlement should be embedded in the primary law of the European Union. He accepts the UN’s agreed principle of bizonality and bicommunality, under which each community governs a defined geographic zone.
Both Tatar and Erhurman see scope for collaboration between the two communities on trade, natural resources and energy (including hydrocarbons), the environment and climate change, disaster response, waste management, public health, civil protection and cultural heritage restoration.
Greek Cypriot politicians across the political spectrum state that a two-state solution is completely out of the question for them to even consider. There has been no clear explanation about why this should be the case, as an alternative option alongside the “federal” model. Perhaps the unwritten reality is that this is unacceptable on ideological grounds. For some, despite the Turkish Cypriot community’s presence and land ownership on the island for nearly half a millennium, Cyprus is seen as exclusively Greek, and any allocation of separate territory to them would count as a betrayal of Hellenism.
Yet the concept of a two-state solution is not an irrational idea, and it is not a new concept to Cyprus. This is the Greek Cypriot administration’s current policy on Israel and Palestine. Since 1988, Cyprus has recognised Palestine and backed a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital. It is also widely recognised that former president Nicos Anastasiades raised the possibility of a two-state solution with the Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu at Crans-Montana in 2017. I explore why he might have done this in another article.
A two-state solution offers much that could benefit the Greek Cypriot community. After 51 years of impasse, it would gain increased territory – Maras (Varosha), Guzelyurt (Morphou) and the buffer zone – the resolution of property issues through land swaps, autonomous governance, and perhaps most importantly, a peaceful future in which relations between Turkey, Greece and both Cypriot communities are harmonious, providing a strong foundation for trade, industry, and prosperity. Economically, Cyprus could become the new Singapore.
What about the “federal” model advocated by Erhurman? Yes, this could also work in theory. But if that is the case, why has it not happened in decades of negotiations?
Perhaps the late Greek Cypriot leader Tassos Papadopoulos’s comments in April 2004, in relation to the Annan Plan, another federal model, sheds some light on the thinking behind the conundrum facing the Greek Cypriot community. He declared, “I was given a state; I will not hand over a community”, which shows that for many, a federal power-sharing model would also be seen as a sell-out.
No amount of negotiating will lead to positive outcomes unless there is a deep change in people’s minds, away from nationalism and towards universal values, fostering trust, confidence, and a willingness to compromise without fearing the worst consequences of change. The absence of this must surely be why negotiations have been failing for so long, regardless of the political orientation of either side – right or left.
What has been lost since 2004 is sincerity. I propose a new word for the Oxford English Dictionary which describes the current nature of discourse. It is “nogotiation”. This is where people know that a positive outcome is “no-go”, and indeed needs positively to be avoided, but they still want to go through the process of negotiations in order to address their ulterior motive: to create the right optics for their respective audiences. It is a word like mocktail and banoffee, but not quite so pleasant.
Fahri Zihni is former chair of Council of Turkish Cypriot Associations (UK), a former policy advisor at the UK’s Cabinet Office and a former president of Society of IT Management, UK
