Cyprus-Forum.com

[pumpernickle]

dont mean to be funny, but that's a poo idea.

2 states? on an island the size of woolwich, with a population the size of penzance? hmmmm. good one.

if that logic goes, then we may as well form countries out of places like , ooh, england, where southerners hate notherners, vice verse, londoners hate everyone, the isle of wight feels quite independent, and corwall is quite weird about its identity also.

Rubbish. I say, take down the line, unite and stop being such bloody babies.

[ausbroker]

look personally i wish we can have peace.and i hope it can happen.

now my experiences i have been trying to explain where the ones i had, and as i said i was open to hear everyone elses version, especially tcs.

when i was there in 04 i remember a poor tc kid was stabbed to death in limassol, when he was fishing with his fanily. the scumbag that stabbed the kid then jumped in the water and tried to swim from the police
they caught him.
then i saw on the news that tcs had gathered around the hospital and wanted to see there kid, but the cops wouldnt let em in, and they were screaming and stuff. thats the day i realised that its virtually impossible to live together
as the "officer" who had the authority wouldnt let the tcs into the hospital. is that inhumane or what?
then on the other hand in 97 i saw a documentary where this gc reporter went to the north and was filming life over there. he then went to a village i think it was "mia milia" where he handed the teacher of the school a book. the teacher then looked at a soldier and asked him if it was ok to take the book. again another act of being treated like an animal, because of race, or religion.

unfortunately there is a selected few that can ruin it for everyone. all it takes is a wrong action, and all this freindliness and love will be gone, just like what happened in australia with the race riots. everyone got along until 5000 {english background} australian got together and where screaming they dont want arabs in australia {who were born in australia}
and thats how the riot started. all it took was 5000 people,{from a population of 20 million...........

[Rude Gal]

There have been some interesting thoughts expressed in this thread.

Here’s my thruppence worth.

You can’t force people to be together when they don’t want to be. Where, in what relationship between individuals, communities, countries, has this worked? It is, in a sense, an arranged marriage that either one or both parties do not want to be in. Yes there are people on both sides of the border who crave for a united, integrated Cyprus, but they are a tiny minority in both.

Bi-zonality/2-states is the solution most Turkish Cypriots want. My understanding from this forum is that some Greek Cypriots will only tolerate this if it better reflects the population ratio (though Greek Cypriots’ desire for 18:82 split is not one Turkish Cypriots accept), others still want the whole island run by the current Republic of Cyprus regime with the Turkish Cypriots as a minority (again, something most Turkish Cypriots won’t accept).

People on the outside want to help push the two sides together. We can moan forever about the lack of an honest broker – the Americans, the British, the EU, … we can’t seemingly trust any of them to get a balanced (what we really want is for them to be biased in our favour, whichever side you happen to be on ) handle on the Cyprus issue.

And then we have the UN’s Annan Plan. Now, my understanding is that the bi-zonal, bi-communal State based on the principle of political equality was a feature of every UN plan the two sides helped to develop since the 70s. But clearly from the referenda outcome and since, this is not what most Greek Cypriots want. 18:82 is the best self-determination solution they would offer Turkish Cypriots.

Not going to happen…

The Annan Plan already meant big sacrifices for Turkish Cypriots who have been under embargoes for 40 years. My parents and at least 30,000 others in the Morphou region (approx 15% of North Cyprus population) - many are refugees several times over since December 1963 - would have been displaced again so some of the thousands of Greek Cypriot refugees could reclaim their former lands.

How many of you have checked this region recently? Morphou is caught in a time-warp that dates back to 1974. People left in limbo because every two minutes some politician is claiming it is going back to Greek Cypriots tomorrow. As many Morphou residents have told me, they need to think twice before hammering a nail into a wall. Everything seems like a wasted investment. These people have been at a standstill in their lives for the past 30+ years.

Yet, with no clear understanding of what would happen to them if the Annan Plan went through, 65% said they were ready to uproot again for peace and progress. Would so many say ‘yes’ again to a similar plan (or one more reflective of Greek Cypriot needs)? Thanks to the world’s lack of delivery on promises to end their isolation, I don’t think so.

So we have not gone anywhere. 40 years of feelings getting more entrenched. The two sides further apart…

While I don’t agree with all points ausbroker raises, I think there is much validity to his 2 states solution. We all need to move on from 1963, 1974….It’s 2005, there are two separate territories in Cyprus. The Greek Cypriots do not represent the Turkish Cypriots, they do not administer the northern part of the island and will not for the foreseeable future. They can continue to try and maintain the isolation and tell the world they are the only legitimate authority on the island. The Greek Cypriots can continue to benefit from the lionshare of political, economic and social opportunities the global village has to offer, at the expense of the embargoed North.

These actions will only further polarise the two sides. Why would any Turkish Cypriot wish to link into a society and regime which perpetually aims to hurt them into submission?

If we are about keeping it real, then 2 States is the way ONLY forward for Cyprus at this time. This state of affairs already exists - we have to accept it and move on. The viewpoint that this would reward an "illegal occupation" and is a violation of Greek Cypriot refugees' human rights is a frequent comment on this forum. To support this line means maintaining the status quo & keep squeezing the Turkish Cypriots. Well see above for my thoughts on that. Such a line is making things worse, not better.

Yet 2 States formalises what already exists and paves way for two sides to focus on greater co-operation (good neighbourliness) instead of constant stand-off. Once co-operation happens, integration will follow. It is inevitable! The EU is the best example of this.

In the immediate post Second World War era, was it likely that France, Italy and others that suffered under Nazi aggression would seek integration with Germany to create what is now the EU? Highly unlikely. But the seeds sowed in the 1951 Treaty of Rome, which were based on the desire to cooperate economically, has now evolved into a single Europe where goods, capital and services can move, and people can move, live and work freely in any EU Member State. The EU has gone on, adding more spheres of cooperation and integration and increased the number of new Member States. They include many countries which have traditionally been sworn enemies. Not all perfect, but definitely an aspirational model for others to adapt/follow…

And in time, Greek Cypriots having the larger population and economic power, will have lots of influence throughout the island. But maybe in the scheme of things, it will all be redundant as the global power of Multi-National Corporations will be dominating us all anyway…

[cypezokyli]

i am really sorry rude gal. only a tc can gice you an answer.
when it comes to partition demands i only reply to my own.
in the meantime life CAN be beautiful, with peace love and harmony

[Rude Gal]

We can achieve

:(
in the meantime life CAN be beautiful, with peace love and harmony

whatever the State of our House (you may have guessed as I iz a lil raver hippy @ heart ), detached (2 States), semi-detached (confederation), converted into two flats with some communal areas (federation), or shared house (unitary State).

Bro, you maybe a Top Dude, but till I know that I ain't gonna be keen to jump into bed/one house scenario.

We are currently in detached state. If we can't even be good neighbours, how can we move to next Step?

We just been through a heavy divorce, the kids feel bad, we feel bad...we need to take time to pull it back together (Any romancers in the House? The making up part is always the best , Ya Know Dat!.

For Cyprus/world without borders, first we got to show a bit of Respect for things as they stand and rekindle the passion of being together. We iz Cypriots but we may as well come from opposite ends of the Planet the way we rant about politics. Yet we know it works in London (we got full spectrum of properties over here - all working!).

Everything to play for. So where next Cypezokyli? How we gonna show each other that Respect, how we rekindling that passion baby ?

[cypezokyli]

Everything to play for. So where next Cypezokyli? How we gonna show each other that Respect, how we rekindling that passion baby Wink ?

passion rude gal. its the only thing common between love and hate.
the question is in which of the two are we going to use it.

on the how, let me reply to you tomorrow

[Tony-4497]

Rude gal

Bi-zonality/2-states is the solution most Turkish Cypriots want. My understanding from this forum is that some Greek Cypriots will only tolerate this if it better reflects the population ratio (though Greek Cypriots’ desire for 18:82 split is not one Turkish Cypriots accept), others still want the whole island run by the current Republic of Cyprus regime with the Turkish Cypriots as a minority (again, something most Turkish Cypriots won’t accept).

..... 18:82 is the best self-determination solution they would offer Turkish Cypriots.

Not going to happen…

So what you are saying is that you do not want a true re-unification of Cyprus and that you want to keep for yourselves a part of Cyprus that is much larger than your population % and your land ownership % pre-74.

And on what basis are you demanding this??! Just on the basis that Turkey is big and hard and simply wants to keep what she has grabbed by violence, blood and ethnic cleansing!

Well, guess what.. NOT going to happen.. Rather than handing you over say 30% of Cyprus (and hence taking back only 7% of what is anyway ours and you stole!!) recognising you as a sovereign state and allowing you and Turkey to enter the EU, I would much rather have the existing situation, where you have 37% ILLEGALLY, and fight you at the European courts until you hand all of it back AND keep Turkey and yourselves outside the EU until you hand it back.

If what you want is partition, you can have it, but you will only get what is fair and nothing more.

[Agios Amvrosios]

If you want partition into a 100% pure ethnic Turkish statelet then perhaps should be but on self governed reservations in the middle of nowhere funded by pocker machines and black jack tables like the American Indian reservations.

These reservations should be on land Turkish Cypriots actually own. You'll be self governed and economically viable and you won't be breaching the human rights of the majority of Cypriots. You'll be allowed to do all the turkish stuff you like in peace and you'll be rich from gambling. You don't need to have one gigantic ethnically pure reservation you can have them all over the place. If there are turkish cypriots who want to intergrate and cooperate then they would be be allowed to as is already happening in the Free Areas.

[Rude Gal]

So what you are saying is that you do not want a true re-unification of Cyprus and that you want to keep for yourselves a part of Cyprus that is much larger than your population % and your land ownership % pre-74.

And on what basis are you demanding this??! Just on the basis that Turkey is big and hard and simply wants to keep what she has grabbed by violence, blood and ethnic cleansing!

Well, guess what.. NOT going to happen.. Rather than handing you over say 30% of Cyprus (and hence taking back only 7% of what is anyway ours and you stole!!) recognising you as a sovereign state and allowing you and Turkey to enter the EU, I would much rather have the existing situation, where you have 37% ILLEGALLY, and fight you at the European courts until you hand all of it back AND keep Turkey and yourselves outside the EU until you hand it back.

If what you want is partition, you can have it, but you will only get what is fair and nothing more.

I thought this thread is about what is realistically attainable and even if people are after one unitary State, the fact is that two separate States currently exist. So can we use this platform to move forward? A fair few people on this Forum believe it is possible...

Currently RoC enjoys international recognition, yet this is as false and also borne out of violence (63-74) as the TRNC that GCs accuse of being "illegally occupied". Neither Turkish Cypriots nor the 1960 Constitution gave Greek Cypriots the right to have sole authority on/over the island, yet that is what has happened.

Once the power-sharing failed, it was natural that TCs would look to form a new status quo where they also have a mechanism to run their own affairs (as is their right) hence two territories.

We can deal with these realities, or use the same arguements to go nowhere.

Agios Amvrosios, why haven't more TCs moved into South Cyprus - I'd say because they prefer their self-rule to GC domination. Trust, love, respect. Not around enough for a mass of TCs to make that transformation.

As for the terms "Free Area", "illegally occupied" etc, these are just emotionally loaded propaganda crap. Everyone has suffered, so lets not try to offload all guilt on one side.

And the % of land question. I asked some of our elders why GCs always talk about 18/82 split and why the UN deals never been based on these % splits. The answer is simple. The State had a lot of land including evkaf (inheritance left by muslims for muslims). When BBF was discussed, it was agreed that State land would also be split hence the UN % of 29% for TC administered areas. Apparently, a GC writer Zenon Stavrinides also alludes to these figs in a book he wrote soon after the war in 1974.

So let's keep figs real, our arguements real, our vision pure. It's unlikely the solution Cyprus gets will satisfy everyone, but if it can serve both peoples on island for WIN WIN, then we have progress. The solution won't come out of a void (the angst in peoples' messages on this Forum shows how far most of us are from living in one unified, integrated State) so either we try and change ourselves or we look for a solution based on current realities.

If we go down the court case scenario, TCs have much to gain too. An injunction against Larnaca and Paphos airports for starters, as they are built on TC land, and many more such actions. Will these individual legal claims do anything to reconcile the two sides (who both have legitimate rights)? No! This is a political problem and looking for individual, piecemeal legal remedies will not resolve Cyprus. It will ensure both sides are more entrenched then ever, and as the whole thing grinds the EU down, other people will get to see there are two sides to this story and who knows how it will end...

[Kifeas]

And the % of land question. I asked some of our elders why GCs always talk about 18/82 split and why the UN deals never been based on these % splits. The answer is simple. The State had a lot of land including evkaf (inheritance left by muslims for muslims). When BBF was discussed, it was agreed that State land would also be split hence the UN % of 29% for TC administered areas. Apparently, a GC writer Zenon Stavrinides also alludes to these figs in a book he wrote soon after the war in 1974.

Rude gal ...how little you know about the Cyprus problem indeed!

The territorial percentage of the A-plan, as well as the various territorial percentages that were at times been discussed after 1974 among the two sides and the various UN mediators and which indeed were higher than the 18% that the TC community represents, were all discussed on the agreed assumption of reaching re-unification of Cyprus under the political concept of a bi-zonal federation in which all the GCs originating from the area (state) which would be administrated by the TCs via the virtue of majority population presence, were all understood to be allowed to return back to their homes, towns and villages. They have never been percentages that were discussed under the assumption of founding two separate states in a partition fashion, as you would like the case to be. In other words, the 25% or the 27% or the 29% that the Annan plan prescribed, were territorial state percentages that were not going to belong administratively only to the 18% of the TCs, but instead you have to add up the percentage of the GC to be citizens of the north state that will return within those areas and which has always been assumed to equate to the in-excess of the 18% ratio that the TC state would have occupied. It was made in this way so that the GCs returning in their villages in the north and would have added up to the TC population of the northern state as a combined ration of the overall Cypriot population, would have not been to the detriment of the territorial space of the TC community.

In other words and to make it more simple for you so understand it better, if we assume that the TCs constitute 18% as a ration of the total population, which today translates into 147,000 people in absolute numbers (forget the settlers from Turkey - they do not count,) and then we add on them another let’s say another 75,000 GCs that should return into the TC administered territory (administrated by virtue of majority and not by virtue of exclusive ownership) then the population of this territory will become 222,000 (147 + 75 ) and thus it will also represent together 27.2% of the total Cypriot population and therefore the territory of the state should be adjusted to percentage-wise reflect the size of the people that will constitute its internal residents. It is always under this agreed assumption that a higher than 18% ration has always been mentioned in the negotiations, and not because the TCs alone and by themselves are owners of such a percentage.

What you are proposing however, is a solution of two separate and independed states (not a federation of one single country,) were the TCs will live on one side of the island in their exclusively separate country, and the GCs on the other side of the island. In such a case Rude Gal, and assuming that the majority of the people of both communities agree to your theory, the ratio of the TC separate state should represent the TC population ratio, which is 18%.

Now, you keep talking about the EVKAF lands that were taken by the British when they took over Cyprus 80 or 100 years ago, etc, etc, etc. To give an end to this talk and consequently an end to your illusions that this is the case even after 1960 when the RoC was founded, I will say the following to you. Yes, it is true! Evkaf had some substantial territories of its own, which by virtue of the various firmans that the sultans were issuing during the years of the Ottoman occupation, where getting transferred to EVKAF whenever someone was passing away (or sentenced to death.) Those lands were remaining largely unutilized and consequently the British were legally expropriating them with the consensus of EVKAF itself and were consequently sold to the Cypriots of both communities for utilization. This also seems to be the case of the enclosed area of Varoshia. The British were paying to EVKAF the appropriate compensation and as a result, it never disputed this practice in the British colonial courts, either in Cyprus or in the UK. Some discrepancies seem to have existed in 1960 when the British were going to transfer control of their colonial land registry to the newly founded RoC. As a result, the British have paid a 1.5 million UK pounds to EVKAF as a final settlement of all /any discrepancies, and Denktash and Kutchuk who were the caretakers (co-chairmen) of EVKAF in 1960 signed a final settlement deal with the British that closed the EVKAF issue completely.

If you want more information on this subject, read the TC newspaper “Yeni Duzen” (http://www.yeniduzengazetesi.com) of the 31/12/2005, (I am not sure of the author’s name) in which he explains all the above EVKAF issues in a rather humoristic way, but nevertheless a very informative one.

PS: can you provite the internet link of Stavrinides book and the quotation of what he says on this subject?