Cyprus-Forum.com

Alexandre,

I haven't had time to read through this thread and see the comments posted by users but first I want to thank you for takin the time to do this and below are my huble opinions on your plan (I cannot vote so thats all I give)



Revised Security: The development of a Cypriot-European security system, as follows: Greek and Turkish troops will be replaced by a European Security force, under a European commander, and this force will also include Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot soldiers, who will together receive military training in other European countries. This new security force, comprised of units for land, sea and air defence, will be responsible to deal with all internal and external threats. Until Turkey joins the European Union, however, a safety valve for the direct protection of the Turkish Cypriots by Turkey will also be in place, if the above described system of European Security fails to protect them from some particular threat.

Note: If Turkey never joins the EU, then presumably this "last-resort protection right" mentioned above will apply indefinitely. There will be a special European Committee overseeing the deployment of this Security Force, and Turkey will have a seat in that committee even when she is not a member of the European Union.

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So does this imply Turkey will have a right to inervene in the island like with the guarantee treaties.

Revised Property Rights: Original owners will be able to reclaim and use all their property, except that in which refugees with equivalent property to exchange live or that on which there has been major investment – and for such properties they will be compensated. In case an original owner is not entitled to receive his actual home, then as compensation he will be entitled to a new home built for him in the same town or village. The building of these new residences will be co-financed with the support of international donors.

Note: Houses that have been constructed by developers in the north since December 2002 will be nationalised, with the original owner of the land and the Property Developer both being compensated as appropriate, and these homes will be given to refugees under the "right to a new home" provision described above. If an original owner and a current occupant wish to swap their entitlement, so that the original owner gets his original home and the current occupant gets the new home, they will have the right to do so.

the system you proposed is the exact one i believe will work best to justly satisfy both communities.

Revised Residence / Voting Rights: There will be no limit to the number of Greek Cypriots who may choose to reside in the north, but with the following arrangement for voting rights: Such Greek Cypriots will vote for the Greek Cypriot constituent state government, and for the Greek Cypriot members of the Federal Government, while for municipal elections only they will vote at the place where they reside in the north. The equivalent to the above will of course apply for Turkish Cypriots living in the south.

Note: The residence rights of Greek Cypriots in the north and Turkish Cypriots in the south, as ex-territorial residents, will be protected through a series of co-operation agreements between the two constituent states, on matters that range from Health to Education to Welfare to Justice. Constituent state citizenship status will be granted on the day of the Comprehensive Settlement, according to where each person resided on that particular day, but GCs who currently live in the north and TCs who currently live in the south will be entitled to select to be citizens of the other constituent state, if they so wish. Constituent State citizenship will be permanent, and will be transferred from parents to their children. In the case of mixed marriages between citizens of the two Constituent States, individuals will be entitled to select the internal citizenship status that they prefer.

the "particular day" you refer to is the day where GCs and TCs establish residences after property rights have been satisfied?

I like your idea. At first I wasn't sure about it but after a discussion with turkcyp a while back I see how it will satisfy TCs without bothering GCs either way. However, I don't like :
a) the term "citizenship" to be used for each state (residency is better)
b) not being allowed to become a resident in the other state say after an x amount of years of living ad paying muiciapl taxes there.

Revised Provisions for Settlers/Immigrants from Turkey: Citizenship will be acknowledged to those married to Turkish Cypriots, those born in Cyprus and those who arrived here before the age of 18, while a permanent residence permit will also be granted to their parents, who will remain citizens and voters of Turkey with the right to live and work in Cyprus. Everyone else will be required to return to Turkey within 2 years of the settlement, and will be compensated USD 20,000 per family, paid for by Turkey and International Donors, to help finance their relocation.

Note: Only families that have been resident in Cyprus for at least nine years before the Comprehensive Settlement will be entitled to the treatment desribed above. All others will be granted a temporary 3-year work permit, after which time they will be required to depart.

the problem with this (and the compensation for property previously) is where the money will come from??



anyway thats all for now, not much but if this was a final decision i dont see reasons why GCs wouldnt vote for this if given the necessary push from the government.

Kifeas,

I should like to make only one more point, for the benefit of those that read us. Kifeas reckons, if you read carefully his last post, that Serdar and Rauf, Soyer and Ecevit are all the same. In fact, all he is saying is that they are all Turks, so what can you expect from them? I do not share his views, Serdar and Rouf and Ecevit are not my cup of tea but Soyer is a friend and a true Cypriot. He has some bullet marks on his body that prove the point and if we cannot see eye to eye with people like Soyer then there is no hope for us all. I pay no attention to your view Kifeas about me being a proponent of turkish views.

EDITED.

Hi magikthrill, glad to hear from you again ...

magikthrill wrote:So does this imply Turkey will have a right to inervene in the island like with the guarantee treaties.

Hmm, it's a bit compicated. It's what we call a secondary intervention right, which would only apply, in practice, if the whole governmental and security apparatus breaks down. The precise mechanism by which such a secondary intervention right can be exercised, needs to be worked through in greater detail.

magikthrill wrote:the "particular day" you refer to is the day where GCs and TCs establish residences after property rights have been satisfied?.

No, it is the day of the Comprehensive Settlement. In practice, this would mean that all GCs will be citizens of the GCCS and all TCs will be citizens of the GCCS. I like to retain use of both phrases - citizenship and recidency - because while citizenship will be fixed, residency will be totally flexible. So we need two separate words to describe these two separate conditions (e.g. I am a citizen of the GCCS but a resident of the TCCS).

I know that even this proposal is irregular to an extent, but it is the best we can do taking as given the requirement that the end-result has to be a BBF.

magikthrill wrote:the problem with this (and the compensation for property previously) is where the money will come from??

Ah, money ... I also have a problem with money ... don't we all ...

magikthrill wrote:anyway thats all for now, not much but if this was a final decision i dont see reasons why GCs wouldnt vote for this if given the necessary push from the government.

I also think GCs would vote for it, the real question is, will TCs vote for it. Though the survey data suggests that they would, the responses in this thread suggest that they wouldn't. The situation will become more clear once these proposals enter the public domain and begin to be discussed. This will happen on Sunday, with the double publication in Kibris and Politis, so maybe in a few months I can ask again the same questions and see how far the responses have changed ...

Bananiot,

Bananiot wrote:I should like to make only one more point, for the benefit of those that read us. Kifeas reckons, if you read carefully his last post, that Serdar and Rauf, Soyer and Ecevit are all the same. In fact, all he is saying is that they are all Turks, so what can you expect from them?

If you had bothered reading my posting more carefully, you would have understood that I didn’t put all the above in the same group but in two separate groups. I said your current views almost coincide with Serdar and Soyer, but that you might as well gear towards even more extreme ideas with the speed and acceleration that you gained recently.

You are again deliberately trying to discredit me by implying that I believe whatever comes from a Turk has to be bad or wrong and therefore no GC should ever identify himself with any Turk. Of course this is not something that came out of my posting nor I ever implied it, either directly or indirectly, but instead, something coming purely and only out of your imagination.

Bananiot wrote: I do not share his views, Serdar and Rouf and Ecevit are not my cup of tea but Soyer is a friend and a true Cypriot. He has some bullet marks on his body that prove the point and if we cannot see eye to eye with people like Soyer then there is no hope for us all. I pay no attention to you Kifeas about me being a proponent of turkish views.

Soyer is a “true” Cypriot who aslo happens to support the perpetuation of Turkeys intervention rights in Cyprus, who supports the usurping of the vast majority of GC properties in the north without adequate means and methods of compensation (read without compensation,) who supports the permanent segregation of Cypriots into ethnic and religious groups, who is one of the masterminds for the design of the TCCS constitution which imports Kemalism into the Reunited Cyprus Republic and which requires the “Turkification” of any GC wishing to settle in the TC Constituent State otherwise s/he will not be able to function as a normal citizen with all his political rights in his place of residence; someone who supports the remaining of nearly all settlers and the minimization of the return of his other Cypriot “compatriots” back to their ancestral homelands and villages; and finally, someone who favours the adoption of the A-plan as it is (was,) with the minimum of changes, exactly in the same way that you also envision it’s adoption. In other words he is a "true" Cypriot, “left-wing” Kemalist or a “left-wing” Turkish nationalist!

If these are the “true” Cypriots, I wonder what do we need the “non-true” Cypriots for!

EDITED.

I am not trying to discredit you Kifeas.. you declared that:

Your positions on the issue of Cyprus have surpassed by far those of the TC community’s leadership. You appear to be the best solicitor of those ideas and positions. Sometimes I am wondering if I am just reading Sertar Denktash or Ferdi Soyer, when reading your postings. With the acceleration that you accumulated lately, soon you will sound like Ertogluoglou, Raouf Denktash and Ecevit.

The above is sound and integral political positions as far as you are concerned. Even great historical people like Venizelos and Trikoupis were accused in the same manner.

It’s about time WE stick to the issues we are discussing and if WE disagree with what I say simply register OUR differences and leave it to that. Can you do that?

EDITED. What the hell I lost half an hour doing edits on this page.....WE WE and OUR were added while editing

Bananiot wrote:It’s about time WE stick to the issues we are discussing and if you disagree with what WE say simply register OUR differences and leave it to that. Can you do that?

My comments are perfectly related to the issues that were being discussed and the fact that I made the parallelism of your positions with those of the current TC leadership is also perfectly related. It is a true fact, which was also intended to motivate you into self-examining those (your) views. Of course all these presuppose that you are in principle concerned about the well-intended interests of the GC refugees and the Cypriots in general.

EDITED. Any continuation of discusion must be made according to the EDITS of this and the previous page.

i just read the research. man its quite long!

my first conclusions, without deep thinking are

1. its amazing that people are still trying to work out a solution!! i thought that everybody was dissapointed and gave up. finally some people decided not to expect everything from the politicians. overall, i would say bravo.

2. the plan could be improved and make some more gc happy

3. tc seem ready to discuss and accept different options proposed. despite the fact that gc still ensist to view tc as ever-wanting-more type of people

4. it is true as mentioned, that the influence of the politicians is absend from the study, which is quite strong in cyprus.

5. really is there a way that political parties would comment on the findings, and more important to give an answer to the suggestions proposed here? i guess i am asking too much ah?

6. i am also not sure about the honesty of the answers since some seem to contradict each other. e.g i want negotiations to start immidiatelly but i still trust papadopoulos. i dont mind having gc or tc neighbour but i mind my children marrying a tc or a gc. i dont mind my children being in the same school with tc or gc but i dont trust them. etc

i ll give the proposals some more thoughts and try to give an answer till tomorrow.

keep on trying

I'm sure I'd say this on behalf of the forum cypezokyli, a great initial post and welcome to the forum.

Hi Cypezokyli,

thanks for taking the time to read the research

cypezokyli wrote:the plan could be improved and make some more gc happy

Probably, I chose as options those that would get a minimal GC Yes, rather than a massive GC Yes. I am not sure why I did this, but anyway, "the plan" is just indicative - to show that a double majority is indeed possible, and it doesn't necessitate the TCs getting a worse deal.

Having said that, when I posted this plan in this thread, while I got the expected result from GCs (55-60% Yes, 40-45% No), the result from TCs was far more negative and totally inexpected compared to the statistics of the survey. I am not sure how to explain this result. Perhaps it is a reaction against "having changed so many things in the plan in favour of GCs", perhaps it is because TCs don't trust GCs sufficiently and this colours their evaluation of any plan, perhaps there was something wrong in the proposals themselves, or perhaps the sample in this forum is not representative of the population.

cypezokyli wrote:tc seem ready to discuss and accept different options proposed. despite the fact that gc still ensist to view tc as ever-wanting-more type of people

Yes, it seems that the average TC - as portrayed in the survey - is far more flexible than the official stance of Turkish and TC leadership would make us suspect. This phenomenon (of TC flexibility) has been confirmed to me by many TCs I know, from their personal experience.

cypezokyli wrote:it is true as mentioned, that the influence of the politicians is absend from the study, which is quite strong in cyprus.

Well, in this study (Options for Peace), there was no room to analyse political influence as well. If you go to my website and download the report "Can the Cyprus Problem be Solved: Understanding the Greek Cypriot response to the UN Peace Plan for Cyprus" you will find an analysis of political influence in the GC community.

cypezokyli wrote:really is there a way that political parties would comment on the findings, and more important to give an answer to the suggestions proposed here? i guess i am asking too much ah?

I personally presented the results to most Cypriot parties, and the response ranged from enthusiasm to mild interest to indifference and finally to scepticism, depending on the party. Thankfully, the parties that currently comprise the two leaderships generally saw the results favourably.

Perhaps the fact that the results have now been published in newspapers will "force" politicians to comment publicly. We shall see.

cypezokyli wrote:i am also not sure about the honesty of the answers since some seem to contradict each other. e.g i want negotiations to start immidiatelly but i still trust papadopoulos. i dont mind having gc or tc neighbour but i mind my children marrying a tc or a gc. i dont mind my children being in the same school with tc or gc but i dont trust them. etc

There is no contradicition here, you just have to understand the complexities of GC society: Having TC neighbours is OK because we are co-citizens of Cyprus, marrying them is not OK because we must also retain our Greek Orthodox identity. My children going to school with TCs is OK because we need to forge a common future, trusting TCs politically is a problem because of our conflicted past. As for negotiations and Papadopoulos, for most GCs Papadopoulos is genuinely doing his best for a solution, even if most TCs don't think so, just as for most TCs Talat is doing his best for a solution, even though most GCs believe that he is striving for partition. What is the truth, you might ask? Ah, the truth ...

Alex have you taken into account that over the past year TCs have lost their momentum for a solution and they are now starting more and more to realize we cannot make a go of it with the south (due to current developments and lack of progress together with GCs stance) and maybe we shouıld stay as we are. This attitude is making TCs cling more firmly onto what they have and thats Turkey, before the referendum TCs questioned what would be best for TCs, Turkey vs Unification with the GC South and we all know the result. The feeling Im getting from even the YES voters is that if there was a another referendum without questioning the content would vote NO based purely on their opinion of joining up with the mindset/viewpoints of the administration in the south.
I feel as time passes the desire for a unified solution dwindles and the recognized partition issue become more realistic. What do you and other forum members feel?? is the lack of progress and negative stance of both sides helping us move towards solving the Cyprus issue??