LegiStorm

Summary:

Almost eight months into 2018, unification talks that were intended to end the division of Cyprus after 54 years as a politically separated nation and 44 years as a physically divided country remain suspended until sometime in fall 2018. The long-sought bizonal, bicommunal, federal solution for the island remains elusive and, for some, looks to be in doubt. The negotiations were suspended in July 2017, when talks held at Crans Montana, Switzerland, between Republic of Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci collapsed over the sensitive issues of Turkish troop levels on the island, future security guarantees, and political equality sought by the Turkish Cypriots. Cyprus negotiations typically have been characterized as exhibiting periodic levels of optimism, quickly tempered by the political reality that difficult times between Greek and Turkish Cypriots always lay ahead. Such was the case at Crans Montana, as the optimism expressed before the negotiations again fell victim to the harsh realities of five decades of separation, mistrust, misunderstanding, and, in some cases, both sides’ inability to make the necessary concessions to reach a final settlement. The talks have remained suspended despite 12 months of “reflection” that followed the collapse of the negotiations; an informal dinner between Anastasiades and Akinci in April 2018 at which the two leaders were unable to determine under what conditions the talks would be revived; and meetings between the U.N. Secretary-General’s Special Representative in Cyprus, Elizabeth Spehar, and Anastasiades and Akinci. National elections held in June 2018 in Turkey, which holds a key to a final solution, also contributed to the delay. On July 23, 2018, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s new U.N. envoy to Cyprus, Jane Lute, arrived in Nicosia to conduct consultations with the two Cypriot leaders. She will then meet with the three guarantor parties to the Cyprus issue to assess all of the perspectives and to determine if sufficient conditions exist to resume negotiations. It is unlikely that Lute heard much beyond the known positions or what U.N. Representative Spehar likely reported after her meetings with the two leaders in July. The issues that have separated the two communities and prevented a solution for more than four decades have long been clearly defined, and they have been repeatedly presented, debated, and, in some cases, rejected by both sides. Anastasiades likely repeated his willingness to resume the negotiations from where they left off in July 2017, and Akinci likely noted that resuming the talks where they left off will not result in a solution. After consulting all sides, Lute will report to Secretary-General Guterres in September on whether she sees constructive reasons for the U.N. to propose another round of U.N.-hosted negotiations. Guterres is expected to discuss the Lute findings with both Anastasiades and Akinci during the U.N. General Assembly meetings in September 2018 and then to decide whether to offer his good offices for a new round of talks. For some observers, the issues that led to the talks’ collapse, while not central to the questions of whether and under what conditions both sides could govern as equal partners under a federal structure after such a prolonged political separation, go to the question of trust between the two communities. Some believe that if the negotiations were to resume, presumably under a six-point “framework” proposed by Guterres in July 2017, both sides should agree to first resolve the governance-related issues that remain in disagreement (e.g., federal structure, presidency, voting, citizenship, property, economics, and territory of the states). These observers note that if the federal governance issues cannot be resolved, agreement on the security issues is even less likely. Nevertheless, rather than an emphasis on the convergences achieved thus far, troop levels and security guarantees continue to dominate the discussion. It also appears that concessions on these issues, perhaps along the lines suggested by Guterres’s framework, may have become a prerequisite for resuming the talks, leaving little room for a potential solution.