‘Not a single Turkish Cypriot sees the Turkish army as an invader’

Talat lays down the rules for tomorrow’s meeting

SELF-RULE, self-determination and the right of the Turkish army to intervene in Cyprus will not be up for discussion when Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat sits down with President Papadopoulos tomorrow to try and break the deadlock that has plagued relations between the two communities since the failed referendum of 2004, Talat said at the weekend.

“Turkish Cypriots have ruled themselves since 1963. Today, they are the owners of a state, a fully functioning administration. They will not sacrifice this,” Talat told a conference in the Turkish city of Izmir.

He also warned that Turkish Cypriots would not accept the removal of Turkey’s right to intervene militarily on the island from any potential agreement between the two communities, contesting that “apart from marginal groups… not a single Turkish Cypriot sees the Turkish army as an invader”.

Despite his seemingly tough words, Talat said he remained hopeful that a breakthrough could be found to break the deadlock that has reigned since the Greek Cypriot rejection of the UN’s last effort to solve the Cyprus problem in 2004.

“Maybe, if we can find establish a basis, a common understanding for peace on Cyprus, I can’t see a reason why we shouldn’t be able to solve the Cyprus problem,” he said.

Wednesday’s meeting will be the first between the two leaders since they last came together in July 2006 to thrash out what has become known as the July 8 agreement. Since then, there has been no top-level contact, and many of the points in the agreement signed that day have been widely ignored on both sides.

Whether tomorrow’s meeting will produce results remains uncertain. Indeed, Talat is all too aware that Papadopoulos faces an election early next year, and that it could be this alone that has brought him to the negotiating table.

However, he also believes his counterpart’s possibly ulterior motives should not prevent the meeting from taking place. “If the election is the trigger that starts the peace process, then so be it,” he said. Talat also knows that he too is under the scrutinising eye of his community – a community that he and his supporters promised a swift solution to the Cyprus problem and EU membership – and that returning empty-handed from the meeting will do little to boost his popularity.