Recep Tayyip Erdogan‘s decision to skip the annual celebrations in the occupied north marking the anniversary of the invasion and the occupation that followed it has been read by some as a deliberate signal, one aimed at the current manoeuvring over the Cyprus problem and the UN Secretary-General’s forthcoming visit.
For the credulous among us, Erdogan’s absence from the occupied north on 20 July can be filed under “goodwill gestures”: the sort everyone notices except Erdogan himself. Perhaps his no-show really is part of some diplomatic game of optics. Or perhaps it has nothing to do with any of that, and he simply couldn’t be bothered to make the trip. None of it matters much either way. The real test will come out on the field, when UN Secretary-General António Guterres visits Cyprus between 27 and 29 July.
As is well known, Erdogan sent Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz in his place, the man who holds the Cyprus brief in the Turkish government and effectively runs the “occupied north project”. He was sent to say exactly what Erdogan would have said himself, the same line Ankara has always trotted out: that “the road to a just, permanent and viable solution runs through recognition of the sovereign equality and equal international status of the two states”. In the 24 hours before Guterres arrived in Cyprus, Yılmaz couldn’t find a single word to say about that visit. What he did rush to deliver was a formal warning to Nicosia (and to Paris) over the defence agreements it has been signing. Turkey, he said, is watching “closely and with great attention” anyone seeking to draw Cyprus into new military arrangements. So says the spokesman for the occupying power.
Nor was it an accident that Yılmaz reached for language straight out of the conqueror’s playbook. He has folded the occupied north into Turkey’s grand designs: “The Turkish century will also be the century of the ‘Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus’,” he told his audience there.
Meanwhile Tufan Erhurman, the “progressive” leader supposedly desperate for a deal, keeps setting conditions and prerequisites. He has a whole shopping list of things that must happen before talks can even begin. And once all of that is ticked off, in all likelihood the occupying side will have no reason left to sit down at the table, because by then it will already have secured what it actually wanted: above all, the terms of the divorce.
He never gets to the point. Erhurman keeps reaching for confidence-building measures, even though they’ve been discussed for years without producing a thing. It’s just another way of avoiding the real substance of the Cyprus problem: the ongoing occupation of Cypriot territory by Turkey. In fact, in all the messages he sent out this week to mark the invasion’s anniversary, he didn’t touch the substance at all, didn’t even say what kind of settlement he’s actually after. And this from the man who’s supposedly been “ready” for ages.
Turkish Cypriots are the casualties of Turkey’s expansionist ambitions, used to advance Ankara’s agenda whenever it suits. They are one variable in a much larger Turkish design. It does nothing for them. Nobody knows this better than Ankara’s own placemen in the occupied north, whichever ones happen to be serving that policy at any given time, some willingly, others through gritted teeth. Not that it makes the slightest difference to the occupying power. All it wants is for its policy to be carried out.
