Holguin’s mission impossible proved just that

Reading between the lines of UN envoy Maria Angela Holguin’s appeal to Cypriots to get involvedover the heads of their leaders, was an admission that common ground eluded her and her mission impossible proved impossible.

Hitherto, the approach has been to seek a comprehensive settlement from day one under the formula that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. This approach failed spectacularly at Crans Montana in 2017 when everything that had been painstakingly agreed collapsed acrimoniously just because a few loose ends could not be tied up.

It was a wasted opportunity but it is no good crying over spilt milk except to say that according to Mevlut Cavusoglu, the Turkish foreign minister at the time, a two-state solution was canvassed with him by the Greek Cypriot camp as an alternative to sharing power under a bi-communal bi-zonal federation (BBF) and the Turkish side has ran away with the idea that it was for real.

If such an impression was given there was no mandate for it; it should never have been given as it runs contrary to the Greek Cypriot psyche. It originated from loose coffeeshop talk by a few fanatics who want nothing to do with Turkish Cypriots and feigned nonchalance if Cyprus were partitioned.

The true position is that the RoC will never agree to abandon sovereignty over the whole island, or contemplate its dissolution, or agree to have it replaced by a new international entity.

That is my understanding of the political reality in Cyprus. It may be ironical as the RoC was originally thought of by the Greek Cypriot leadership as a stepping stone to union with Greece but that is definitely no longer the case.

The facts changed in 1974 and the RoC changed with them, becoming a precious island state that Greek Cypriots treasure as their very own Cypriot nation without detracting from their Greek heritage – which Turkish Cypriots can also share without detracting from their Turkish heritage.

Holguin pleaded with us in Cyprus to press and encourage our political leaders to move to more provident pastures in search of solutions. So here’s what I think for what it is worth which is more to do with methodology than anything else.

In light of the current demographic distribution of the two communities, broadly speaking the starting point is to seek to vary the common ground that was agreed in 1960 from a single territory bi-communal state into a bi-zonal bi-communal federal state. I know that the 1960 arrangements were controversial but they are also the only time all the parties signed up to a comprehensive settlement and historically they are hugely important.

To vary the 1960 arrangements it would be necessary to convert the single state provisions in the constitution into federal provisions and do this objectively in the first instance and by political bargaining afterwards.

Many people may not know this but the 1960 constitution does not exclude a bi-zonal Cyprus if the democratically elected representatives of both communities were to vote for it by a two thirds majority each – separatist independence, partition and union with another state are, however, all excluded by both the constitution and the treaty of guarantee, which is why I disagree profoundly with the current two-state policy of the Turkish leadership.

Constitutional experts could get together asap to consider the minimum changes to the constitution that would be objectively necessary to convert the Republic of Cyprus domestically into a BBF without disturbing its current international status as the RoC.

It is, I suggest, easier to vary by amendment and adjustment what is operational than to embark on wholesale structural changes immediately. Also, as civil servants as a class on both sides are averse to sudden change and need to be phased in gently to gradual federal thinking that must be the mantra from day one of any serious negotiations with a settlement in mind.

In the meantime, the EU could be requested to set up a central administrative college to provide training in federal governance to prepare the new jointcivil service and imbue it with a federalesprit de corps that would be required for the success of a BBF.

It is astonishing that in previous negotiations high officials at the UN thought that the Cypriots were going to get it all together after years of separation and implement a solution of the Cyprob overnight without preparatory work and without trained personnel.

The gradualist approach with the 1960 constitution as a starting point could begin to be implemented step by step as negotiations progress and sidestep the doomed approach that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, which does not sit at all well with the Cypriot temperament.

The idea behind nothing is agreed until everything is agreed derivesfrom ‘without prejudice’ negotiations that lawyers engage in to settle cases on behalf of their clients by making concessions that do not bind their clients if their case does not settle.

But it does not always transplant well in settling political problems. The experience of the political problem in Cyprus suggests that what is required is to implement selectively what is agreed where it is likely to provide momentum for further agreement.

Negotiations could progress first on relatively uncontroversial matters and in identifying what is uncontroversial it should be possible to catalogue previous areas where agreement was relatively easy.

Turkish Cypriots already have RoC citizenship which is valuable in view of the freedom of movement it provides in Europe, but it is high time they rejoined the RoC with dignity and security rather than as a semi-detached addendum of RoC in the south and of Turkey in the north.