What has been agreed so far

There will be no army in a future United Cyprus, according to Turkish daily newspaper Hurriyet, which revealed on Thursday details of what has been agreed at the negotiations between Dimitri Christofias and Mehmet Ali Talat.


“This is how the United Cyprus will be”, the paper says. "In the new military-free-structure that will be voted by the two communities, the only armed force will be the police which will be along the lines of the FBI. There will be police force for each community. While the Turkish side wants the number of the police to be equal for each sector, the Greek Cypriot side insists on a proportion of 60% to 40%.There will be common passports and identity cards. Turkish and Greek will be the official languages with each community being able to learn the other's in school. A possible third working language may also be specified. In government departments, if the director is Turk, his deputy will be Greek and vice versa. There will be a rotating presidency.”

The paper quotes diplomatic sources as saying that they had agreed that the senate would elect the future President and his deputy and these two members would hold office in rotation.

According to the sources, the biggest problem in the negotiations is the insistence of the Greek Cypriots on single sovereignty. The Greek Cypriots desire the transformation of the Republic of Cyprus to a federated state and do not accept two sovereign states. “The Turkish side wants continuation of the structure currently existing,” writes the paper. If the United Cyprus is accepted, a new cabinet will be established with six Greek Cypriots and three Turks as members. The Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Europe, Finance and Internal Affairs will come from different communities. For any decision to be approved, the vote of at least one person from each community will be needed.

Property is one of the thorniest issues. The framework whereby compensation will be paid out has not been defined.


If an agreement is reached, the two sides will hold a referendum. Both sides need to approve it for the agreement to be in force.

President Christofias said on Friday that there is convergence of views with the Turkish Cypriot side on the property issue although a couple of issues still remain outstanding.

After another meeting with Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat, in the framework of the ongoing talks on the Cyprus problem, Christofias told the press that they had had a very productive meeting.

Commenting on the report by Turkish daily Hurriyet on what had been agreed so far, he said it is true that they had agreed that the solution would establish a federation, that would be a single state with a single sovereignty and a single international entity, but that it was not true that the Turkish Cypriot side is insisting on the present situation remaining as it is as far as sovereignty is concerned, namely two sovereign states.


"It is true that we agreed that Cyprus would be demilitarised, that there would be no army, and it is also true that we agreed that there will be a police force in the units as well as a federal police force. Also it is true that we agreed on a rotating presidency. But it is not true that we agreed that the President and Vice President will be elected by the Senate. That is the Turkish side's position. Our side's position is that they should be voted directly by the people with weighted votes, even though there are a number of people who have reacted against this", he said.

The two sides will meet again on Tuesday when they are expected to discuss the issues of aliens, citizenship, immigration and asylum.

According to the Cyprus Mail, President Christofias yesterday gave a nod of appreciation to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown for the interest he has shown in the Cyprus problem.

Asked to comment on a recent article written by Brown and published in Greek and Turkish Cypriot diaspora publications in the UK, Christofias said: “The man wants to help without interfering in the talks, let’s make that clear”.

He added that the two had struck up a good friendship. “I have developed a very good relationship with Gordon Brown. It’s not by chance that he talks about his friend Demetris Christofias, a friendship has been built.”

The confessed friendship comes in stark contrast to past comments made by Christofias, when he had described Britain as “our evil demon”. However, the two countries appeared to turn a new leaf in relations in June 2008, following Christofias’ visit to Downing Street where the two leaders signed a Memorandum of Understanding.

In his article published in Parikiaki and Toplum Postasi, Brown referred to his meeting with his “good friend” Christofias last week, which reminded him of the “huge contribution made by Cypriots from both communities to our life and society here in the United Kingdom”. He noted the first hand personal accounts he has heard “of the historical injustices that both communities have suffered”, saying now was the time to heal the wounds of the past and move forward to a brighter future.

“It has never been more vital that Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots in Britain, standing together, urge their leaders to go the extra mile,” he said and referred to the “unprecedented opportunity to end the 35 year long division of the island”.

Brown said “real progress” has been made and “much ground covered” in the talks, adding that with flexibility and compromise, an agreement would be possible next year.

“While the British Government will not interfere, there is an abundance of international goodwill within the international community…for negotiations to reunify the island to succeed, and for history to be made,” he concluded.


U.N. Special Adviser for Cyprus, Alexander Downer, is expected to visit New York during the first two weeks of December to brief UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the latest developments on the Cyprus issue. The Cyprus News Agency cited UN sources yesterday saying that Downer would meet with the UN team dealing with the Cyprus issue in New York and inform the UN Security Council on the latest developments.

The UN Secretary-General is expected to issue two reports on Cyprus early next month. The first, due on December 1, concerns the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) and the second report concerns progress achieved regarding the UNSG’s good offices in Cyprus, to be published some days later. According to CNA sources, the UNFICYP report will not differ to a great extent from the previous report. The second report will assess positively the progress achieved since September 2008 in the talks and will ascertain that there are different approaches between the two sides. The report, according to diplomatic sources, will renew its call towards the leaders of the two communities in Cyprus to intensify their meetings, show political boldness and flexibility for achieving an overall solution in Cyprus.

An editorial in the Cyprus Mail says the Governor of the Central Bank Athanasios Orphanides’ comment about the ‘tremendous growth potential’ of a unified economy came as a breath of fresh air in the suffocating, negative atmosphere that surrounds the efforts for a settlement. It was about time a respected public official, whose professional standing and integrity cannot be disputed, focused on the positive consequences of re-unification, because until now the doom and gloom merchants have been setting the agenda.

All we have been hearing, so far, is disaster-talk by lawyers obsessed with legal technicalities and calculatingly avoiding the bigger picture. These are the lawyers who have made a profession out of taking proposals submitted at the peace talks and picking holes in them in order to support their settlement-doomsday scenarios and advertise their noble commitment to high ideals of justice. Their message is that re-unification, under the conditions currently being discussed, would be catastrophic.

Orphanides, who does not go with the political flow and has repeatedly proved his independence, in an interview to Reuters this week, said: “I strongly believe that a unified economy gives tremendous growth potential for the island.... It would also create the wealth that could be sorely needed in order to finance the aspects of re-unification that we may face ahead.” He added a proviso – any deal should keep the number of barriers to a unified economy at a minimum. The fewer there were the quicker the economic convergence of the two economies would be.

It was the first time Orphanides, who keeps his public statements to a minimum, had spoken about the positive effects of a solution on the economy. It was a timely intervention, given that a couple of weeks ago, his predecessor, Dr Christodoulos Christodoulou, presented a book he had written in which he argued that Greek Cypriots would become poorer as a result of settlement. Very few people with an understanding of economics would have taken Dr Christodoulou’s simplistic, unrelenting negativity, which often reads like propaganda, very seriously, but anti-settlement campaigners have been citing it to further their cause.

At least most people know that Orphanides is significantly, better-qualified to talk about economic matters than Dr Christodoulou, who is not a qualified economist, let alone an authority on the subject. In fairness, the current finance minister Charilaos Stavrakis and his predecessor Michalis Sarris, both respected economists, have also spoken about the big boost re-unification would give the economy. Hopefully they would rejoin the debate soon, because people like Dr Christodoulou, who have an anti-settlement agenda, cannot be left to cultivate unjustified fear.

Orphanides’ comments could prove doubly useful if they were also taken on board by the Turkish Cypriot side which still seems to support the idea of certain economic barriers being in place after a settlement.