By Can Öztaş
Next month Antalya hosts COP31, Nov. 9-20. Ankara has sent two invitations to Cyprus: one, through the conference organizers, to the president of the Republic of Cyprus, and one, from President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to the president of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
On Oct. 16, the European Council underlined the “equal participation and treatment of all EU Member States” at the conference and at its high-level events. Half of that was already in writing.
That half is the Host Country Agreement Turkey signed with the UN climate secretariat in June. Delegates of every party to the convention have a right of entry, and the host may object to an individual only on criminal or security grounds. Invitations to the leaders' summit are another matter: those are the host's own choice. Neither amounts to recognition, which in international law requires intent, not a badge and a seat in the plenary.
A summit convened to keep the planet from overheating has thus been handed a smaller, older and more stubborn problem: who speaks for Cyprus.
A PARTNERSHIP WITH ONE PARTNER
The 1960 Republic in Cyprus was a partnership of two communities, not a majority with a minority attached. Ministers were shared seven to three, parliament and the civil service seventy to thirty, the army sixty to forty. The Greek Cypriot president and the Turkish Cypriot vice-president each held a veto, and the Supreme Constitutional Court was chaired by a neutral judge. Greece, Turkey and the UK guaranteed the arrangement under the Treaty of Guarantee, which barred union with any other state.
By early 1964, the Turkish Cypriots were out of the institutions. Whether they left or were shown the door is still disputed; each side of the island has a different story. The Supreme Court of Cyprus bridged the gap with the “doctrine of necessity.” An emergency that lasts sixty-two years is no longer an emergency; it is a constitution with an excuse. And when a temporary arrangement suits one side so well that it never ends, one may be forgiven for wondering who asked whom to leave.
TWO POSITIONS AT ONCE
The international community has held a dual position on Cyprus for decades, and it rarely admits to either.
For the purposes of a settlement, the island has two voices. Since 1968, the UN's talks have been between the two community leaders, as equals. In 1991 the Security Council described “one State of Cyprus comprising two politically equal communities” (Resolution 716).
The Turkish Cypriot side has also been treated as an actor whose choices carry legal weight. When Turkish Cypriots voted “yes” to the Annan Plan in April 2004 (64.9%) and Greek Cypriots voted “no” (75.8%), the two votes were counted as two decisions, and the plan fell. The EU promised to end the Turkish Cypriots’ isolation, and the UN Secretary-General called on states to lift “unnecessary restrictions”. In 2010 even the European Court of Human Rights sent Greek Cypriot owners to the north’s property commission first, as an effective remedy, adding that this implied no recognition.
For the purposes of recognition, however, the post-1964 government is simply the government. In March 1964 the Security Council addressed it as “the Government of Cyprus” and entrusted it with “the maintenance and restoration of law and order” (Resolution 186), in the same resolution that sent UN peacekeepers to stop intercommunal fighting in which Turkish Cypriots had suffered the heavier losses. A week after the referendum, on May 1, 2004, that government took the whole island into the EU. The community that voted “yes” stayed outside, under Protocol 10, which suspends EU law wherever the Republic “does not exercise effective control”. The government of the community that voted “no” acquired a European veto, and a great deal of leverage.
Recognition tells us who represents the state. It does not tell us whether that government speaks for the people who have had no part in it since 1964.
A BETTER USE OF THE WEATHER?
The events of 1974 began with a coup on July 15, backed by the junta in Athens and aimed at union with Greece; the Turkish intervention followed. The grand strategies of Athens, Ankara, Nicosia and Brussels have been paid for by Cypriots who chose none of them, and the Turkish Cypriots, isolated ever since, have paid twice.
The island already has confidence-building measures, and they rise and fall with the political weather. Climate could be one that does not. Both communities live on the same island and face the same droughts, the same warming sea and the same wildfires. The fires, so far, have shown no interest in the Green Line.
Two leaders from one island will sit under one roof, each invited on different terms. Of all the documents COP31 produces, the guest list may prove the most accurate.
