When we review a geographical atlas trying to identify the main areas of crisis that prop up our world here and there, few people remember to pay attention to what is happening in a remote corner of the eastern Mediterranean Sea, where the island which, according to the mythological tradition, gave birth to the goddess Aphrodite (Venus for the Romans): the island of Cyprus.
Indeed, of all disputes, Cypriot is one of the most dangerous because, once the interests and actors involved are considered, it would have the power to cause the implosion of both NATO and the European Union. And there is no at all remote possibility that everything could happen soon, very soon.
The Cyprus crisis is as old as the modern republic of the same name. Proclaimed on August 16, 1960, and internationally recognized on October 1 of the same year, after the conclusion of the London and Zurich agreements of 1959, crowning a ten-year struggle for independence led by the archbishop and primate of the Autocephalous Church of Ciprio, Makarios III, the Republic of Cyprus has had a very troubled life from the beginning.
With independence obtained, Makarios III, formerly "Etnarca" (political-religious leader) of the Greek Cypriots, also became president of the Republic presiding over a cumbersome system of collegial political organs designed to maintain peace between the various communities living on the island. Its history, made up of invasions and foreign dominations, and its enviable geographical position, straddling the main trade routes, have made Cyprus the ideal place for the meeting, confrontation and coexistence of different peoples. The ethnic composition of the period saw the presence of 77% of Greek Cypriots, 18% of Turkish Cypriots and 5% of "others" (among which the most influential Armenians and Maronites stood out).
The extreme quarrel between the two main communities, as well as the impossibility on the part of the three "guarantors" (Greece, Turkey and Great Britain, the latter also holding perpetual possession of the Akrotiri and Dhekelia bases) to make the existing ones work peace agreements, meant that, already in 1963, the island sank into a sort of creeping civil war that ended only in 1974 when, following a coup d'etat instigated in Cyprus by the military regime of Greece, Turkey brought at the end of a large-scale military operation called "Operation Atilla" (Operation for Peace) which had the final resultoccupation of a third of the island and its division into two distinct and rival entities: in the south and west, in a territory comprising 59% of the island, the Republic of Cyprus continued to exist, while in the north and east, the Turkish Cypriot Republic (later declared unilaterally independent in 1983) was formed in a territory comprising about 36% of the island. The two enemy republics are separated by a buffer zone, controlled by the UN, equal to 4% of the country's surface.
The creeping civil war and the Turkish invasion (with the subsequent brief but intense military campaign) left a very heavy legacy of destruction and mutual hatred that time managed to placate only weakly. From 1974 to today, diplomatic initiatives aimed at restoring the unity of the island and the withdrawal of Turkish troops, both by local actors and by international bodies, have multiplied without ever reaching any kind of solution negotiated. The main obstacles on which the contenders clash, the three "guarantors" and the international bodies responsible for settling the dispute are essentially three:
- The political organization with which the island must be endowed: although in terms of diplomatic principle, both the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriots agree on the possibility of reuniting the island, their positions differ on what the future division of powers should be. While the Greek Cypriots favored a return to the existing organization in 1960, the Turkish Cypriots decidedly rejected this eventuality, because it had already proven to be historically bankrupt, opting instead for the creation of a bi-national federal state;
- The permanence of Turkish troops on the island: the Greek Cypriot authorities have always kept firm the point that, any political-administrative organization would have reached the island at the end of the peace talks, the Turkish troops present on the national territory would have to leave because they were considered foreign occupation troops;
- The fate of the "Turkish settlers": starting from 1974, Turkey has favored a constant migration of groups of "colonists", moreover originating from the poorest areas of Anatolia, towards the Turkish Cypriot Republic in order both to exploit their territory economically and to increase the bargaining power of the Turkish Cypriots in the negotiation by increasing the Turkish population on the island. It is impossible to know for certain the number of so-called "settlers" but, from numerous indications, it seems by now clear that, in the face of a population of 120-150.000 Turkish Cypriots, there are as many as 450.000 "settlers". Although the UN and various other international actors active in the mediation process have always tried to accommodate the "wishes" of local actors, both the permanence of Turkish troops and the massive allocation of Anatolian settlers has earned Turkey a unanimous international condemnation .
Among the countless initiatives that international diplomacy has managed to deliver over the years, an honorable mention goes to the so-called "Annan Plan", named after the former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who, practically fully welcoming the Turkish requests envisaged the total reunification of the island in a bi-national state, guaranteeing the Turkish Cypriots significant levers of power.
Fruit of the so-called "secret diplomacy" between the parties and almost completely ignoring the sensibilities of the Greek Cypriots, the "Annan Plan" was literally "torpedoed" in the famous referendum of 2004. While in fact, with an 87% participation of those entitled, the Turkish Cypriots approved the plan with 65% of the consents, the Greek Cypriots, with a 89% stake of those entitled, rejected it with 76% of the votes. Curiously, although the plan had been rejected with such a wide margin, it remained the basis of each subsequent negotiation round, including the last one, which began in 2014 and dramatically ended on 7 July 2017.
The stage of yet another "Cypriot tragedy" was the charming Swiss town of Crans-Montana where, in the presence of UN Secretary-General António Guterres, the Greek, Turkish, Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot delegations measured themselves in what , according to the press of the island, it had to be the decisive interview. Surprising everyone, and against the opinion of both his people and his own party, the President of the Republic of Cyprus, Nicos Anastasiades, announced to his counterparts that the Republic of Cyprus was ready to accept the "Annan Plan" in its final version ( the fifth) and without further modification. However, the opening of Anastasiades was greeted with skepticism by Turkey's foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, who, according to the testimony given to journalists by the then Greek foreign minister Nikolaos Kotzias, alleged that "Mr. Anastasiades" could speak to the maximum as "representative of the Greek ethnic community of Cyprus" but certainly not as the leader of a state (which Turkey was not willing to recognize anyway) and which, beyond what the Greeks want, Turkey will never give up neither its rights over Cyprus or maintaining a robust military presence over there. Subsequently, in a short press release, Çavuşoğlu himself remarked that: "In light of the failure of the negotiations, Turkey would henceforth embark on its way to resolve the Cyprus conflict by following its plans B and C".
There is spontaneous suspicion that the crash of the deal had actually been planned for some time by the Ankara elite, in particular by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (who in January 2017 had also promised his electorate that Turkish troops would remain in Cyprus "forever") in order to proceed with its territorial expansion plans. Several observers, including the author of this analysis, have been denouncing the dramatic turn that Turkey has taken towards an aggressive and potentially out of control foreign policy for several years. Suffice it to recall the ease with which Erdoğan has involved his country in almost all the crises that have shocked the Arab world since the end of 2010 to the present day or the arm wrestling engaged with Israel in relation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (especially on the front of Gaza), ending with the blatant support given to heinous movements such as Ahrar al-Sham, Jabhat al-Nusra or even ISIS itself in the conflicts of Syria and Iraq.
Although until now the offensive episodes of the "Sultan" in Syrian and Mesopotamian lands have been nipped both by the unexpected resilience of the Syrian and Iraqi governments and by the providential intervention of Iranian and Russian in the complicated Middle Eastern game, it is not at all believed that Erdoğan has renounced his claims. In recent years, in fact, the Turkish political scene has been repeatedly shaken by a ghost that many believed dead and buried: the "Misak-ı Millî". By this name is meant the so-called "National Pact" adopted by the father of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, between the end of the First World War and the outbreak of the Turkish War of Independence, and with which the last Ottoman parliament ( and first parliament of the new republican Turkey) it declared which territories belonged to the Turkish people by right and that Turkey was not in the least willing to barter; although Cyprus had long been a British colony, its territory was mentioned in the same declaration.
The obsessive reference by Erdoğan and most Turkish politicians (not only militants in his own party but also his opponents) to the Misak-ı Millî must be taken tremendously seriously by all political decision-makers and the military in Europe as in the rest of the West, Russia, Israel, the Middle East and elsewhere.
What, apparently, seems a fantasy derubricable to found for internal use and consumption actually represents a coherent declaration of territorial expansion comparable to Hitler's memory "Lebensraum" and Erdoğan will never give it up (even if the defeats in Syria and Iraq have forced to temporarily change the strategic priorities aiming for example at Libya!). The Cypriot question represents in fact an excellent training ground for the "Sultan" and for unifying the country around a question that is really close to the heart of all Turks, both to test the true seal of the European Union.
Looking ahead, the European Union may find itself facing the worst crisis in its history, and this time it will be a full-blown political-diplomatic and military crisis. After the definitive failure of the peace talks, Turkey can now comfortably blame all the fiasco on the past intransigence of Greeks and Greek Cypriots and organize a referendum for the independence of the Turkish Cypriot Republic and its subsequent annexation to Turkey . Both the Republic of Cyprus and Greece will rightly interpret this move as a declaration of war and will be faced with the dramatic choice of whether to respond with arms or to renounce the reunification of the island.
In reality, however, this choice is only fictitious. Even if the Greeks and Greek Cypriots decide to swallow the toad and do nothing, the annexation of the Turkish Cypriot Republic will only be the first step towards a total conquest of the island by the Turks.
The intrinsic value of Cyprus lies in the gigantic gas and oil deposits located on the Greek-Cypriot sea side, in the abundance of seas facing the island and, above all, in its geographical position, which would allow the Turks to strengthen the pressure towards the Levant and to earn an invaluable launch pad towards the open sea and the Suez Canal; in a nutshell, the "strategic depth" that Turkey lost when it ceased to be an empire and that it must absolutely regain if it wanted to become it again.
Since there is absolutely no way to achieve this peacefully, it is for this reason that Erdoğan cannot stop and "must" create the "casus belli". And such "casus belli" could already exist and have the name of Verona. A town located on the eastern coast of the island, not far from the city of Famagusta, Verosia had the misfortune of moving quickly from a place renowned for its beaches to a "ghost town" in the space of one night, when the local inhabitants fled quickly and fury in the face of the advance of Turkish tanks in 1974. Subsequently, the town, like the rest of the surrounding territory, became part of the so-called "demilitarized belt" under the control of the United Nations, preventing any initiative of restocking until reaching a real and its own peace treaty. Yet, in recent years, the Turkish and Turkish Cypriot authorities have shown more intolerance towards the status quo regime, repeatedly fearing the complete integration of the "ghost town" into the territory of the Turkish Cypriot Republic.
The last statement in order came from Fuat Oktay, vice-president of Turkey and very loyal to Erdoğan, who after an inspection in the area said that: “It is our right, we will not accept the stalemate of the talks as an unavoidable fate. This is a historic opportunity to revive tourism ". Needless to say, his words raised the proverbial crawl space. Yet international observers should not be surprised by the words and the way of acting of the Ankara authorities, given that on the Cypriot question, and not only, whenever Turkish leaders have decided to proceed unilaterally on the world stage, they have always prepared the ground wisely through elaborate verbal schemes aimed at testing the resoluteness of the opponents, and then proceeding with the action, trusting in impunity. In the case of Cyprus then, today's provocations fall "by brush" because 2020 is also an election year for the Turkish Cypriot Republic. On April 12, in fact, the outgoing president Mustafa Akıncı will seek reconfirmation against the current prime minister and head of the opposition Ersin Tatar.
The election event is not of secondary importance because the two challengers are positioned at opposite poles precisely on what relations should be with Ankara. Ersin Tatar is in fact considered by everyone to be "the Man of Erdoğan" in the government and his eventual victory would give way to dark scenarios. It is the author's purely personal opinion that, in a time span between 2020 and 2023, Cyprus will turn into a new Gdansk and the countries of the European Union should begin to pay serious attention to the fact that, if we fail in the work of protecting the territorial integrity and salvation of Cyprus and Greece itself, then the Union would be so discredited as to lose its very reason for existing; moreover, a strengthened Turkey projected towards a real naval expansion would represent such a strategic threat for the European continent and, even more so, for Italy that we cannot allow ourselves to sleep on our laurels for even a minute. Moreover, it was right above the skies of Cyprus that, according to the Greek myth, the final battle of Titanomachy was fought, the struggle that opposed the Titans and the Olympians for the domination of the way they created themselves.
Photo: Türk Silahlı Kuvvetleri / web
