TALAT-PAPADOPOULOS MEETING HAS NO FUTURE |
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Prof. Dr. Ata ATUN |
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Republic of Northern Cyprus (KKTC) President Mehmet Ali Talat and Greek Cypriot president Tasos Papadopoulos will meet on Sept. 5 at Ledra Palace in the buffer zone of Lefkosa after a 14-month break. It is well known just who Tassos Papadopoulos is, what kind of solution to the Cyprus problem he has in mind and to where he will try to reroute the negotiations.
It wouldn’t be a fallacy to say that nothing will come out from this meeting, even now weeks before they meet. To prove this hypothesis, it should be enough just to dig a little into the past of Mr. Papadopoulos. He is one of the masterminds who drew up the notorious Akritas Plan under the code name “Defkalion,” aimed at ethnically cleansing the Turkish Cypriots from the island.
The other mastermind was Polycarpos Yorgacis, who was the mi-nister of interior affairs together with Papadopoulos as the minister of labor and social security in the 1960 cabinet of Makarios.
One is no better than the other
Yorgacis was executed by officers from Greece on the road to Dikmen (Dikomo) in March 1970, right after an assassination attempt on Makarios, and his murder case was filed away with the title “un-known assailant.”
This homicide is probably the only political homicide case in the world where the murderer is “unknown.” Everybody on the island, Turkish Cypriots or Greek Cypriots, knows who did it but the Greek Cypriot police.
The history of attempted genocide on the island also recorded the message of Mr. Papadopoulos threatening Turkey with ethnic cleansing and execution of all the Turkish Cypriots within 45 minutes if dared to land troops on the island.
Just before the April 24 referendum, Mr. Papadopoulos showed up on local television and with tears in his eyes requesting “No” votes from the Greek Cypriots, mentioning the Annan plan’s blockade on the roads to enosis (a final union between Cyprus and Greece) and claimed that an internationally recognized republic cannot be downgraded to a new “United Cyprus Republic.”
Now what is expected from Papadopoulos
To change his mind or to say “Yes” to a sustainable federation solution to the Cyprus issue based on two sovereign federal states.
Now Mr. Papadopoulos is claiming that this time there should be no time limit and arbitration as was in Annan plan negotiations. So it won’t be a problem if the negotiations last for a further fifty years, as long as there is no time limit. And in conjunction with this provision, if both parties can not come to an agreement on a certain item, there would be no body to negotiate the midway.
With these in mind, the next stage of negotiations on the Cyprus issue will surely last for a further thirty years, on top of the existing 39 years since 1968. If the Cyprus problem had started in 1974, why did negotiations started on April 24, 1968?
Papadopoulos has in mind a kind of solution where Turkey would not be a guarantor or have any right to intervene in case Greece tries again to annex or change the structure of Cyprus Republic as was the case on July 15, 1974. He dreams that the Turkish troops and our fellow citizens will return to Turkey with no one left behind, and one day when the political situation is suitable, to ethnically cleanse the Turkish Cypriots, once and for all as outlined in the Akritas Plan in 1961.
Nothing sensible will come out of this meeting or any others as long as the Greek Cypriots do not accept Turkish Cypriots as the partners of the Republic of Cyprus.
