PERMANENT MISSION OF THE REPUBLIC OF CYPRUS TO THE UNITED NATIONS Press and Information Office 13 East 40 th Street New York, NY 10016-0178 Remarks by H.E. Mr. Tassos Papadopoulos, President of the Republic of Cyprus FPA World Leadership Forum September 15, 2005 TRANSCRIPT: Moderator: Ladies and Gentlemen. It is a pleasure to welcome to this portion of our meeting and my great privilege to introduce Mr. Tassos Papadopoulos, the President of Cyprus. We are delighted to have you and I would personally like to welcome you to the Foreign Policy Association, welcome you to New York. Of course you passed the first hurdle of getting through New York traffic, welcome here to this fine building. The President is a serious man who has been through a great deal in his life and has been at the forefront of pioneering and leadership in his country and leading policy all around Europe as well. As a young man he took part in the liberation struggle, rising to meet the organization s political arm. And that was merely the beginning of his public life, which he continues to serve in his country. Over the years Mr. Papadopoulos has served as a representative that helped draft the constitution of Cyprus. The list is almost unending and very impressive, Minister of Interior, Minister of Finance, of Labour and Social Insurance, Minister of Health, Agriculture and a representative of the Greek Cypriot side in the inter-communal talks. TELEPHONE: (212) 481-6023 EMAIL: CYPRUS@UN.INT
He was elected first of the Parliament in Cyprus in 1970, rising to the Presidency of that body. Elected as the President of the Democratic Party during the historic election of Cyprus in 2000. Took office as President of the Republic in 2003, probably one of his great accomplishments is that he is married with four children. We are delighted to have you here, please ladies and gentlemen join me in welcoming the President of the Republic of Cyprus, Mr. Tassos Papadopoulos. President Papadopoulos: Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for your very kind welcome. I thank the introducer for his very kind words about me and I am very happy to have this opportunity to address this august body, one with the proudest and longest history in public affairs. There are a number of points I would like to make today, but I think before I go on with what I have to say, it is very appropriate to make sure our minds are turned to the victims of the tragedy which hit the US and its people. The hearts of the people of Cyprus and of myself, go to families, victims, to all the people in the US who share in this great tragedy. I think its moments like these that one sees goodness in the heart of tragedy, how people show their solidarity and sympathy; in their collective efforts they will always manage to revive that beautiful area. We recently had a tragedy also, a Boeing plane fell with a loss of 121 lives including crew and I know the feelings of those who are closer to the tragedy of the victims. Now, turning to my main theme, first of all I would like to say that Cyprus and the United States have had all along, for many years, excellent bilateral relations which extend to multilateral relations. We have this close common cause, I believe we share common values, common aims and common goals. In this new era of globalization and the universal fight against terrorism, we stand by the side of the US and we work together in combating this serious threat to human civilization. We have stood by the US in its fight against terrorism. Let me say that the Republic of Cyprus, has granted to the United States, overflight and landing rights during the war in Iraq. We have opened our hospitals and harbours for American servicemen to come and stay in Cyprus. We have signed all twelve, today I signed the 13 th, International Treaties and Conventions on combating terrorism including the restitution of their primary sources of financing. We work closely, with the Embassy of the US in Cyprus, whenever they have information about suspected persons, they only have to ask our government and immediately we expel any person who might be suspicious on the basis of information from the US. Most recently, our Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Iacovou, signed with Secretary of State Condolleezza Rice, the Treaty of the Proliferation of Security Initiatives. This is very important because in the first place, Cyprus is the sixth country with the sixth biggest fleet in the European Union, therefore since this agreement provides for the seizing of any ship under any flag, in order to prevent the movement of weapons of mass destruction. This I think is a great contribution that we make. At the same time, it should be mentioned that Cyprus is a member of the EU, it is the first member state that agreed to sign such an agreement because as you probably know there are many objections amongst other country members of the EU about granting such a right of another state to have vessels under the flag of another EU state. 2
In all we hope that these relations with the US will be further improved and enhanced. It is not my intention now to dwell on the past concerning the Cyprus problem. I know that it has been bothering, to say the least, the world for the last thirty years. But I think it is time now to be looking forward on what we can do from now on and not dwell on past evils. There are certain facts however, which are very pertinent facts relating to Cyprus, for anybody wishing to put the problem of Cyprus into the right perspective and understand that the basic issues need to be resolved. Cyprus, as many of you know, is a beautiful, small island in the Eastern part of the Mediterranean and our total area is about 10,000 square km, its population one million, 700,000 of which are Greek Cypriots and about 200,000 are Turkish Cypriots, there are also some Armenians, Latins and others. Out of the 200,000 Turkish Cypriots, 120,000 are settlers who were transported from Turkey to Cyprus after the Turkish invasion in 1974. So, the settlers in Cyprus now, outnumber by half the indigenous Turkish Cypriots. Before the invasion the populations in Cyprus were interspersed throughout the whole of the island, like a handful of sand thrown on the table, that s how the population was dispersed. There was no single area of Cyprus that was populated either by majority or in any bigger figure than the normal percentage in Cyprus. On the map of Cyprus, if anybody put a compass and made a circle of 5km axis, you invariably found that the population percentage were 82% Greeks, 18% Turkish Cypriot. Most important, the land ownership in Cyprus belongs 88% to Greek Cypriots and 12% to Turkish Cypriots. This is a very important element, its an important element because since the invasion Turkey has occupied 37% of the land of Cyprus, pushing away by the force of arms about 220,000 Greek Cypriot inhabitants in the areas which Turkey has occupied. Therefore, the question of the resettlement of the refugees, the question of properties on the island and what one does with them, is one of the core issues of the Cyprus problem. Now, since the invasion, Turkey or the Turkish side as we say, because we include Turkish Cypriots and Ankara, because they both speak with the same voice, are pursuing a policy of establishing a separate state in Cyprus for the Turkish Cypriots in the area they now occupy. Saying that they now seek a state has many variations. A state has special legal contexts but there are many other stages before you have a state and what the Turkish policy is pursuing in Cyprus is to establish a legal entity, which will be a state, with all attributes of a state short of diplomatic recognition. You might wonder why it does not now want diplomatic recognition, its because since Cyprus entered the EU on the 1 st May 2004, every citizen of Cyprus, whether Greek Cypriot, Turkish Cypriot, Maronite or Armenian or Latin has automatically become a citizen of Europe together with his national citizenship. If therefore another state is declared in Cyprus, they would automatically lose their European nationality and citizenship. This is the only reason why now they are not pressing for diplomatic recognition. So when people tell me don t worry we will never recognize the occupied part of Cyprus as a state, now the only truthful answer is thanks for nothing, because no European country can do it as we singed the accession treaty to Europe, which provides for the whole territory of the Republic as part of the EU and therefore none of the 25 member states of the EU can recognize any other state. Of course other countries have their own problems in recognizing as a state, any area in which a minority or an ethnic minority would seem to set up a separate state; for example, the Kurds in Turkey. 3
Our aim is to reunify our country. When I speak about reunification, I mean reunification of the territory, the society, the economy and the institutions. There can be no one state without the existence of these four attributes. We are realists, we are not thinking that we are planning a solution on a tabula rasa a clean sheet of paper. We have the invasion, we have the occupation, so one must make compromises to find a solution which can marry the two objectives, theirs of a separate state and ours of reunifying the state. We thought, we still believe, that the best way to achieve a settlement is to aim for a bizonal, bicommunal federation. I would not like to blow my own trumpet, but when I was the negotiator for the Greek Cypriot side I was Chairman of the Committee which drafted our proposal for the eventual solution of the Cyprus problem. I was Chairman of the Committee, and as any Chairman knows the main task of drafting a document falls on the Chairman. So the idea of a bizonal, bicommunal federal solution of Cyprus, was my idea. Therefore, I was then and still remain a supporter of a solution in Cyprus which will aim at establishing a true federal state a bizonal, bicommunal one with two areas, two constituent states if you like, which will reunite Cyprus into one, federal state. Cyprus is too small, perhaps we are a federation, but a federal system as citizens of the US would know, is a very good system if it is based on orthodox lines and allows for the smooth running of both the states which compose the federal state as well as the federal Government and does not lead to deadlocks and problems between the states under the federal Government. Many countries have varied solutions for breaking these deadlocks, of course when there are 51 states it is easier to break these deadlocks. When there are two states forming a federation, this is a recipe for continuous deadlocks therefore one must be more careful in devising a deadlock solving machine. We are looking forward, and not to the past. We have been making proposals, which we think are workable and will avoid such deadlocks and create a smooth-functioning federal state. Functionality is very very important if the state is going to progress and share its welfare and the benefits of common action of citizens to every citizen and those who are in greatest need. This is therefore, for me, the core issue of the Cyprus problem. When all has been said, and all the efforts since have been stripped down of the niceties of diplomatic language and the expediencies of the terminology, the core issue boils down to one question: What is the solution we are aiming for in Cyprus? To establish one state? Or as the Turkish side is promoting, two separate entitities, states which will be very thinly joined at the top under the cloak of a federation but a federation with the sole purpose of facing the problems or challenges of the EU. Our federation must not simply be making the course of Cyprus into the EU easier, but to offer a structured state which will be viable and functional at the same time. Only yesterday I had an unofficial meeting with Mr. Erdogan in the UN building and I posed to him the same question Do we want one state? Or do we want a separation, a dissolution of the republic of Cyprus replacing it with a new system of two separate states co-operating in a limited circle? I wish to state here, clearly our position, I remain and the Greek Cypriot people of Cyprus remain, committed to a solution of a bizonal, bicommunal federation in Cyprus. Each one of the terms I use, bizonal, bicommunal has several practical, legal meanings but we want to give them a meaning which on the one hand will respect the identity, traditions, interests of both communities but put above 4
them the interests of the federal state and ensure the smooth functioning of the central state. As all of you know, in 2004 we had put before the people in two separate referenda the plan of a solution which came to be known as the Annan Plan. The Annan Plan, let me say at the outset was not the outcome of the negotiations between the two sides. Of course there were negotiations for 32 days but in the end this was the outcome of the Secretary General s exercising his arbitration rights, if one can call them rights, and he came up with this form of Plan. During this referendum, the two separate referenda, 76% percent of the people of Cyprus, of the Greek Cypriots rejected the Annan plan, Turkish Cypriots on the other side 65% approved the Annan Plan and 35% rejected it. The no votes in both communities, outnumbered the yes on a ratio of 2 to 1. But when the Greek Cypriots rejected the Annan Plan, they did not reject a solution of the Cyprus problem. They rejected that particular Plan, because it did not provide for the reunification of which I have spoken of before. There was not a reunification of the territory, of the economy, of the society, of the institutions on the contrary it contained division and arrangements which would have perpetuated division. This, Greek Cypriots will never accept. Since then we have been consistently and continuously talking with the UN, asking and encouraging the Secretary General to launch a new effort, a new round of talks on the Cyprus problem. This is the phase we are in now. After many months of background talks, we have reached with the UN Secretariat certain arrangements as to the procedural process which lead to talks. We have been to the UN, I have sent personal representatives there for one week, we presented our concerns and made suggestions. We did not limit ourselves by saying we reject or we accept this or that aspect. We put down our areas of concern with concrete detail, provisions, suggestions, alternate solutions for the problem that we think in Cyprus led the Greek Cypriots to reject the Annan Plan. We gave our positions, with clarity, in detail and with finality. Then the Assistant Secretary of the UN, Mr. Prendergast paid a visit later to Cyprus and it is significant that in his report to the Security Council he stated that there are serious concerns among the Greek Cypriots which should be addressed. Of course the gap between the positions of the two sides is great. Naturally, because it is my assertion that under the proposal of the Secretary General, the Turkish Cypriots got everything they wanted. Each one of their claims was satisfied. I did say in another meeting I had with Mr. Erdogan some time ago I challenge you to name one of your claims that was not incorporated in the Annan Plan. Therefore, naturally if they gave so much to the Turkish Cypriot side, the gap has to be somehow bridged by alternative solutions. One point of caution. There have been so many efforts to solve the Cyprus Problem, all of them until now have failed and they failed for the main reason I said before because we had the different purposes of wanting a reunified state while they wanted two separate entities. We cannot afford to have another initiative which will lead to another failure, because that would be catastrophic for everyone involved, mainly for us, because the message will be then given that the Cyprus problem is unsolvable and nothing can lead to 5
a solution of the problem except partition of the island. Partition of the island to us is anathema and no leadership, no political party, no citizen will accept it. The Greek Cypriots are a highly politicized sort of people, we also have one of the highest standards of education, our ratio of university degree holders to population is amongst the three highest in the world. We are very politicized, everything is politicized, everybody knows what s being discussed and what they are being asked to vote for. Even our football or soccer teams are politicized, so we have the right wing teams and the center teams. Since Cyprus has joined the EU, this is a great challenge and a great effort for us. Let me say that everybody thinks that the EU is all honey and nice and everyone goes there and gets a lot of money out of the EU, but this is not the case. Not at all. In the first place, Cyprus on account of its per capita income, will for many years be the net contributor, as they call it, we shall be contributing more money than we get back. Secondly, it takes a great effort and many sacrifices for people to comply with the requirements of the EU. We always had a free economy and society, our institutions and administration were United Kingdom-oriented since we were a colony of Britain and it took us 8 years to make it possible for Cyprus to comply with the requirements of the EU. 800 pieces of legislation, 2000 pieces that go with that legislation had to be voted in by Parliament in 18 months. I m very proud because our Parliament voted for all these pieces of legislation unanimously, except for two and we do have Cyprus communists, a right wing, eight political parties in all, yet we managed to get that passed. It proves how committed we are to Europe, let me repeat this. I will conclude my comments by referring to the aspiration of Turkey towards the EU, because it is of great relevance to us. I know I have heard many times about the strategic interest Turkey represents for everyone and in particular the US and I understand it. I want to say that our policy is not against Turkey having orientations towards the EU and eventual accession to the EU. On the contrary, we think that a Turkey which is geared towards the EU is good for Cyprus, is good for the stability and peace in our area and it would be good for the solution of Cyprus on one very important condition that Turkey will comply with its obligations towards the EU. That it has to comply with the founding principles of that partnership of countries. Sometimes people in the US don t understand how the EU works. The EU means that each one of the member states gives away part of its sovereignty, in exchange for unanimity in our actions. They give away so much of their national sovereignty because they expect every member state to comply with and behave in accordance with these regulations. And one of these principles is that no country is allowed to have foreign troops on the soil of another member state. No country is allowed to violate human rights, the rights to property, the right of free movement; it is not a question of lets find a makeshift solution which throws all these principles under a cover. Therefore, Turkey has to comply with this and Cyprus has been supportive. We had a chance on the 17 th December last year to exercise a vote, a vote about Turkey starting accession negotiations with the EU as each country has this right as everyone is equal. I know that some are more equal than equal. In any case, I chose in spite of great criticism 6
from the people of Cyprus, and we consented that Turkey should commence negotiations provided that Turkey comply with the obligations which the EU set. Now, nine months since then, Turkey has not complied with that obligation, recently until today, we are discussing whether Turkey will extend its trade agreement with the 25 countries including Cyprus. I hope Turkey will find a way of meeting that obligation, so that there will be no further difficulties impeding Turkey s progress to Europe. There are many ways of bringing about the reunification of a country, I don t expect this reunification to come from one day to the next, it takes a lot of effort and some time. But wherever you start, the first small important step is to get the people, both Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots to co-operate, to understand each other and to know better that when together in a reunified Cyprus it will be to the benefit of both sides. This is what our Government is bringing forth, across the diving line, the so called green line, we provide Turkish Cypriots who are now freed and allowed by their own leadership to cross to our area, free medical aid, free medicine, employment, the same level of remuneration as Greek Cypriots, drugs, pensions although they are not contributing to the pension fund but for those who have contributed before 1974 and a total, according to their Turkish Chamber of Commerce of $800 million a year. Now $800 million to you does not mean anything, but remember that the whole budget of Cyprus is $3.5 billion. Trade, commerce, social, cultural relations are a good foundation for the reunification and this is what we are trying for. But, as I said, there are many ways of reunification, it is not reunification that one aims for if by taking some measures it will lead to solidifying of the division rather than the reunification of the country. It does not help reunification if the hope is held out to the Turkish Cypriots that eventually if they keep their own separate state or they gain all the attributes of a state short of diplomatic recognition, like having separate legally operating harbors or separate airports, no government of the world can accept the operation of harbors or airports without the consent of the legal government. This is an act of sovereignty which will not bring any economic benefits, only political benefits. Let me speak about direct trade which is talked about so much in regard to the Turkish Cypriots. They say they need direct trade so that they will improve their economic position and get out of their economic isolation. There is no such isolation, they can trade across the Green Line. I have proposed to give them a part of Larnaka, Limassol or Paphos to export form there their own goods, with their own officials and workers but they don t like that. They want their own shipping documents, which the EU will not accept, and their own harbors because that is an attribute of sovereignty of a separate state. How is this operation of a harbor going to help their economic recovery when total exports from the Turkish Cypriot side are 50 million Euros, around $50 million? 25 million of those are citrus products that neither we, nor the Turkish Cypriots export to Europe, as Europe has better quality and cheaper citrus fruits from Spain, France, Italy and many other countries, they don t need Cyprus citrus. The same applies to any other embargo they claim. All this leads me to the conclusion that we hope that under UN auspices, taking advantage of the measures we have taken to open communication between the two communities in Cyprus, to abolish the dividing line between the two communities and to find a viable solution, a functional solution of a bizonal, bicommunal federation. In this 7
respect our entry to the EU will at least make Turkey understand, because Turkey really makes the decisions as to what happens in Cyprus, that if they want a smooth accession to the EU, they have to abide by the regulations and the norms and the founding principles of the EU, and I hope that this day is not far away. Q&A: Q: I thought that was a very interesting presentation. I have been to Cyprus so I know a little of what you have talked about. As an American, I listen to this and I think about Iraq and wonder what sort of comments you might make about the political solution there since there is some analogy, I agree its not really very close, but what comment would you make about Iraq? President: If the analogies are followed through, such as establishing separate areas for the Kurds, the Shiites or others in Iraq, there will be as intractable positions there as there are in Cyprus. The solution for Iraq, is for the new constitution to take root, hopefully to be approved in October, that will be the exit policy for the US forces there and leave the people to find their own course towards democracy in one, unified state. If efforts are being made to create an area for the Kurds, another for the Shiites and another for other denominations of the Islamic population, I think we will have intractable positions like we have in Cyprus. It s hard to say, I find it difficult to believe, I am a religious person, how much pain religion has caused people when you allow religion to affect political decisions. Q: You sound very genuine in your desire to reunify Cyprus President: I don t sound genuine, I am genuine. Q: Do you think the UN will be able to help you? President: I have been going to UN meetings and I know the principle that the UN is a kind of a chain, so it as strong and as resistant as the links that make it up. So the UN are as strong and as appreciated as the member states allow it or wish for it to be. Now in our case it was not like that, it did not have the overall support of the countries involved in the Cyprus issue but be that as it may, I know of no other forum that has the legitimacy of an international problem being solved by an international organization. The EU may help, ancillary help, it cannot take it all and I m not sure the European countries want to inherit a headache, its not for us but it is for them, this headache that s called Cyprus. Yes, I think the UN can help because they have the outside delegates that act independently and on the basis of principles. In our recent history they did not do that, but I hope the right course for us to take. Its like democracy, so many times it does not work, so many times it causes problems, but as Churchill said he knows of no other system which is better than democracy. 8