EDITORIAL
Every day the folly of the Greek Cypriot leadership in its refusal to take the historic opportunity to negotiate properly ahead of the referendum to reunite the island last year, ensuring that Greek Cypriots voted against a plan that could have been more digestible had any Greek Cypriot bothered to try, is shown to have been a huge mistake as geopolitics shift against us.
Cyprus’ long-time friend and ally, Russia, has inaugurated with Turkey the “Blue Stream” natural gas pipeline which runs along the bottom of the Black Sea from Russia to Samsun on Turkey’s northern coast. From there the pipeline will carry 16 bln cubic metres of gas per year to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, already used as an export terminal for oil from northern Iraq.
Even though Ankara has gone overboard with its initial excitement to import more natural gas than it can handle or afford, the Turkish government is going ahead with its ambitious plans to transform the Ceyhan area to an ultra-modern export terminal. Ultimately this facility will become Turkey’s own Suez Canal for energy, with most of the anticipated crude and gas coming out of the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea basin over the next decade passing over Turkish land with Ankara cashing in on the high transit fees.
Already, Turkey is a partner with Georgia and Azerbaijan in the USD 3.6 bln pipeline project that will pump oil from Baku to Tbilisi and then to Ceyhan to be lifted by tanker ships, many of which might some day be Cyprus-flag vessels.
So, the next time we ask Russia to veto something at the UN Security Council on our behalf, for example so that Greek Cypriots will be frightened enough to vote No again, we may find that Russia has other priorities on its mind.
Other gas deals are already in train with “motherland” Greece, whose support for Greek Cypriot antics gets colder by the day.
But the Greek Cypriot leadership still claims that it has leverage over Turkey because the Republic of Cyprus is in the EU and Turkey, wanting to join the EU, is not.
Cyprus’ inability to use this phantom leverage was proven on December 17, 2004, when it was unable to demand that Turkish troops withdraw from Cyprus before Turkey was given a date to start accession negotiations and instead voted with the other 24 member states for a date.
UN Security Council resolutions meant nothing in the face of the will of 24 member states, all but one of them bigger than we are.
Cyprus even put its signature to a document acknowledging Turkey’s role in trying to reunite the island.
Cyprus’ weakness was proven again just before October 3, 2005, when it voted along with the other 24 members to allow Turkey to start accession negotiations, with no more than a signature from Turkey on lifting embargoes on Cypriot ships.
We were all told before the referendum that a signature from Turkey meant nothing. Where was the guarantee? (Conveniently vetoed at the UN Security Council by Cyprus’ once ally Russia, as it happens.)
But now we are expected to believe that Turkey will recognise Cyprus, it will lift embargoes and it will withdraw all troops before it joins the EU (in around 15-20 years’ time if not vetoed by the Austrians, the French, the Germans, the Dutch, the Poles…) because our leadership says so, and that we were good patriots to turn down the reunification plan cooked up by evil foreigners with the sole purpose of letting Turkey off the hook.
But don’t worry. One day this century Turkey will give up on Cyprus, we shall reclaim our land buried in concrete and nobody will notice if we force a unitary Republic and minority status on the new community of Turkish Cypriots (for there won’t be any of our original Turkish Cypriot brothers left): namely those who arrived from Turkey after 1974 via ports we have declared illegal.
