WHAT GAME IS TURKEY PLAYING?

 Cyprus Mail 11 October 2020 - by Elias Hazou

Is Varosha move a well-crafted plan to ‘mess’ with the Greek Cypriot side?

Turkey’s action on Varosha may have sparked outrage in the south of the island, but the carefully calculated move on the Cyprus chessboard is unlikely to bring Ankara any heat on the international stage, analysts tell the Sunday Mail.

The UN Security Council’s announcement early on Saturday Cyprus time would seem to support their view. The council did indeed call for a reversal of Thursday’s decision by Turkey and the Turkish Cypriot side to open for visitors an approximately 1km stretch of the coastline in the fenced-off area of Varosha in Famagusta, and for Turkey to adhere to previous UN resolutions on Varosha.

But the Security Council also called on both sides to hold talks and implement confidence building measures, and stopped short of condemning Turkey.

The status of Varosha – a ghost town for 46 years since the invasion – is integral to any future Cyprus settlement. Meantime, a day earlier, Turkey had withdrawn its Yavuz drillship from the island’s Exclusive Economic Zone, and later on Thursday it also pulled back a seismic survey vessel from waters to the east.

All these manoeuvres came just days after an EU Council summit, where Nicosia had fought to extract tangible sanctions against Turkey for its behaviour on the high seas – only to get a lukewarm promise from the EU that the bloc would consider possible punitive steps against Ankara come December.

A man walks past the crumbling Varosha lyceum

Superficially, the two Turkish moves – the drillships and Varosha – seem at odds: the first defuses the situation with Cyprus, the second escalates it. But is there a method to the madness?

An international relations analyst thinks there might well be.

“Informed speculation, but I think we can have a crack at big-picturing it,” said Hubert Faustmann, history and political science professor at the University of Nicosia.

In his assessment, Turkey’s double whammy – though contradictory on the surface – could be read as a well-crafted plan to “mess” with the Greek Cypriot side, with minimum damage to Ankara.

“They pull back their drillships and whatnot, because they know that will get the EU off their backs. At the same time, Turkey knows that pushing Cyprus’ buttons over the EEZ doesn’t really get it much leverage at this juncture.

“Besides, the Greek Cypriots won’t be doing any drilling of their own for the foreseeable future – oil and gas companies cutting back on projects globally due to the coronavirus and so forth. For Turkey, further escalating the hydrocarbons front would be moot at this stage. Besides, they’ve already achieved their objective of creating ‘gray zones’ in the Cyprus EEZ.”

“So,” Faustmann goes on, “Turkey shifts attention to another front, inside Cyprus, and specifically Varosha.”

Here’s where it gets interesting. Opening up a part of the Varosha beach simply for people to have a stroll through but – crucially – not touching any of the properties inside the town, is extremely unlikely to stir either the EU or the UN into action.

“It’s the softest of touches by Turkey, who can say ‘see, we’re respecting properties in Varosha’. And what will the EU do about it? Not much, if anything. When you look at it that way, it’s a pretty clever move – it does create facts on the ground, because in any future reunification talks the Greek Cypriots will also have to undo the ‘damage’ in Varosha.”

But why now? There are two schools of thought, and not necessarily mutually exclusive. The first goes that opening Varosha amounts to an election ploy by Ankara to boost the popularity of the north’s hardline ‘prime minister’ Ersin Tatar in Sunday’s election.

The other explanation is that it’s a tit-for-tat – Turkey’s payback on Cyprus for the latter’s recent attempt to land Ankara in hot water with the EU.

“You mess with us, we’ll mess with you, seems to be the message out of Ankara,” says Faustmann.

A diplomatic source, speaking on condition of anonymity, agreed.

“If I had to guess, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan did it [the Varosha move] as if to say: ‘OK I’m pulling back the drillships, but I can get back at Cyprus through Varosha’.

“It might sound simplistic, but yes this move could indeed be out of sheer spite, to show everyone – not just the Republic of Cyprus – that Turkey can throw its weight around in this part of the world and no one can stop her.”

The source anticipates no sanctions nor any pressure being brought to bear on Turkey. UN Security Council Resolutions 550 and 789 may be violated – that’s certainly the Greek Cypriot view – but these resolutions merely establish the facts and make recommendations. Lacking geopolitical heft, Cyprus’ toolbox is as always a sparse one.

Though Varosha may be a mostly symbolic gimmick at this point, one shouldn’t rule out a further expansion of Turkish activity in the area.

“Turkey has long-term plans to develop Varosha, with its economic potential,” the source added.

Indeed Tatar, while visiting the opened-up coast on Thursday, explicitly said as much, noting that Varosha could contribute to Famagusta’s economy and expand tourism.

Tatar said properties there can be returned to the old owners through the Immovable Property Commission (IPC) which is recognised by the EU and the rest of the world. Hundreds of Greek Cypriots have already appealed to it, he said.

He reiterated the claim that in Varosha there exist many properties that belong to Evkaf – the Turkish Cypriot foundation that manages religious endowments.

Tatar said the IPC would decide what to return and to whom.

Achilleas Demetriades, a leading human rights lawyer, tells the Sunday Mail that – yet again – the Greek Cypriot side has been caught on the back foot, forced to play catch-up to Turkey.

He says the situation vis a vis prospects for a settlement has been gravely worsened, and that there’s not much Greek Cypriots can do.

“Turkey alleges that its move doesn’t technically infringe UNSC resolutions 550 and 789, given that their current intervention in Varosha does not impact properties there.

“But that’s only half the story. The other half is that Turkey has upset the status quo by entering the UN buffer zone there without permission.

What are Cyprus options in the short term? Demetriades suggests Nicosia must insist on enhanced Unficyp monitoring in the area to ensure no further violations of the buffer zone. That might – just might – help restore the status quo ante.

But the lawyer concedes that’s like putting a bandaid on a gaping wound.

He also fears that the Greek Cypriot side will react predictably – citing the Varosha breach as a pretext not to enter into new peace talks with Turkish Cypriots.

“In my opinion, that would be completely wrong and counterproductive. Rather, what we need to do is return to the negotiating table tout de suite, and fight it out over Varosha there through a give-and-take. Otherwise, we’d be falling right into Erdogan’s trap.”

Crunch time is now, and Cyprus better get its act together fast: “Varosha was the lighthouse for a solution. If you lose the lighthouse, the course for a solution is gone, and we end up in a wreck.”