A settlement to Cypriot dispute ‘closer than ever before, but there’s still a way to go’ – UN Special Adviser

In the statement that announced the appointment, the Secretary-General described Eide as a seasoned diplomat who would bring to the position “a deep understanding of peace processes and peacemaking.”

Eide has since been working to assist two sides – the Turkish Cypriots and the Greek Cypriots – in search for a comprehensive and mutually acceptable settlement to the Cyprus problem.

On 25 September2016, the UN Secretary-General held – on the margins of the UN General Assembly’s general debate – what he described to reporters as a “productive” meeting , with Mustafa Akýncý, Turkish Cypriot leader, and Nicos Anastasiades, Greek Cypriot leader.

Ban also said that in the meeting with the two leaders, they had discussed the state of play in the ongoing negotiations to reach a comprehensive settlement in Cyprus, and welcomed their joint commitment to intensify efforts even further, in order to achieve that settlement in 2016.

In an interview with the UN News Centre, Eide began by explaining the protracted and extremely complex history of the long running dispute in Cyprus.

Espen Barth Eide: The United Nations has been in Cyprus for 52 years. It so happens that I’m also 52 years old, and we were born in the same week – the [UN Peacekeeping Force, known as UNFICYP] and myself – and the UN came there because of the inter-communal strife in the early days of the independent Republic of Cyprus. And then 10 years later, there was a military coup, supported by the then military regime in Athens, and just after that, the Turkish invasion, and the de-facto division of the country into two parts.

And what we’re trying to do is to help the leaders – the Turkish-Cypriot and the Greek-Cypriot leader – to re-unify the country, under a federal-structure for Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots alike, and we have actually come quite far in that process. And I would strongly say, as the Secretary-General said yesterday, much further than any previous pair of leaders in all these years has come. So we are now approaching the final stretch and the make-or-break moment in the Cyprus process.

UN News Centre: So what is the current situation, and how has it evolved over the past 50 years?

Espen Barth Eide: Well, that’s a very long story. Of course there was a major attempt in 2004 – the so-called ‘Annan Plan,’ from former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan – which was presented to a referendum, and it got ‘yes’ in the North of Cyprus, but it lost quite significantly in the South. However, at that time, the final version of the plan was written by the UN, and neither leader on either side actually endorsed it.

So maybe, with hindsight, it was not that surprising that we got the outcome it gave. In this phase, which has lasted basically the last 16 months, since the current two leaders – Mr Mustafa Akýncý in the North, and Nicos Anastasiades in the South – started they have moved on all issues, and they have discussed all issues inter-dependently. And of the six chapters that encompass the negotiation track, four are largely done. And the two last ones, which are widely seen to be the more difficult ones, have been open for discussion even if we haven’t finally negotiated them. So we’re in a very advanced stage.

At the same time, I need to be honest saying that there’re outstanding issues. And what I detect now is [that] I recognize typical nervousness of the ‘last mile,’ because in any peace process, particularly those that worked, we have the experience that when you come to the crux of the matter, the really important accommodations that have to be made, both sides feel the pressure of time. And from the UN side, we’re insisting that we will not put pressure on them. It is not our problem; it is their problem, and we’re there to assist in overcoming their issue.

The process has to be leader-led; it has to be owned by the Cypriots themselves. But our job is to help them, to facilitate and, I would also say, coordinate the overall international effort, because it is not only us, the United Nations, it’s also the European Union, of which the future united Cyprus will be a member state, for instance. It’s the neighboring States – Greece and Turkey – who have a stake in this, because they’re, together with the United Kingdom, guarantors. So the international effort is coordinated through the UN, and my job now, together with the Secretary-General, is to orchestrate all these different pieces, so that we can achieve the noble goal of a settlement soon.

UN News Centre: There has been a breakthrough in the last couple of years – you’ve been in this job for two years – what broke the logjam to get us to where we’re now, which you say is really quite close to a final deal?

Espen Barth Eide: It’s closer than ever before, but there’s still a way to go. And I don’t want to leave the impression that a deal is around the corner, because we still have to settle a few, but important issues. Numerically speaking, most issues are behind us; they are done and settled. So we have a big body of agreement already there. Volume-wise, most of the deal is written down. However, per usual, the most difficult issues are not those you take first, so of course we need to create the space, and I don’t necessarily mean the physical space, but the framework in which we’re able to deal with those final issues, in an expedited but also efficient and proper manner. That’s what we’re looking for right now.

But I want to say that the main answer – there’s one main answer and then there are many smaller answers to the big question – why does it look like it is working? It is the leadership of the two leaders we currently have: Anastasiades, who was elected the President of Cyprus – which also means the leader of the Greek Cypriot community – and we work with him as the leader of the Greek Cypriot community. He was elected in 2013, on a pro-settlement mandate – he ran for his post arguing that he would use the post to try to arrive at a settlement; Mustafa Akýncý, who was elected in the South in April 2015, likewise got a very solid mandate – 60.5 percent – on running for one main course, which is to bring this tragic division of the island to an end.

So we have two leaders who, actually, are declared settlement supporters and who are working in honesty with each other as partners, to solve this. Their challenge is that on both sides, there are a number of people who are, to put it very diplomatically, less enthusiastic about the prospect of the settlement. So it’s not enough for these two leaders to agree with each other; they also have to bring along a majority of each side. And in my daily interaction with the leaders, I also recognize and empathize with their constant sense that, I have to be able to convince my community to vote yes, because there was a referendum last time, and there will be a referendum again, and history has proven that you can’t know the outcome of a referendum, and they want to be secure.

So the leadership and the trust that have been developed between the leaders is the main answer. Then there are a number of secondary answers, and they’re normally around the argument that in a region where a lot of things are going terribly wrong; remember, this is 100 kilometers from Syria. We are in Europe, but we’re at the very far east of Europe; and way into the Eastern Mediterranean, in a neighborhood where most things are on the downward spiral.

The international circumstance has almost paradoxically come up with a benign situation for Cyprus because all relevant players in the neighborhood actively want to contribute to a solution. Basically speaking, the great Powers have, in their perspective, bigger fish to fry, and would rather see this issue off the table, and hence I’m one of those envoys of the Secretary-General that has a united Security Council behind me. That’s no small feat, and that’s something I also impress on my Cypriot friends, that this is a value that we want to use when we have it. And we also have very constructive openings from the guarantor powers that they’re ready to discuss, when time has come, to agree on what their role will be, or rather, what it will not be – depending on whom you ask – in the future settlement.

UN News Centre: Is there still an important role for the UN to play here?

Espen Barth Eide: Absolutely.

UN News Centre: What would happen if the UN simply withdrew?

Espen Barth Eide: Well, of course this is a question that we should ask the Cypriots, and I do ask the Cypriots, and we consistently get the message that they want us; they need us to be the facilitator. They don’t need us to run the show, and I’m extremely adamant to communicate and behave as somebody who is there to assist the leaders in their process. But the UN controls the buffer zone; we have meetings in the buffer zone. We facilitate, not only the meetings between the leaders and the negotiating teams, but a vast array of 16 working groups, five technical committees, and all possible issues. So basically almost all the formal communication between the North and South happens through the UN.

Not only in the search for a settlement, but also on the daily basis. For instance, the only police cooperation that exists between the two sides goes via the United Nations, so you can imagine what would happen on a small and de-facto, heavily integrated island, if there was no contact on this issue. So both in the current and in the future, I think the UN has a role.

UN News Centre: The Cypriot President told the General Assembly at the UN recently that he thought the deal could be done by the end of the year. Is that realistic?

Espen Barth Eide: Absolutely, it’s ambitious but feasible. And what I mean by that is: ambitious as a sportsman ready to win the race. He can win; he just has to put his efforts or her efforts into winning, and it’s the same thing here. The main issue is a sustained will and that we manage to use the next months in order to orchestrate the sequence of things, so that that goal can be held. I have to underline that what Anastasiades said in that speech here – which was a very a good speech in my view – echoes what his counterpart, Akýncý says.

They have actually repeatedly and jointly said that their aim is to achieve a settlement by the end of 2016. The first time they said that, was in Davos this year. At that time there was 11-and-a-half months to go, as that was in the middle of January; they said that again on the 15th of May, which was one year anniversary of their meeting; they said it again a week before we went to New York, in a joint statement, and now they have said it individually. So this is clearly a shared commitment.

I think, to be as transparent as possible, we don’t know that it will work. It is an ambitious goal. It’s possible, but it will only work if we have this leader-led dedication toward the end.

UN News Centre: Is there any more constructive pressure that the UN can apply; and that you can apply in your role?

Espen Barth Eide: We should be constructive but we should not use pressure, because the pressure itself can create the sense that somebody else wants to define the terWe tried that in Cyprus and it did not work particularly well with the Annan plan in 2004, and we tried it in other places. But constructive, yes, so we are now looking for ways, and this was very much the essence of the Secretary-General’s own message of the leaders yesterday.

In the meeting – which was a long, substantive meeting on Sunday, the 25th of September – he said that he personally, and the whole UN system, including myself; all of us are fully dedicated to doing whatever we can to coordinate between them, but also with other players, and to look for the physical and the mental space, and to provide that so that the most difficult issues can be solved. Because the challenge we have now – I said a vast array of issues are done, even very difficult ones – we’re moving into the most difficult phase but these issues are connected. So you cannot do an issue one day and then three weeks later do another one, because these issues need a simultaneous accommodation, and that’s the space we are looking for now.

UN News Centre: So these issues need to be sequenced very carefully and choreographed, and will the UN be playing a role in that?

Espen Barth Eide: Very much so, but always under the guidance of the Cypriots because, and I repeat that, because it is very important that they know we are there to help them. We – the Secretary-General, the Security Council, the European Union, the whole world basically – would warmly welcome a positive breakthrough along the lines that the leaders are seeking, but I would also say a settlement in Cyprus will be a source of inspiration for the neighbourhood and for the world.

Our Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, has said repeatedly that he sees Colombia and Cyprus as two of the very few opportunities to see that age-old conflicts are overcome. Interestingly at the end of the meeting on the 25th of September, the Secretary-General flew to Cartagena to be present at the signing of the Colombia peace accord, and obviously he would like to see he could do something similar in the near future also in Cyprus.

UN News Centre: Is there a real danger that the last 50 years could be for nothing and that we could face going back to the status quo, as it was in 1974 – a position of conflict between the two communities?

Espen Barth Eide: On the first part of that question, I would say yes, there is definitely a risk that we lose what we now have achieved because we have, in a sense, arrived at a plateau, from which you can either go to a solution or a downward spiral. I wouldn’t say conflict as in the violent, physical conflict, but I think it is clear for all of us – and that is not only me saying it, but it is also well known to other people who are dealing with it on both sides – that the alternative is not any longer just the status quo; it’s not just a stable, safe status quo that will continue forever, in the sense that, the Cypriots have been living in a state of exception.

They have quite correctly stated – both the North and the South – that the current situation is unacceptable and must be overcome, and I would be very worried if people think that they can just cool down this and there will be a new chance in five or ten years. This is in no way to suggest that I know what the future will look like, but my sense and my own experience with international relations, suggest that losing this opportunity is not good for you; neither for Cypriots nor for somebody trying to be helpful in the neighbourhood. So the region needs this and it is so close that to miss this opportunity would be a historic failure.

Photo: UN Department of Political Affairs (DPA)

Source: www.justearthnews.com