Rear View: Cyprus in April 2020 (part 1: politics)
How Covid-19 changed the Cyprus problem
This week I am picking up on the theme I started last month, namely to take a peek into what I was writing in my flagship monthly report, Sapienta Country Analysis Cyprus some years ago. This time I am looking at five years ago: March-April 2020: at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. Sapienta Country Analysis Cyprus is my independent deep-dive into Cyprus that has been published every month since December 2012.
In the March 2020 issue I had listed all of the public health measures on both sides of the island. These had begun on 29 February, when the Republic of Cyprus decided to close the first crossing point across the UN-monitored buffer zone. The ruling coalition of the unrecognized Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), which at that time was led by Ersin Tatar as prime minister (he won the presidency in October of that year), responded by closing all crossing points on 14 March. The crossings did not open again until June 2021.
The first Covid-19 case in the southern part of the island was reported on 9 March (10 March in the north). Passenger flights into Larnaca and Paphos, apart from some closely managed repatriations, were halted on 21 March; a partial curfew came into force on 24 March; and a ban on house visits came into force on 31 March. In the April issue I laid out the government’s timetable for a gradual easing of restrictions.
Death-blow for a united Cyprus?
In the March issue I had raised concerns about the impact of crossing closures on efforts to unite the island under a federal umbrella. We were already three years from “Crash Montana”, when high-level talks had failed at the Swiss resort of Crans Montana in July 2017. There was a great deal of resentment on all sides about how it had failed, and the prospects for a resumption of fully fledged negotiations were very slim, as I believe they still are today.
So in the March issue I had a headline saying, “The virus crisis has deepened the division of the island, potentially irreversibly.” Amid several paragraphs explaining why, I said the following.
“The closure of the crossing points by Greek Cypriots broke a taboo, as it was Turkey, backed by the late Turkish Cypriot leader, Rauf Denktash, that had kept the two communities physically apart between the invasion by Turkish forces in July 1974 and their surprise decision to open the first Ledra Palace crossing in April 2003. Since the Greek Cypriots had always insisted that the Green Line was not an external border, the decision to close four of them crossed a critical psychological barrier. Moreover, unconfirmed reports suggest that opinion polls found that the February closure was generally popular.”
Indeed, this episode did mark the start of a significant strengthening of checks and physical barriers at the various crossing points. It therefore signalled the end, in practice, of any pretence that the buffer zone was not being treated as a de facto external border, even though international law recognizes the whole island (minus British bases) as the Republic of Cyprus. Now no one seems to bat an eyelid at the notion that the Republic of Cyprus will have to have “effective management” of external borders if it is to join the Schengen Agreement zone. Schengen membership could happen soon as this year if the politicians are to be believed.
I also described how Covid-19 had deepened divisions among Turkish Cypriot politicians.
Turkey returned to drill: did the US shift its stance?
Another reason to be very downbeat on the Cyprus problem was moves by Türkiye (Turkey). Immediately after the failure of Crans Montana Turkey’s then foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, had talked in 2017 of “different parameters” for solving the Cyprus problem. This was the beginning of the shift by Turkey openly to promote a two-state solution.
Turkey had also started hydrocarbons activity around Cyprus. In February 2018 it had blocked ENI from drilling in Block 3. In May 2019 it had already drilled in the western part of the Republic of Cyprus Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) using the Fatih drill ship. In April 2020 Turkey ramped up the activity by sending the Yavuz drill ship to drill Blocks 6 and 7—blocks licensed to ENI of Italy and Total of France. (This saga of drill ships and seismic ships was to continue until January 2021 after the EU’s “targeted measures” on individuals, first imposed in February 2020, presumably started to have an impact.) Among the responses by various international actors, I noted a subtle shift in rhetoric from the US. I have updated the link inside the quotes.
“In an interview with Phileleftheros published on 26 April, the US Ambassador to Cyprus, Judith Garber, repeated the phrase that the US believed natural resources should be “equitably shared between both communities” but did not add the remainder of the phrase—“in the context of an overall settlement”—that has been standard for several years. Since it was a written interview, it is unlikely that the omission was accidental. While the local media focused on the ambassador’s call on Turkey to halt drilling, the subtle shift in language about resources, together with the remarks by [ENI’s Senior Vice President for international affairs, Marco] Piredda, could point to future pressure on the Greek Cypriots to come to a deal with Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots on maritime borders even in the absence of a settlement of the Cyprus problem.”
This is the last time I can find that the US mentioned the notion of equitable sharing or even anything about hydrocarbons. (Let me know if I am wrong). Turkey gave up for a while on drilling around Cyprus, thanks no doubt to US and EU pressure but also because it found its own resources in the Black Sea, where is now expanding production. However, Turkey seems set to start drilling north of Cyprus soon. In addition, it is now said to be blocking the Great Sea Interconnector, which will link the Greek island of Crete with Cyprus and eventually Israel via an undersea electricity cable. Given the broader interests in keeping the peace between Greece and Turkey, I still believe that the direction of travel will be an “arrangement” on energy that reduces security risks on and around the island but does not coincide with a united Cyprus. Is this the ideal scenario if you want Cyprus united? No. But it has unfortunately become the only realistic one if security risks are to be addressed and if the Republic of Cyprus is to attract all that potential investment for big data centres. And an interim deal on energy does not a priori exclude uniting Cyprus eventually.
Next week: economic aspects of early Covid-19
There were many other Covid-19-related issues in the public finances, banking sector and macroeconomy in March-April 2020. And I have to say I barely noticed the ban on leaving the house because I was so chained to my desk keeping up with it all. But I have already hit more than 1,000 words for the main text. I personally find myself glazing over with the many other Substacks that go on and on. So I shall stop here and revisit the economic aspects of Covid-19 next week.
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