Cypriots debate power, property and equality as critical issues leading to a solution
on the Cyprus Mail website pertaining to the article "Finding a formula for UN-led talks" by Stefanos Evripidou published on January 23, 2011Sun, January 23rd 2011 at 12:22
Serdar Atai from Famagusta comments:
I've been repeatedly telling that there're two critical issues that will take us to a comprehensive settlement in Cyprus: One is the Property and the other is Power. The Turkish side has stolen the property rights of Greek Cypriots and doesn't want to return it to the legal owners. On the contrary, the Greek side has stolen the constitutional rights of Turkish Cypriots in the Republic and doesn't have any willingness to share the power. If the parties of the conflict are not forced into a concession over these issues by the third party mediators, the solution will be some more decades away.
Sun, January 23rd 2011 at 17:05
ANTI.FON comments:
@Serdar Atai from Famagusta
"Τhe Turkish side has stolen the property rights of Greek Cypriots and doesn't want to return it to the legal owners. On the contrary, the Greek side has stolen the constitutional rights of Turkish Cypriots in the Republic and doesn't have any willingness to share the power."
There is no question about the former.
Referring to the latter as theft is the weak link in T-Cypriot thinking and in my humble opinion a product of an extremely successful TSK/Ergenekon propaganda. The President of the Republic put forth a document for disucssion on November 30th 1963 in order to overcome its serious shortcomings which prevented the normal functioning of the state. T-Cypriots rejected outright a discussion & opted to remove themselves from the Republic's institutions. The self-segregation policies which ensued were so recognized, i.e. self-inflicted, by the UN Secretary General himself.
It is upto to T-Cypriots to finaly realize their large share of the blame (e.g. unwarranted abuses of veto rights in the 60-63 period, in line with a partitionist logic that has persisted with their leaders until today) and come to the table with the aim of their reintegration into the Cyprus Republic.
Their false understanding of "equality" lies at the very heart of the problem. T-Cypriots should reconsider their strategy if only to save Turkey from a debacle in her President's own effort for a constitutional overhaul as a means to solve Turkey's own ethnic minority problem which remains unsolved and explosive for almost 88 years.
