Getting To Yes

For a win-win successful result a negotiation must be principled. How then do the United Nations hope to carry out a principled negotiation when the very basis thereof is unprincipled? Not merely unprincipled but in direct violation of a plethora of its own resolutions. Accepting bizonality as the basis for the negotiations is equivalent to legitimizing the 1974 invasion, division and ethnic cleansing of the formerly majority Christian northern Cypriot territories. Even if Christians understand bizonality vastly differently from Muslim Cypriots, why have they accepted it as a basis? Well, if your country had been invaded by a neighboring country 100 times your size, already occupying 37% of your territory & having the silent support of its even bigger allies (US/UK) to pursue such action, what would you do? It is not up to the Cypriots to denounce bizonality. The responsibility rests on the shoulders of those pulling the strings, namely the United States and the United Kingdom, who as this 2008 US cable proves, they are far from the neutral thirds in the Cyprus quagmire they wish to project to the outside world.

The Turk is always right

On 16 August 1953 the Israeli Ambassador to Turkey Maurice Fisher wrote, inter alia, the following to Tel Aviv: "Our relations with Turkey have been extremely good of late...[but] these good relations could deteriorate overnight, and we should learn from the bitter experience of others. The Turks have yet to achieve a standard by which, in the event of disagreement with another state, they can weigh up the positions of both sides. For them, there exists one sole principle: in any conflict with a foreigner, whether a private individual, a company or a state, the Turk is always right."

Source: Amikam Nachmani , Israel, Turkey and Greece: Uneasy Relations in the East Mediterranean. London: Frank Cass, 1987, p. 43.

The Elephant in the Cyprus Negotiations' Room

ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM: an obvious major problem or issue that people avoid discussing or acknowledging.