Turkey’s politics affect Cyprus
NICOSIA (Reuters) – Political instability in Turkey has cast new doubt over the faltering Cyprus peace talks. The European Commission must decide by December whether Cyprus will be part of the next expansion scheduled for 2004, but Cypriot President Glafcos Clerides and Turkish-Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash have made little headway on resolving the island’s division. Foreign diplomats believe the final outcome will not make or break the troubled process in Cyprus. Some worry about a possible power vacuum in Turkey. «Let’s not kid ourselves – we all know that it is Turkey which has to authorize a settlement,» said a foreign source close to the talks. «The question is, can it allow a settlement to go ahead on the present drift?» James Ker-Lindsay, an analyst with Civitas Research in Nicosia, said Cyprus was a military issue for Ankara, and would not dominate decisions on Turkish politics. «There may be political instability in Turkey but the military is as stable as anything,» he said. Turkish-Cypriot opposition leader Mehmet Ali Talat said it was not important who was in government in Turkey, but what they were going to do about pushing both countries closer to the EU. «What we saw in the Ecevit government was a government that put up obstacles in front of Turkey’s and Cyprus’s future with the European Union,» he said. Mumtaz Soysal, an adviser to Denktash, said there might be a shift if a new government brought together Husamettin Ozkan, who resigned as deputy premier on Monday, conservative opposition leader Tansu Ciller and Mesut Yilmaz, a junior partner in the three-party governing coalition. «Then the position will change and follow the line desired by Greece and the European Union,» he said.