Talks to secure Cyprus reunification enter ‘final stages’

A historic effort to end the division of Cyprus begins in earnest on Monday when Greek and Turkish community leaders resume reunification talks ahead of a high stakes multilateral conference, the first since the island’s partition 43 years ago.

After 18 months of intensive negotiations to settle inter-ethnic divisions, attempts to finesse the details of a peace deal will see Nicos Anastasiades and Mustafa Akıncı pore over maps and discuss territorial trade-offs before tackling the potentially explosive issue of security.

“This is the final phase of the final phase,” said Hubert Faustmann, a professor of history and political science at the University of Nicosia. “It will be the first time since 1974 that Turkey and the Greek Cypriots will hold direct talks at the negotiating table.”

A week of fierce horse-trading lies ahead before Greece, Turkey and Britain, the former colonial power – the island’s three guarantors under its post-independence constitution – convene on 12 January to address the issues of troop presence and security in an envisioned federation. Both are seen as crucial to ensuring 1974 is never repeated.

“It is a classical final stage of negotiation,” said Faustmann. “Issues that neither side could agree on and have been kept pending will now be interlinked.”

The commitment to a settlement shown by Anastasiades and Akinci has helped to raise hopes. The two men have shown a rare moderation, with some tracing their desire for a solution to their shared heritage as sons of the southern city of Limassol. Like Akinci, Anastasiades – who heads Cyprus’s internationally-recognised south – has memories of coexistence and believes time will only work against reunification.

Acknowledging a settlement will help set the tone for 2017 with Turkey and Britain agreeing at the weekend that a solution would be a game changer. In statements made after the British prime minister, Theresa May, spoke by telephone to her Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Downing Street said both leaders saw the talks as offering “a real opportunity to secure a better future for Cyprus and to guarantee stability in the wider region”.

The discovery of oil and natural gas deposits in the eastern Mediterranean and the spectre of Cyprus becoming an energy hub through which the reserves could be pumped to Europe has also helped drive the process.

Because peace talks have floundered so many times before, however, there is consensus that if they do so again reunification efforts could collapse once and for all. Analysts have expressed fears that in event of failure Turkey could move to annex the north, where it continues to station more than 40,000 troops since invading in response to an Athens-inspired coup aimed at uniting the island with Greece. Guarantor powers have the right of military intervention, a right that Ankara is determined to maintain.

With both sides working on the premise that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, officials are electing to voice cautious optimism.

“The last mile is always the most difficult,” a senior official in Ankara said.