UN Draft Of Cyprus Settlement Comes To Light

by Lorys Charalambous, Tax-news.com, Cyprus

28 August 2001

A previously-unrevealed UN 'non-paper' which was tabled at the last, aborted round of proximity talks between Greek and Turkish Cypriots in New York last December has surfaced in Cyprus.

The document proposes a complex power-sharing deal between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot regions making up a federal Cyprus. Although there was no agreement on the document last year, it's expected to form the basis of renewed talks next month.

The paper suggests rotation at head-of-state level, a minimal governmental structure for the joint state, and maximum autonomy for the two component states making up the federation.

Executive power would be held by the rotating President or by a cabinet whose members, taken from both communities, would also rotate on a yearly basis. If the President had executive power, then a vice-President post would be created, to be taken up by a member of the other community. No community would be allowed to hold the presidency for more than two terms in succession and the component states would each have complete control over security, law and order and administration in their own territories.

On legislative matters, the UN paper offers two options, one with a bicameral legislature comprising a component state chamber and a popular chamber, and another with a unicameral legislature composed of 120 representatives elected on a proportional basis by the people of each component state but with no less than 50 from each component state.

The first option provides for 80 members for both chambers to be elected on a proportional basis, with the component states serving as electoral precincts. The component state chamber would be composed of an equal number of representatives from each component state.

Complex power-sharing arrangements are also proposed for a federal parliament, while the judiciary would be merged only at the top level, where there would be a court of appeal made up of three Greek Cypriot, three Turkish Cypriot and three foreign judges.

The UN also proposes that the component states be allowed, at least for a time, to limit movement between the two parts of the bi-communal, bi-zonal federation.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and his Special Adviser on Cyprus Alvaro de Soto are preparing to meet Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash in Berlin this week and he is expected to agree to a resumption of talks, probably in New York in mid-September. De Soto, whom many have described as cunning, ambitious, highly intelligent, even sly or mischievous, will need every ounce of guile he possesses and the patience of Job if he is to forge a workable compromise. Some cynics say that what he really needs is a big bag of American money to pay off the Turkish, and if that is the outcome then in many people's eyes it will be simple justice for the US's failure to prevent the original Turkish invasion when it could easily have done so.

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