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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 05 Hansard (Thursday, 13 May 2004) . . Page.. 1906 ..

To see their wishes realised, they assumed that the Greek Cypriot community, which had done most of the work in recent times to improve relations between the divided communities, would automatically approve the plan—a plan that had in fact undergone last-minute and considerable modification by United Nations Secretary General Annan just prior to the referendum in his desperate attempts to appease and persuade Turkey and the Turkish Cypriot community to support the plan.

Nowhere did the critics permit the facts to intrude on their vision. Nowhere did they accord priority to getting it right instead of getting it over and done with. Nowhere did they take account of the clearly adverse effects the plan would have on the Greek Cypriot community. Mr Annan’s last-minute caving in to 11 demands put to him by Turkey helped scotch the referendum.

On top of that, according to the President of the Republic of Cyprus, some or most of those demands were outside the agreed basis for negotiations and should not have been the subject of any discussion. To top things off, Mr Annan helped alienate people by claiming that this was the last chance for the people to resolve the Cyprus problem. So the world got the result that it did, instead of the one it wanted.

Some of the serious and justifiable objections of some Greek Cypriots to the plan related to:

• Acceptance by the UN of a continuing Turkish military force in Cyprus, reducing over the coming 14 years from somewhere around the 40,000 at present to a smaller perpetual presence. The Greek Cypriots want a non-partisan UN peacekeeping force, and on top of that the plan provided for the permanent presence of some troops even if Turkey became a member of the European Union.

Just think about that for a moment: Turkey as a member of the European Union, with a right to maintain a military force in the territory of a fellow member country of the European Union. It beggars belief. Is it not understandable why the Greek Cypriots would be suspicious of such half-baked arrangements?

• Permanent military intervention rights are assumed by Turkey.

This makes no sense. There can be no military intervention rights where a fellow European Union country is concerned. Military intervention is what Turkey carried out illegally in its 1974 invasion of Cyprus. Such an action is contrary to the Charter of the United Nations and naturally creates anxiety among Greek Cypriots.

• Turkish settlers to remain. The plan allows for thousands of Turks from mainland Turkey to remain in Cyprus but at the same time has reduced the number of Greek Cypriots permitted to return to their former homes in the north.

Incidentally, these settlers, who are not citizens of Cyprus but who constitute the majority of persons on the electoral rolls of the so-called Turkish Republic of North Cyprus, were permitted to vote.

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