| Резюме: | "The UN has suggested uniting the two sections of the island within the framework of a federation, but several central issues contributed to the failure of the talks: first, Turkey’s demand that there be a rotating presidency between the two ethnicities (a condition opposed by the Greeks, who constitute 80% of Cyprus’s 1.2 million residents); and second, the Greek demand that the Turks end their military presence and withdraw their 35,000 soldiers from Cyprus. The Turks argue that these soldiers are essential to ensuring security on the island.
Another major problem centers around the three countries designated as guarantors by the 1960 treaty granting Cyprus independence from Great Britain. The Greeks demand a change in the guarantor agreements to prevent any of the three states (Greece, Turkey, and Great Britain) from legally interfering in Cypriot affairs, as the Turks did in their military invasion in 1974."
The collapse of yet another round of discussions proves that the Greeks and Turks in Cyprus, and their patrons in Athens and Ankara, are incapable of overcoming their disagreements and cannot solve this long-lasting dispute. A long time may pass before another serious effort is made to reunify the island.
This failure demonstrates the difficulties the international community faces in solving regional and violent disputes that are much more complex, such as the events in Syria, Yemen, Ukraine, South Sudan, Libya, and the Korean peninsula, not to mention the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
This article was published in Israel Hayom on July 4, 2017.
Ambassador Arye Mekel, a senior research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, served as Israel’s envoy to Greece from 2010 to 2014. He was also deputy Israeli ambassador to the UN, diplomatic advisor to Prime Minister Shamir, consul general in New York and Atlanta, and spokesman and deputy director general of the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs. |