Our View: Cyprus problem at the UN: A 50-year speech no one’s listening to
For the last 50 years, every September, the president of the Cyprus Republic addresses the UN General Assembly. In the years immediately after the 1974 Turkish invasion, some delegations stayed in the auditorium and heard the president’s speech, but five decades later, nobody is remotely interested, with the exception of the Cyprus and Turkey delegations; Greece’s may take some interest, but only because it has an obligation to do so.
The world has much bigger problems to deal with than a cemented dispute that the UN, with the support of the US and UK, had been unsuccessfully trying to resolve for more than 50 years. Cyprus territory has been occupied by Turkey for 50 years, but in this time, there has been no fighting and the two sides are currently more concerned about expanding their tourism industry and pursuing ambitious development projects.
What we call the ‘Cyprus problem’ appears to be of little interest to the people on both sides of the dividing line, especially the younger generations, who get on with their daily lives regardless. A few politicians and journalists are still dealing with it, but they operate in their own little world feeding off each other, with nobody listening, because they have heard it all before. The problem has been analysed to death, without anything of practical import ever happening.
Our presidents, nevertheless, go to New York every September and address the UN General Assembly, even though they gain nothing from doing so. If anything, the complete lack of consequence of the annual speech exposes the naivety of all those, who advocate the “internationalisation” of the Cyprus problem and its promotion as “an issue of invasion and occupation.” They seem unaware that the world has much more pressing issues of invasion and occupation to deal with, ongoing wars in which hundreds of people are dying every day.
Still, the speech gets coverage in the Cyprus media and some parties might issue a statement about it. Until the next year. In the meantime, the world moves on, while we carry on deluding ourselves that our problem still has significance for the international community, which it quite clearly does not. It is almost absurd to think that anyone outside the island would bother with the Cyprus problem, when the people directly affected by it show no real inclination to reach an agreement that would end it.
The irony is that whenever in the past the international community had attempted to help settlement efforts, we opposed this help, either claiming it was a trap or a plot to “close the Cyprus problem.” This resistance ensured it was left open, allowing the politicians to raise expectation every few years. Now, for example, the president is waiting to see whether Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar would agree to meet him in the presence of the UN Secretary-General at some future date.
Tatar has made it very clear, ahead of his meeting with UNSG, that this will not happen unless his conditions, which President Christodoulides considers unacceptable, are met. Things might be different, when the president addresses the 80th UN General Assembly next September. The international community might even show some interest.