Uncorrected Evidence 1172

UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 1172-i

House of COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE

FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

CYPRUS

Tuesday 19 October 2004

DR CHRISTOPHER BREWIN and DR PHILIPPOS SAVVIDES

Evidence heard in Public Questions 1-38

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Oral Evidence

Taken before the Foreign Affairs Committee

on Tuesday 19 October 2004

Members present

Donald Anderson, in the Chair

Mr Fabian Hamilton

Mr Eric Illsley

Mr Andrew Mackay

Andrew Mackinlay

Mr John Maples

Mr Bill Olner

Mr Greg Pope

________________

Memoranda submitted by Dr Brewin and Dr Savvides

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Dr Christopher Brewin, Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Keele University and Dr Philippos Savvides, Research Fellow at the Athens-based think tank ELIAMEP, examined.

Q1 Chairman: Gentlemen, could I welcome you to the Committee. We have before us today, Dr Christopher Brewin, who is Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Keele University, and we have Dr Philippos Savvides, Research Fellow at the Athens-based think-tank ELIAMEP, whom we had the privilege of meeting when we were in Athens. Let us move straight into the problems of Cyprus and the negotiations leading to the Annan Plan which appeared at one stage to be on the brink of success. Many thought this was by far the best hope of uniting the islands since the invasion in 1974, but alas, it has come to nothing. What is your interpretation of that, gentlemen?

The Committee suspended from 2.35pm to 2.43 pm for a division in the House

I began by saying that the Annan Plan failed; it may historically be seen as the best chance to date for uniting the island, long hoped for, and clearly caused immense disappointment to both the United Nations and the European Union. Is it your view, gentlemen, that in fact both sides were negotiating in good faith?

Dr Savvides: First of all, I should like to thank the Committee for the invitation to be here with you. I do think we have to divide the negotiation process because it took four years before we ended up with the last version of the Annan Plan. I can say with certainty that, from a Greek Cypriot point of view, the Clerides government was very sincere and ready to go forward with a solution based on the product that the negotiations would have created. I am not sure about the Turkish Cypriot leadership at the time because, if you remember, we had a different government in Turkey and a different negotiator which was Mr Denktash. I think that it is very difficult to see at which point each side was very faithful in the process, but I do think that, at the end of the day, the mechanisms of the process did not allow both the sides to sit down and work for a solution; in other words, the pressure was enormous and I think that was a good thing. The method used was good in order to sit the sides down and work for a solution.

Q2 Chairman: But there had 30 years since the invasion. Are you saying that more time would have allowed ...?

Dr Savvides: No, I am not saying that, in fact I am saying that it is precisely because a deadline was set by the United Nations and it was forced that a comprehensive plan was created. In other words, I am not one of those who think that endless negotiations can work; that was the mistake of the previous efforts that they were open-ended.

Q3 Chairman: Are you hinting that there was a reversal of roles with the Papadopoulos government and Mr Talat after what had gone before?

Dr Savvides: I think that Mr Papadopoulos was, from the very beginning, very sceptical about the Annan Plan and he made his views very public during the campaign as well. He was very sceptical and I think that indeed he wanted many more changes in the last version than the Clerides government might have wanted. I think the difference in the Turkish Cypriot community came from the change of government in Turkey. I think the Ergün government was the single most important change that allowed the process to move forward. After all, Turkey was the one that suggested that such problems were resolved in 1974 and thank heaven we had Ergün coming to power and changing the position of the Turkish government.

Dr Brewin: I want to the see the Annan Plan resuscitated; I hope this Committee meeting is a sign of that, as I hope is Ambassador Prendergast's visits to Turkey, because the essence of this, as last time, is if Greece and Turkey can agree, a lot can be done in Cyprus. The fact that at Burgenstock, Greece and Turkey did not have much influence on the negotiations was rather sad, because if two regional powers can agree and if they can respond to this notion in the European Union of making peace in the Eastern Mediterranean as important as peace in Eastern Europe or between France and Germany, then we are making progress. I agree with Philippos about the importance of the Greek-Cypriot election, that the important thing about Mr Clerides' view was that he saw the Annan Plan as a basis for agreement, whereas for Mr Papadopoulos, it was a basis for negotiations which is not nearly the same thing. I also think the role of AKEL was very important, because they were after power and patriotism and obviously on both sides of the Cyprus divide it is the nationalism that leads to people being elected out of a sense of security and a sense of injustice perpetrated by the other side. This makes it very difficult at the community level to have negotiations in what you call good faith without outside influence.

Q4 Mr Maples: We are interested in how to take this forward, but I think it is going to help us enormously to have an understanding of what went wrong this time round. I wonder whether I could just take both of you a little further. In his summary to the Security Council of what had happened, the Secretary General's report, presumably largely written by Mr De Soto, puts the blame pretty fairly and squarely on the Greek Cypriot leader, who then fired off a counter blast in somewhat less diplomatic language saying it was not his fault at all. Can you help us to evaluate whether Kofi Annan's statement, frankly attributing almost all of the blame to Greek Cypriot leadership is an accurate summary of how you think those last few months of the negotiations went, or is it unfair on Mr Papadopoulos?

Dr Savvides: I was not part of the negotiations, so I do not know what really went on, but I am one of those people who think that in general the Secretary General's reports on Cyprus have been very fair over the years. I have said publicly and I will repeat it here that if we do not like a report, that does not mean it is not fair. This is the first time the Greek Cypriot's did not like a report. Therefore, I presume that a lot of the things that the Secretary General is saying in his report are correct and of course, Mr Papadopoulos has produced his own version of the events and he put it in writing. The issue is that whether or not there were negotiations in good faith, we had a product at the end, a comprehensive plan which was put before the people, and the problem was that there was not enough preparation for the Greek Cypriots especially and there was also the cultivation of fear amongst the population on the Greek Cypriot side that led to the negative results. In other words, I do not believe that the 76 per cent no is solidified or cemented.

Q5 Mr Maples: Presumably a lot of that 76 per cent was influenced by Mr Papadopoulous calling, immediately the campaign started, for rejection of the plan.

Dr Savvides: In fact the campaign for the no started even before Mr Papadopoulos was President; it started from the very first day we had the first version of the Annan Plan. At that time the no campaign was started by those who did not want a solution based on the philosophy of this plan. The problem for the people who supported the yes was that they came too late into the game because at the end of the day they could not support a plan they had not seen. Also, it is a fact that we had a lot of misinformation spread around, a lot of misunderstandings and in fact one of the things that I think that the international community can be criticised on is that it focused so much on the Turkish Cypriot community leadership in fact, how to avoid the obstacle named Rauf Denktash, that it ignored developments within the Greek Cypriot community, which at the end voted no. Also, I think a couple of things could have been looked at, in the sense of the implementation of the agreement and the security; people felt they were not very sure that Turkey would implement the agreement and that the security guarantees given would really help them. I think that is one of the reasons.

Dr Brewin: I agree with Michael Attalides that there were so many converging dissatisfactions about land, power, money, bones, that it will be difficult to sort them into any one particular change that one can make. In my own mind, I just take it, in terms of power and principle, that Mr Papadopoulos has been very consistent since his early beginnings as a leader of the struggle in wanting a proper sovereign state with minority rights for Turkish Cypriots, but he has never taken the view that this should mean that they should have an equal power in the state, or that it is the responsibility of the majority community to bring the minority community to look on the majority as being their protectors. They look on their protection as coming from Turkey still. My hope is that this has changed, that the Greek Cypriots are less afraid of Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots are now less afraid of Greek Cyprus. This is the fundamental change. There are other important changes, but on the point about whether Alvaro De Soto, who put in all this work and at the last minute, because the Turkey side was being flexible and answering the questions put to them, and because there was, if you look at the individual generals and their attitudes on this, a serious problem in Turkey as well, as to whether Turkey would eventually go with this kind of settlement, I think there were changes which offended Greek Cypriot opinion which felt that going into Europe would put them in the driving seat. Then right at the last minute changes in the security council with the Russian veto and all that business, there was almost a sort of panic measure; it did not help public opinion feel that this was creating peace. So there were difficulties at the last minute, but I have total sympathy: if I had been Mr Alvaro De Soto, the only thing I would have done would have been to put in something about football because the thing is too long and there is nothing about who is going to represent Cyprus at football and who is going to decide how many Turkish Cypriots, how many Greek Cypriots there would be, or whether there would be separate teams like in England. This is the crucial thing which would have made people think that you were thinking humanely, rather than sort of distantly.

Q6 Mr Maples: You say that for all of his political life Mr Papadopoulos had taken a different view of what the settlement should be, that it should not a bi-zonal federation, but that it should be one sovereign state with minority rights for the Turkish community - I think that is what you said. If that is so, was Mr Papadopoulos negotiating this agreement in good faith? Do you think he was in a position where he was never going to agree to a bi-zonal federation whatever the terms?

Dr Brewin: I do not know the answer to that, because in my view, instead of a just and lasting peace, they now talk about viable and functional and negotiated settlements, all of which are looking for a political solution that will work from the majority's point of view and the proper functions like the central bank and shipping and all the things they gave up to join Europe being done, in their view, properly by themselves. They are looking, as they always have been, for something much more like an old-fashioned nation state than is now possible in a Europe where groups of states are having to deal with groups and where the Balkans, the Palestinians, the Turkish Cypriots are part of a completely new way of looking at the way we run ourselves and where really you do not need so many elected parliamentarians - I am going to irritate you - because it is European law and it is the control of the executive and having a small executive, composed of very few people, who have to get along, which is the key to these kinds of bi-communal problems, I think. I should not say that in this august building, but there are an awful lot of parliamentarians with too little to do in Cyprus.

Q7 Chairman: That is interesting, but it is a long way from the product, from the plan which was on the table. Therefore we come back to the question: was the negotiation in good faith, was there any prospect of that plan being accepted, was it realistic to imagine that, at a late stage, there would be further amendments and Annan Four, Five or whatever? What do you think Mr Savvides?

Dr Savvides: There are two quick points. I think it would be a mistake to personalise it on Mr Papadopoulos because there were other forces around him which also played both a constructive and a negative role in the process. I think AKEL was important in the whole process; AKEL is not united in its position on the yes and the no and that is why we now see almost a crisis within AKEL. The party which had the nationalist camp was the one which promoted the yes very heavily. We have to see it in a bigger picture. The other thing I wanted to say was that I do think, in response to your question, that the Annan Plan is realistic, in fact it is the only realistic option we have: it is either the Annan Plan, as the Secretary General said, or no plan and therefore partition. I think increasingly Greek Cypriots who voted no are starting to realise that because they are seeing the implications of their negative vote last April. Therefore, I do think, as I said earlier and I want to repeat it, that the 76 per cent is not now there. I am not saying that the majority of people would now vote yes, but what I am saying is that between now and the next effort, which should not take a long time, though I understand that it should not be immediate either, a lot of work has to be done on the ground within the Turkish Cypriot community to decide whether we really want a solution based on power sharing or not.

Q8 Andrew Mackinlay: I do not know whether there are any figures available to you folk about the numbers of people who voted on the Turkish side in the referendum who were not citizens of the Republic of Cyprus. Do you know? Have you seen anything? The minister refused or was unable to answer that because the referendum which gave a positive vote on the North ---

Dr Savvides: Are you talking about the settlers?

Q9 Andrew Mackinlay: Yes. If there is, I would invite you to send it to me and/or the Committee, because I would be interested to see that.

Dr Brewin: I am not expert enough for that, but I do need to point out to you, that there are not figures either on how many people from Australia or the Black Sea areas, who have been given citizenship by the Republic since 1974, voted.

Q10 Andrew Mackinlay: I am pleased you raised that.

Dr Brewin: This settler business has this element of ideology. The important thing is to know how many of them would have been within the 45,000 who were on the list for the United States.

Andrew Mackinlay: I have to say I disagree with you. Generally, I should like to see what figures are available. If you have got any, I should like to see them, including Australians and so on. What is a matter of fact is that the Republic of Cyprus is internationally recognised, is the de jure body, so it can grant citizenship to whom it likes; that is a matter of fact. So if a person were an Australian he or she would be entitled to take part in that referendum. What would be a distorting factor for me would be whether it was significant that the settlers voted in the North who do not have citizenship. If there is anything out there, I should like to see it.

Q11 Chairman: What do we know?

Dr Savvides: Indeed, it is a problem and I think that was one of the issues that was raised during the campaign: settlers were voting, settlers who were going to leave were voting as well, because the list was very blurred. At the same time, the majority of the settlers voted yes, which was interesting.

Q12 Andrew Mackinlay: Of course they would do.

Dr Savvides: The point here is that this is a very difficult number.

Q13 Andrew Mackinlay: I do not want to labour the point. I was genuinely asking whether there were any figures. Dr Brewin raised the question quite reasonably that there might be other people, and I note that, but they are citizens of the Republic of Cyprus. By all means supply those figures that are available. I cannot get it from the British Foreign Office, which makes me think there is a little bit of a smell.

Dr Brewin: I do not think you will, from either side, about how many recently ---

Q14 Andrew Mackinlay: I do not want to labour the point.

Dr Savvides: The figures are public so you can get them very easily.

Q15 Andrew Mackinlay: If we go to the Annan Plan, there is a danger actually of history repeating itself, particularly as it was under pressure, as both of you have described. What was not agreed at any stage was this concept of whether or not it should be a shared state, like Belgium, which has symmetry, broadly 50/50, or whether or not the Turkish community should be given protected special minority rights. That was something which was never really resolved or agreed. I would be correct on that, would I?

Dr Brewin: Yes. I think the Annan Plan is extremely clear, and it relates to the previous point. Under international law, it is wrong to bring in other people, but to get a compromise on Cyprus, where Turkey has taken this interest in the Turkish Cypriot community, you have to accept that the Turkish Cypriots, being afraid as a minority, are going to have rule themselves in this geographical sector, against all European principles of free movement and all the rest of it, in order to get them to accept a solution that is based on a one-island basis rather than a sort of Ulster basis next to Turkey. This is the deal, that the Turkish Cypriots have to rule in their area at least for the 15 to 20 years of the Annan Plan. That is the clarity of it and this is very difficult for the Greek Cypriots to accept. It is a classic dispute and we cannot expect everybody to like anything about this.

Q16 Andrew Mackinlay: I also seemed to me that the international community, both the Secretary General of the UN and the EU, were more or less saying that they were going to arbitrate: the parties had not agreed to the arbitration, they were going to arbitrate, take it or leave it, and when one side rejected it, from the Secretary General downwards they said it was a rotten show. That is what has happened here, is it not?

Dr Brewin: It is not the way I would put it.

Q17 Andrew Mackinlay: It is not the way you would put it. The other thing I want to ask is this. When you come to constitution making, you can either reserve to the centre the federal power, specific competencies, and say everything else falls to the constituent states, or the constituent states can have the specified powers and everything is with the centre. Presumably that was again one of the problems, was it not?

Dr Brewin: Yes.

Q18 Andrew Mackinlay: Just help us on how it fell. I think it was specific competencies to the centre, was it not, and everything else was with the constituent states?

Dr Savvides: It was a loose federation.

Q19 Andrew Mackinlay: Yes, but you could have a loose federation and you would have to dictate ---

Dr Savvides: I think the plan was clear about the executive branch and the legislative branch, in terms of the powers, in the sense that constituent states had a lot of the powers, but the important thing to remember with this particular plan is that the plan would have worked within the European Union framework. That is the critical difference from previous efforts, in the sense that a lot of the policies would have to be made in co-operation with Brussels and the most important thing also, the most important elements of the constituent states, education, culture all these things that people are very sensitive about, were within the constituent states; I think that is very important. What the federal government had was important powers to do with the unification of the island, in the sense of keeping the island unified and keeping the sense that this was a unified state and not a partitioned state, that was where the difference lay, in the sense that you had an executive branch allowed, for example, to have a unified economy. The economy was not one of the problems that the Greek Cypriots raised and there are changes in the last version of the Annan Plan, because, indeed, the first version of the plan was creating too many divisions within the economy and of course you know that if you have no unified economy, you cannot have a unified state. That was improved in the last version of the plan. I think it was balanced and I think the plan was balanced. The problem for the Greek Cypriots was not the executive and the legislature so much, as it was the notion that the agreement would be implemented by Turkey and whether the security guarantees were really enough. There was a lot of concern about Turkey having troops after the solution and a lot of concerns about keeping the guarantees of Turkey and I shared those concerns, but I was hoping that within the European Union this would have been mitigated.

Q20 Mr Olner: I was listening very carefully to what our two speakers have said. They still have not given, I do not think, a clear answer as to why, when the Committee was over in 2002, the Annan Plan, which was about then, but was being rejected by the Turkish side and accepted by the Greek side, yet two years later virtually the same plan has been accepted by the Turkish side and rejected by the Greek side?

Dr Brewin: There is a clear answer.

Q21 Mr Olner: It seems to me to be a little bit of a corollary with insurance mis-selling or something. What is happening?

Dr Brewin: It is terribly easy to understand this one. It is just that two years ago, even though under Mr Clerides a previous version of this was very nearly accepted, the difference is that when you are just about to go into the European Union and you feel you are going to be able to persuade Turkey to remove its troops in order to become a member of the European Union, is different from being in the patriotic position of trying the persuade your learned Committee that having Greek Cyprus in the European Union is a good idea, which goes right against the political criterion of Copenhagen, that you have to have democratic political stability before you can enter. So they were persuading you that they were very reasonable on this issue, with absolute security that the Turkish Cypriots would help them convince you. This time round, they are in the European Union, they think they are in the power position, they are dead wrong, because they do not understand that the European Union does not have little states causing trouble over a long period of time without getting cross with them, as the Greeks found out over INEA and again over Kosovo.

Q22 Mr Olner: Obviously Kofi Annan feels badly let down, because he had been led to believe by the Greek side that if things were sorted there should not be a problem.

Dr Brewin: So was Günter Verheugen.

Q23 Mr Olner: He had got the Turks on board and there should have been a referendum which quite frankly strengthened the island and the Republic of Cyprus. Now that did not happen and you mentioned that there is now a change of attitude perhaps among some of the Greek Cypriots who are thinking they should not have voted that way. How soon is it going to be before we can get the thing back on track? How soon is it going to be that Mr Papadopoulos is going to be able to speak nicely and Kofi Annan is going to respond nicely to him?

Dr Savvides: Firstly, I want to disagree with the previous statement. I think the Greek Cypriots were sincere in Copenhagen in 2002 when they were ready to sit down and discuss and negotiate the final version of the agreement. In fact, it is my expert, if you will, opinion that the game was over in Copenhagen in 2002 when Turkey was not able to push Mr Denktash to agree to the solution and they played a game with his so-called foreign minister and all the things that took place in Copenhagen and not everybody paid attention. In Copenhagen and later on until The Hague, there was a good opportunity; the problem there was that you had Mr Denktash not willing to negotiate, not willing to go forward and you had a government in Turkey which was weak and then you had the Iraqi crisis. All these factors unfortunately played a negative role in the process. Now, about the future. I do think that it will be difficult now to undertake another effort soon enough, in the next few months or a year. I think, as I said in the beginning, that the Cypriot government, the government of Mr Papadopoulous has to take the initiative; that is my position. They have to take the initiative to restart any effort by, first of all, preparing public opinion and negotiating as well, taking the initiative to open and explore the dialogue with the Turkish Cypriot leadership, with Mr Talat, to find a framework within which they can start talking. I do not see that happening soon enough, and I think two major events will take place in the next couple of years in Cyprus domestically which I think will shape the events: one is the elections in the Turkish Cypriot community about electing the new leadership, which is a very important development that we need to watch because that will shape the new dynamics within the community; and of course you have the 2006 parliamentary elections in Republic of Cyprus. We do not know what the results will be, but I do think that the results will also shape the political dynamics which will reflect on any new effort for the Cyprus issue.

Q24 Mr Olner: Clearly, Kofi Annan feels let down by the Greek Cypriot side and then I wonder whether the UN misjudged it anyway. Having spoken to Kofi Annan last year, when the Committee visited him in New York, we were all elated that it had failed once, it was now back on the agenda and it looked as though an agreement was going to be reached, and that has gone now. I actually think, there will not be a cat-in-hell's chance of the UN picking it up again and wanting to run with it. If the UN do not do it, who is going to be the mediator that is going to be strong enough to make Cyprus back into a Republic just for Cyprus?

Dr Brewin: I am against my colleague's notion that one has to wait for these elections on the Turkish Cypriot side and then the presidential elections on the Greek side. Mr Denktash has been elected almost since the time of Atlee, because he has promised the Turkish army's protection. When Mr Vassiliou and Mr Clerides were going for a settlement, the election went on the patriotic side because the people want justice as they see it, which is for them to rule and therefore it is very difficult to wait for this kind of nationalism and patriotism. One has to look not at the UN so much; Günter Verheugen also felt betrayed because the European Union had taken Cyprus in as part of the deal for trying to make relations with Turkey better through the Customs Union. They thought that this would be a catalyst for a settlement. I do not think anybody who is knowledgeable about this field were be taken in by these protestations. It has to be done not by saying "What would you like?", but by being much tougher.

Q25 Mr Olner: What comes after Annan? Who is going to be big enough to do it?

Dr Brewin: It is the European Union that is going to do it in terms of power, and the content has to be Annan, even though I am the author of a different and much better plan based on the Jossi Beilin-Abu Mazen deal in 1995. That is not on the table. The only thing on the table is the Annan Plan and some version of that has to be the basis of the European Union trying to get peace with Muslims, with Turks in the Eastern Mediterranean very soon. I think the chances, if we are not good with the Turkish Cypriot promises that we have made, of this being an example of Western duplicity again and the chances of there being an upset in Turkey on any number of issues ranging from Iraq, to Kurds, to Muslims, to a split within the governing party, are so great that if we do not pay attention to the regional context and try and get a solution to the Cyprus thing, not just for the European Union's internal reasons but for the sake of peace in the area, then I think we are going to be regretting the time we lost waiting for elections.

Q26 Mr Hamilton: Thank you Dr Brewin, that was a very interesting analysis and I cannot help agreeing with everything you say. I want to just explore further the reasons for the failure of the Annan Plan before going on to discuss the future. Do you think that the concerns that Greek Cypriots had about the security issue, in other words many people's belief that you could not trust the Turkish army to withdraw, you could not trust the Turkish state to keep out of Northern Cyprus, together with the economic costs at a time when Greek Cyprus at least was looking pretty prosperous compared with the rest of Europe on its accession, contributed to the Greek Cypriots' rejection? Or was it simply President Papadopoulos, together with the Greek Cypriot Orthodox Church, pressing against the agreement to the Annan Plan and the referendum?

Dr Brewin: The exit polls were very clear that what people said to the pollsters was "security". Now obviously, if you have got the same number of Turkish troops as there used to be British troops, about 35,000, three times the national guard figure, it would be better, from a security point of view to have fewer, but that was not the way it was perceived. What worried them, was not just that the Turkish army would remain, but that they would have a small group even after the end of the 18 years and that is the bad news from a Greek Cypriot point of view, not just because it enables Turkey to come back into the island with its very long runways whenever it likes, but also to offer those runways to the Americans for anything they want to do in Israel, which is obviously a worry for Greek Cypriot sovereignty. However, the main thing is the popular feeling that it is the Turkish army that has perpetrated this injustice, has enabled the Turks to take the best bit, quite disproportion to 18 per cent, to completely ignore the state of affairs of 1960 and causing all this misery. So "security": if you are going to give up your national guard and you have Greece 500 miles away that cannot take you, you have the European Union that you cannot rely on militarily, then having the Turkish army with the right to stay there is not the kind of justice that you are looking for, is it? This seems to me, perfectly understandable from the Greek Cypriot point of view, although I would have hoped more would have voted yes despite that.

Q27 Mr Hamilton: But should those clear concerns not have been addressed before the plan was put before the island?

Dr Brewin: I think it was addressed, but it is a compromise, is it not? The Turkish view is that if they do not have the army, then they are vulnerable to the majority and it has to be a compromise. That is what it is about.

Dr Savvides: The concerns wee put on the table in Burgenstock and Greece and Turkey were supposed to discuss this because they were the two guarantor powers and they had to agree on the security issue. The Greek Government proposed that instead of 6,000 troops remaining it should be far fewer and then the Turkish Government did not want to discuss it at all. It is ironic to have a non-member state of the EU being the guarantor of a Member State of the EU; it is just ironic. People feel that this irony is not something that they could accept. I agree with the analysis about security as well, that people felt that for 30 years Turkey had rejected any kind of a proposal for a solution. Why would they implement it this time around? That was the question put to them by the sceptics and that is a strong question. That is why I do think, going back to another issue that was raised earlier, that changes have to be made in this last version of the Annan Plan because the patterns on the ground are changing anyway in the sense that the new timetables etcetera should be introduced. This concern should also be taken into consideration in the sense that we can find ways to mitigate the security concerns through some action by the European Union and some guarantees by the Security Council which can mitigate the Greek Cypriot concern. In general I think two processes are taking place now: one is to keep the Turkish Cypriots willing to agree and continue to be willing to agree on a solution, keep them hopeful that this is the solution they will be having and, at the same time, making the Greek Cypriots ready to accept the solution. This is a challenge for the next few months or years. My opinion is that there is no other way out of the Annan Plan, but adjustments need to be made in order for it to be accepted in the future.

Q28 Mr Hamilton: Since the referendum results, I think there is no doubt that international sympathy has moved away from the strong support that the Greek Cypriot community had towards the Turkish Cypriot community. Do you think that Greek Cypriot community has shot itself in the foot aided by its own government?

Dr Savvides: I want to put on the record that I was on the yes side: I feel that the no was a mistake. Yes, indeed, we missed an opportunity as Greek Cypriots. At the same time, I do think, going back to my previous point, that there are some genuine Greek Cypriot concerns at the public level, the social level, not the government level, which need to be addressed. I think yes indeed that I am all in favour of helping the Turkish Cypriots improve their social and economic life and I do think that the European Union is in the process of doing that and I have no problem with this process. My only concern is not to take measures and not to make gestures which would solidify the status quo, which would create, as I wrote in an article, another Taiwan in the Mediterranean. We do not want something which is not recognised, which has economic and other relations with countries, which will solidify and cement the partition: we want to help to unify the island. We need to have a carrot for the solution. Instead of giving everything to all and solidifying the status quo, we have to make it clear that what we want is unification. That is the goal and in order to do that, there are steps to be followed.

Q29 Mr Illsley: How much credence would you give to the argument which has been put to the Committee that the Turkish military presence is not so much for the security of the Turkish settlers or the Turkish Cypriots, but is simply to benefit Turkey's strategic aims of protecting their southern coastline?

Dr Savvides: This is the strategic argument which the Turkish army presents which I think is fake, in the sense that it is not a real issue. Cyprus is not a threat to Turkey; everybody knows that. Also the whole dynamic of the region has changed so much: Cyprus is not so important for Turkey now. It is an excuse to keep the troops there. That is why we see the difference between the Turkish Government, the political leadership of the Ergün government, and the military. There was an obvious disagreement on that issue. The strategic argument is not strong enough in respect of Cyprus and the current international system and current international circumstances do not allow for such an argument to be strong.

Dr Brewin: I agree with Philippos to the extent that with helicopters and with its huge runways Turkey could always get back onto Cyprus whatever, if it wanted to, if it felt Turks were in danger. People do not understand why the Turkish military take it so seriously. During the Annan Plan negotiations I was talking to a military attaché of the Americans - there are four, so I am not giving anything away - who supported the Turkish military in this. This has both historical and strategic aspects which we do not understand. The strategic one is that anyone who moves in Thrace can take Cyprus quickly. The historical one is that during the Cold War period the American plan was to buy time by having the Turkish military withdraw rather than fight on the frontier in order to nuke the Russians as they were coming in and that meant withdrawing to Cyprus. All these guys have been trained in this idea that Cyprus is very important to the Turkish army strategically. As we know from the British experience, this is a mindset which affects generals. So the fact, to my mind, that helicopters and planes now make this redundant, and you must never forget the fact that these runways are next to Israel - it is not just our bases which the Americans can use, it is the Turkish ones - is why it is shrouded in mystery and people like you need to bring out exactly what these great runways are for.

Mr Illsley: I think I could guess.

Q30 Mr Pope: I want to ask about the role of the European Union. Would you agree that, with hindsight, it was a critical mistake to say that Cyprus could enter the European Union come what may? In effect it just removed the carrot for the Greek Cypriots to reach an accommodation.

Dr Brewin: Yes, it is in Cypriot terms, but not in the wider picture. Individuals have had enormous influence at times in the European Union, such as the deal which was made in a fish restaurant between an official of the Commission and the Greek deputy foreign minister, at a time when relations with Turkey were really awful, on how to overcome the Greek veto. At that time Greece was on a no-appeasement policy with Turkey; that has changed. Greece has now shifted from total support to Greek Cyprus; that has changed. I hope that the Greek Government will stop this constant attempt to keep the Turkish Cypriots down and be nice to them and open Ercan airport and all sorts of possible things. The point I am trying to make is that at the time relations with Turkey, which is the important regional power, were at such a bad point that the price exacted by the Greeks for lifting their veto in December 1994 to get the customs union finalised, which was then intended to stop Turkish membership - it was to be instead of membership -was that the European Union forget that the settlement had to come first. That was the price; there was no lower price and that had to be paid. Where the European Union is in difficulty - and you have to have sympathy with them - is that for every official in the Commission they are going to say they are too few to solve the Cyprus problem and there is the Greek Commissioner and there is my career and there is nothing we can do against a Member State which takes a particularly strong view on this. So their approach is not even-handed. What they have to be is responsible and decide that Turkey is the big regional actor; that they have to have the Cyprus system working, because otherwise the European Union business is held up. There have been six meeting of CYPER just about these two draft directives, which is a ridiculous waste of people's time frankly and has to be solved. The European Union has to get a grip on it and to get its officials to be tough with the Greek Cypriots saying "This constitution must be obeyed. You must have one third of your people Turkish Cypriot. We have to get this through and you have to be nice to the minority and we have to bring them on board". They have to have a clear policy so that officials know they are being protected from the top. At the moment it is too wishy-washy to be effective, but that is what needs to be done.

Dr Savvides: The European Union was the catalyst for the process to reach a comprehensive plan for the first time. We could not have done it without the European Union and without constructive pressure being put on both sides. I said earlier that we missed a great opportunity in Copenhagen, where all parties could have converged to reach a solution because of what I explained earlier. I do think that it would not have had the same effect if in 1999 in Helsinki the solution to the Cyprus problem was not disassociated from the accession of Cyprus. I think it would have had the reverse effect. Therefore, yes indeed, in the process maybe the European Union has made some mistakes, but in general I think that the European Union approach and the presence of it in their creation were catalytic to the plan. At the same time today it can also be a catalyst in the sense that it can continue to keep the constructive pressure on all sides involved; Turkey as well. That is why I am one of those who are strongly in favour of Turkey getting involved in accession negotiations sooner rather then later; in my opinion the sooner the better.

Q31 Mr Pope: That brings me to my next point. If the baton for change moves away from the United Nations towards the European Union, what are the practical things that the EU can do to take matters forward? Would it be a good idea at the EU summit in December to upgrade Turkey's applicant status to the European Union? Would that be a positive step forward? Would that send the right signals? Would it also be possible for the EU to do other practical things? I am just thinking, for example, that the EU could offer a EU force of soldiers peacekeeping in the north of Cyprus to replace Turkish soldiers. That might be a positive way forward. It would de-escalate things; it would be a positive sign that the EU was taking this situation seriously.

Dr Brewin: As I read it, a White Paper on Defence is going to come out of Brussels and the need to have the means, military means as well as the trade means, to do things in the Middle East which requires the development of a concept for the Middle East which we do not have, is on the cards. I do not know whether you are referring to that. On the positive things the EU can do, one would be to make its financial aid directive linked to the peace settlement. So the money for Turkish Cyprus is for building houses north of Morphou for Turkish Cypriots to leave Greek houses now in preparation for a settlement. At the moment the aid is entirely around pre-accession kinds of things with feasibility studies. If they actually had to build houses in anticipation of a settlement, which they will have to do when the Greeks go back into their properties, this would be a really positive signal that we expect a settlement and the EU could do that. The other thing is the Turkish thing which is the big one, because if Turkey is a member then it will be constrained within the framework, as Greece has been, which is the best thing which could happen for peace in the region that I can think of, but in order to do that I think the Foreign Office and some pretty high level Commissioners have been going easy on pushing the financial aid and the trade deal for Turkish Cypriots - the trade deal is purely symbolic - because they do not want to irritate Greece and Greek Cyprus in advance of 17 December. So you are pushing it as much as you can but not to the point of so offending them that they will give a very long date, or disrupt Turkish opinion, which is very volatile and could easily be disrupted. So the Cyprus thing is a small thing but it is messing up the big thing.

Q32 Mr Pope: Let us work on the big thing, say Turkish accession.

Dr Brewin: If that works, then you have turned one of the big keys to solving the problem.

Dr Savvides: Giving Turkey a date for accession negotiations is critical. The Greek Government supports that very strongly, even Greek Cypriots support it as well. What they are asking for at the same time is something in the agreement in December which would keep Turkey as part of the process of solving the problem, so that it does not show that Turkey has finished what it has to do. Turkey has things to do as well in the next few years. I think we can find a compromise which would be one which would allow both sides to be satisfied. At the same time, in respect of the army, one of the things which I think could be changed in the Annan Plan would be to be much more specific on this multinational force which would be present. In fact there have been proposals for a NATO force on the island, which I do not oppose. Personally I think it would be a good idea. There are other problems with it, symbolic and others, but the more multinational the force the better it would be for satisfying some of people's concerns. There is resistance from Turkey on that, which needs to be discussed, but in general a multinational force, a European force, could also be a positive development in the changes to the Annan Plan which would mitigate some of the concerns which Greek Cypriots have and I do not think Turkish Cypriots would oppose that.

Q33 Mr Mackay: May I take you on to the role of the United Kingdom, which is obviously important, and just press you a little about how positive you thought our role was in promoting the Annan Plan? Do you want to comment on the fact that there were American diplomats in our delegation to Burgenstock back in March which caused as usual the normal rumours? May I link to that the two distinguished British public servants closest involved with Cyprus affairs at the moment, Lord Hannay and Sir Kieran Prendergast and ask you to comment on their roles as well?

Dr Brewin: That falls to me first unfortunately; I am English. I think both of them have been great and this thing is attributed to Alvaro de Soto but the preparations for it have involved a lot of country clubs in Perthshire and meetings in New York. Your Committee has been involved in these year after year at the United Nations. You know how much effort the British have put in. David Hannay particularly wanted this to crown his career and he put in enormous hours as well as appointing people he thought would be good on it. I know less about the role of Sir Kieran Prendergast, but I think you are seeing him shortly, so you can find out more than I shall ever know. What has been wrong about it has been that David Hannay has also kept off the agenda the question of the sovereign bases with the collusion of both nationalist sides. This is not popular lower down, but both leaders of the communities want Britain on side for their particular arguments before this court in the sky they are always arguing in front of. So they have not pointed out what we could really do to get rid of a lot of the feelings inside Cyprus that we are out for our own interests. The sovereign bases have a lot of good things about them, like providing a place for putting kit near to Israel or for getting things in and out of Iraq, all this sort of thing. However, they should not be sovereign any more and in particular we should not have the rights to do whatever we like anywhere in the island which affects the operation of the bases, which we have under the 1960 agreements, when you delve down into the appendices. This is incompatible with the nature of a modern state, because it is like the Portuguese having Goa; property you acquired in the past in an era of self-determination is not necessarily yours. If there were a settlement, I have no doubt that the united Cyprus government would act as though it were leased and would not treat it any longer as sovereign once they were united. I think we should go for leasehold now. The retained site where most of the spying is done from is on leasehold; it is no great change and we know this because at the last minute we gave 46 square miles - because 99 square miles is less than 100 square miles in the original deal with Makarios - as a sweetener to try to persuade the Greek Cypriots, who got nine-tenths of those 46 miles, that there was a benefit to them. If we want to have a peace settlement on the basis not that there are separate communities but that there is one geographical island, then the British, who are now members of the European Union, and thus have the anomalous position that under Article 227 of our 1973 accession the Cyprus bases, which are part of British sovereign territory, are not part of the European Union customs area and sovereign territory - that is not only an anachronism, but an anomaly - can play a card to show how serious they are about peace in Cyprus. We could do this while maintaining, through leasehold, the military advantages of being able to say to the Americans "We have a very nice base; you don't have to ask an Arab for one". I think we could do that if we were serious and Lord Hannay has kept that off the agenda quite brutally.

Q34 Chairman: With respect, Lord Hannay is not in a position to give or to withhold sovereign base territory. What is clear is that during the course of the negotiations the British Government did make a unilateral offer to give up a part of the sovereign base area.

Dr Brewin: But right at the last moment. Throughout the period of the negotiations it was kept off the agenda and I watched him do it, with respect.

Q35 Chairman: But it was a sweetener towards the end of the package.

Dr Brewin: Yes, but it was not part of the negotiations. It is probably included in the appendices, but it is not in the public part.

Q36 Mr Mackay: What about the Burgenstock talks and our representation including American diplomats? Perhaps Dr Savvides would care to comment on that?

Dr Savvides: By the time of Burgenstock it was clear enough that things were not moving very well and therefore not much could have been done either by the British or American diplomats at that time. I am here reflecting some of the Greek Cypriot public opinion's beliefs about the British attributes and style. They did not like Lord Hannay's style very much, which was very imposing; he was dictating the terms of the agreement. That is why a lot of people rejected the plan, or were against the plan, or campaigned against the plan and suggested that it was a Hannay plan, not a United Nations plan. That was not a very good thing in terms of promoting the solution. It is also a matter of substance and the way you hear, the way you engage in the negotiations and maybe the style was not very good either. I want to focus on what the British Government can do now, because this is critical and very important in the following sense. I am very concerned about two things which are taking place now on Cyprus: one is the whole construction boom which is taking place in northern Cyprus on Greek Cypriot properties. It is amazing; there is a huge construction site, as I mentioned in my memorandum to you. This is very unfortunate and very dangerous for a future settlement, because it is not helping the Greek Cypriots change their minds and at the same time it destroys the whole balance within the plan over the property issue, which has been very, very sensitive and very, very difficult to handle. At the same time there are new workers coming from mainland Turkey because of the reconstruction boom and they remain there, so the demography is also changing. Those two things are taking place at the moment and I am very concerned about them. I think the British Government can do more to exercise its influence on the Turkish side, to stop them doing that. There are British citizens buying properties on very shaky and very shadowy legal grounds, which will create complications if we have another effort to reach agreement in the future. I urge you to urge your government to take these developments into serious consideration because I do not think they are helpful. If we want unification, they are not helpful. At the same time, they should keep putting pressure on the Greek Cypriots to be much more forthcoming in terms of taking the initiative. I said myself that the Greek Cypriots should be the ones to initiate the next effort, either by the United Nations or by the EU, but at the same time, the British Government should pay attention to those two issues as well.

Q37 Chairman: What do you think the British Government should do on the direct trade issue?

Dr Savvides: I am in favour of helping with direct trade with the Turkish Cypriots; there is a compromise to be found there. We cannot take it to the extreme though. I said earlier that if you take it to the extreme on shaky legal grounds, so that you force the Papadopoulos government to take the Commission or the EU to court, you risk a decision most likely against the Commission. So we have to be sure that we find a compromise to allow for direct trade with the Turkish Cypriots without creating another Taiwan, which would solidify the status quo. I personally am very much against the status quo. I do not want to see the partition solidified and I do not think that taking direct trade to the extreme would help the solution based on this notion of unification.

Dr Brewin: The fact is that I am not a Turkish Cypriot and the fact is that they are not represented. The British Government and you gentlemen need to be more even-handed in looking at the Turkish Cypriot case. I am actually quite pleased that there seems to be some building going on in Turkish Cyprus. I am told that mostly it is a result of building on Turkish Cypriot land, because they feel more confident now that there is a settlement in the offing about development. The actual direct trade thing does not affect much trade. Half of it is in citrus, very little money, about €50 million at best. What needs to happen is for the ports and airport to be opened up. This is something which would really cause trouble in northern Cyprus and it would be excellent if the Greek Cypriot Government would, as a matter of sovereignty, list Ercan as a civil airport, which would irritate the case of the northern Cypriots wonderfully but bring in the tourism, which is the only thing which would make the northern Cypriots as prosperous as the Greek Cypriots and give their officials salaries of a comparable nature. This would do more to make Cypriots feel Cypriot rather than superior to inferior than anything else I can think of.

Dr Savvides: On this property issue, which I do think is very important, very quickly some statistics. From November 2002 up to today, for the Kyrenia district alone, 2,006 building permits were issued on Greek Cypriot properties. According to a Turkish Cypriot leader, up to today Greek Cypriot properties were sold to the value of $2 billion. Also, earlier on, in 2000, there were about 200 applications from foreigners to buy land; by 6 August there were 1,528. There is a lot of effort to build on Greek Cypriot property in the Karpasian peninsula; 10,000 issued for building hotels etcetera to develop the area. I see the need, because tourism is going to be picking up next summer, but I am very concerned. I am all for development of the Turkish Cypriot economy and society. At the same time I am very concerned that if you destroy the very, very thin balance on the property issue and the issue of the settlers, you will destroy the chances of reaching an agreement at the end.

Q38 Chairman: That may be true, but alas the context would be very different had the referendum gone in a different way.

Dr Savvides: Sure; I grant you that.

Chairman: Gentlemen, you have given us a great deal of material for reflection. Thank you both very much indeed.