Turkey to Pay Price for 1974 Invasion of Cyprus

Timothy Spangler
Wed, 14 May 2014 13:07:57 -0700
Opinion

Forty years after Turkish soldiers invaded their island neighbor of Cyprus, a European court has ruled this week that Turkey must pay compensation to Cypriots for their pain and suffering. The Turkish government has protested the ruling.

Cyprus has historically been composed of a Greek-majority south and a Turkish-majority north. In 1974, after a coup in the capital, Nicosia, Turkey invaded the north of the island to protect the Turkish population there. Since then, Cyprus has been politically partitioned, with a U.N.-policed border cutting across the island. Only Turkey recognizes the legitimacy of the diplomatically isolated government in the north, whereas the south was admitted into the European Union in 2004 and joined the eurozone in 2008. Based on recent calculations, approximately 80 percent of Cypriots are Greek, with most of the remainder being Turkish.

The European Court of Human Rights placed a hefty price tag of approximately $123 million on the damage done by the invasion. Ankara promptly rejected the validity and enforceability of the judgment, warning that recently launched reunification talks could easily be derailed.
Updated: Thu May 15, 2014

Forty years after Turkish soldiers invaded their island neighbor of Cyprus, a European court has ruled this week that Turkey must pay compensation to Cypriots for their pain and suffering. The Turkish government has protested the ruling.

Cyprus has historically been composed of a Greek-majority south and a Turkish-majority north. In 1974, after a coup in the capital, Nicosia, Turkey invaded the north of the island to protect the Turkish population there. Since then, Cyprus has been politically partitioned, with a U.N.-policed border cutting across the island. Only Turkey recognizes the legitimacy of the diplomatically isolated government in the north, whereas the south was admitted into the European Union in 2004 and joined the eurozone in 2008. Based on recent calculations, approximately 80 percent of Cypriots are Greek, with most of the remainder being Turkish.

The European Court of Human Rights placed a hefty price tag of approximately $123 million on the damage done by the invasion. Ankara promptly rejected the validity and enforceability of the judgment, warning that recently launched reunification talks could easily be derailed.

Since the invasion and partition, many questions remain unanswered. For example, approximately 1,500 Greek Cypriots are still unaccounted for, as well as another 500 Turkish Cypriots. Efforts have been made in recent years to inspect unmarked graves in hopes of identifying more of these missing individuals. Conducted jointly by scientists in both parts of the country, such efforts could be a meaningful step toward rebuilding trust again. Unfortunately, efforts to reunify the country have been largely ineffective.

Partition, however, has not been the only problem facing Cypriots recently. Until last year, southern Cyprus had benefited greatly from its EU membership. It rapidly built out a lucrative financial system that attracted money (and people) from around Europe. Russians were particular fans of Cypriot banks and the security provided by their EU status. In addition, Russians benefited from a lucrative double tax treaty on any money they had in Cyprus. Reports estimate that at the peak, Russians accounted for about $40 billion in Cypriot bank deposits, almost one-third of the total.

Eventually, a "banking bubble" emerged, and the banks unraveled in early 2013 in a spectacular fashion after Cyprus defaulted on its public debts. A multibillion-dollar bailout of the island's economy by the EU soon followed. Although Cyprus' economy only amounted to one-fifth of 1 percent of the entire eurozone, Brussels had to come running when the integrity and future prospects of the euro were called into question.

The banking system collapse has been called the worst crisis in Cyprus since the Turkish invasion 40 years ago.

It is unclear how long it will take southern Cyprus to claw its way back up to economic stability again and how long it will take for northern and southern factions to negotiate an effective reunification. Nicosia is so desperate to rebuild its decimated economy that the government is handing out permanent residency to any foreigner who buys a house worth at least euro300,000 (about $411,000) and deposits euro30,000 in a Cypriot bank account. Over 1,000 Chinese were believed in the first year to have taken advantage of the scheme, with many of them settling in the beach resort town of Paphos. Turkey, in turn, was accused of opportunism in the months after the crisis when Ankara began pushing for further discussions on reunification. Greek Cypriots and Greek leaders quickly painted Turkish overtures as an attempt to take unfair advantage of the country's economic problems.

Regardless of its current difficulties, Cyprus is an incredibly beautiful country, with popular beaches that attract millions of tourists each year. It's located near Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, and it's a short plane ride from London, Moscow and Riyadh. Valuable natural gas reserves have been discovered off Cyprus' coast. Although the damage from the banking collapse was severe and the pain inflicted on ordinary Cypriots was very real, the long-term future of Cyprus seems promising.

The question of how to put this broken country back together again into a single polity entity, however, looks less clear. Turkey favors a federal system in which power is ultimately shared between the north and the south. Greek Cypriots rejected this approach in a 2004 vote, and it is not immediately obvious how such an approach could be adopted in the near term.

As negotiations between the north and the south slowly gain momentum, after decades of mutual distrust, the recent compensation award from the European Court of Human Rights could do much more harm than good. The loss of loved ones was a tragedy and needs to be addressed. What is unclear is whether a questionable court decision is actually the best way to move the country forward to reunification.