The unrealistic and politically reckless notion that “now we’ll improve on Zurich too” has brought us to where we are today, where nothing is the same anymore—in terms of property, land, or the social climate
It has been twenty-two years since the now historic referendum on a solution to the Cyprus problem based on the Annan Plan. This passage of time forces each of us to look in the mirror, not to deny or affirm ourselves, but to approach things with a cooler head.
We are called upon to answer a fundamental question: On April 24, 2004, was it the Annan Plan that was rejected, or something else? The question concerns the leadership, not the citizens, who found themselves caught up in a whirlwind of fanaticism deliberately stirred up by the government of the time.
To answer this question, it would be helpful to recall the circumstances under which events came to a head at that time:
– A year earlier, on April 23, 2003, the checkpoints were opened. This was a move of necessity by the Denktaş regime under pressure from mass demonstrations in the occupied areas, but also a development dictated by the policy of Tayyip Erdoğan, who had built his entire political narrative around Turkey’s accession to the EU.
– The response of the two communities to this opening was positive, dismantling within a few hours Rauf Denktaş’s long-standing narrative that if they were to come together again, they would kill one another.
– At the same time, Greek Cypriots who visited the occupied areas saw with their own eyes that time there had stopped in 1974, that only minor “development” had been recorded, and that it was the Turkish Cypriots who were essentially living under occupation.
– On the political front, for the first time all the major powers became involved in this effort, with the United States, through Richard Holbrooke, apologising for the way they had handled Cyprus. Moreover, our country’s accession to the EU had been secured regardless of the resolution of the problem. For the first time in the history of the Cyprus problem, it was Turkey that was under pressure, which—as we have already mentioned—was frantically seeking a roadmap for EU accession.
There had never before existed such a positive climate for resolving the Cyprus issue. All that was needed was for us to actually mean what we had been discussing for so many years (regarding the form of the solution). And, as it turned out, we did NOT mean it.
– When the checkpoints were opened, the then-ruling authorities acted in a frightening manner and tried from the very first moment to freeze contact between the two communities, creating guilt complexes among those Greek Cypriots who decided to cross into the occupied areas (nonsense about recognising the pseudo-state by showing a passport, extreme claims about them aiding the Turkish army, etc.)
– The finding that the property of Greek Cypriots, in the overwhelming majority of cases, did not undergo any change, was not at all taken into account or utilised at the negotiating table. Nor was the fact even considered that, within a few days in the occupied areas, the dominant currency was the Cypriot pound, demonstrating the impact that the strong economy of the Republic of Cyprus would have on the solution.
– At the negotiating level, when, during the final phase of negotiations at Bürgenstock, the United Nations asked us to submit the changes we desired to the Annan Plan as it had been formulated up to that point, we did not do so because the official Greek Cypriot side was stalling in order to leave the table with as many loopholes as possible so as to build its case for “No.” That is more or less how Karpasia was lost.
In 2004, therefore, what was rejected by the political leadership of the time was not the Annan Plan. It was the idea of a federation that would bring Turkish Cypriots back into the centers of power, as the 1960 agreements had, in fact, provided for. The unrealistic and politically reckless notion that “now we will improve on Zurich” has brought us to where we are today, where nothing is the same anymore—in terms of property, territory, or the social climate.
Ultimately, the “second-best solution” for the status quo had been decided upon far too early.
This article was first published on 26.04.2026
