TRNC NEWS HEADLINES

FRAMEWORK OF NEGOTIATIONS BECOMING CLEARER

The framework of negotiations directed towards finding a solution to the Cyprus problem which shall start on 3 September are becoming clearer.

It has been announced that the meeting on 3 rd September between President Mehmet Ali, Talat and the Greek Cypriot leader Dimitris Hristofias shall be like a ceremony.

It has been recorded that the first meeting of two leaders within the framework of substantial negotiations shall be on 11^th September.

The representatives of two leaders shall meet before 3^rd September and shall discuss the last details.

A GROUP OF 204 SYRIAN TOURISTS CAME TO THE TRNC

Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared that scheduled ferry services between the TRNC and Syria , which started on 18 October 2007, have been continuing in spite of all preventive efforts of the Greek Cypriot administration. The Ministry explained that a group of 204 Syrian tourists came to North Cyprus by ferry services for holiday on 14 August, in this context.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs stressed that more Syrian tourists will have chance to come and see historical and natural beauties of the TRNC in the framework of mutual agreements between tourism agencies. The Ministry also explained that the TRNC citizens can travel to Syria for a holiday without a visa requirement.

GREEK CYPRIOTS WERE SURPRISED WHEN THEY REALIZED REALITIES IN TRNC

Alithia Newspaper published in South Cyprus wrote in its news headed “Greek Cypriots were Shocked after the Check-Points were Opened” that some of the Greek Cypriot emigrants who crossed to TRNC after the check-points were opened between TRNC and South Cyprus in 2003 were shocked when they realized the present situation in TRNC and they were psychologically ill.

The newspaper supported that most of the Greek Cypriots did not want to pass to North Cyprus once again because they did not want to be killed, some had psychological diseases and they could not come again and they needed mental healing.

Psychologist Hristodulu gave a statement to the newspaper as the following:

“If we examine the subject, we can experience that the people lived with a non-functional image and a fake situation for years. They lived in a fantasia with the lullabies of the religious and political leaders. Nobody mentioned them about the realities and they did not prepare themselves for a possible solution. In reality, most of the emigrants stand today’s realities and they were shocked when they visited the occupied areas after the check-points were opened. Some of them could not stand today’s realities and they caught psychological diseases.”

Hristodulu said “the reality for the Turkish Cypriots is that the relations were different before 1960. Because during those times there was not any power sharing problem, there were only same daily problems. The situation has been changed after 1960.......”

Greek Cypriot Psychologist added “the situation has changed after 1960, but still we did not want to face the reality. We believed that the power is belonged to us, as the Greek Cypriots, we considered the Turkish Cypriots as those who usurped the power; we felt contempt for them for communal aspect. Hristodulu emphasized that the Greek Cypriot people should be prepared for the solution in psychological way.

ELECTRICITY FROM SUN AND WIND

Minister of Finance Ahmet Uzun announced that they were going to bid for a new electricity power house for a trial of providing electricity from sun and wind.

In the statement he made Minister of Finance Ahmet Uzun stressed that electricity power houses which could provide permanently should be established since sun and wind could not provide electricity permanently.

Uzun also stated that they had newly reached the capacity which provides the necessary consumption.

80-KM SUBMARINE PIPELINE TO CARRY WATER FROM TURKEY TO NORTHERN CYPRUS

Turkey will build a dam on a creek in the Mediterranean region to carry fresh water to Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) through a 80-kilometers submarine pipeline.

The Alakopru Dam will be constructed on Dragon Creek in Anamur town of the Mediterranean province of Mersin and is planned to be completed within three years once the construction works are started.

The project aims to pump 75 million cubic meters of water yearly to the island, 15 of which will be used as drinking water and the rest for irrigation.

Turkish State Minister Kursad Tuzmen said project design works would be finalized next year.

"This project will be implemented to help TRNC fight drought and carry out irrigated farming," Tuzmen said.

Turkey first started the project in 1998 to build a dam on Dragon Creek and Turkish Construction Company Alarko was contracted for the project. A memorandum of understanding was signed by Turkish State Hydraulic Works and Alarko in 2005.

The project will bring water to the island from Alakopru Dam through a 80-kilometers submarine pipeline to be installed 120 meters deep in the Mediterranean Sea .

Turkish Cypriot people, cultivating their land by means of dry farming for years, will now be able to carry out irrigated farming, officials said.

CYPRUS AND THE RIGHTS OF SELF-DETERMINATION

Cyprus Observer, By Hendrik J. Owel

Balkans lead the way after the disasters of the destructive ethno-political and ethno-territorial conflicts of the Balkans in the first half of the 1990s, a ray of hope has emerged for the Caucasus , as well as for other similar areas of the world. We can now see the emergence of some self-determination settlements that appear to indicate willingness of central governments, the self-styled self-determination movements and international actors that escape from the trap imposed by the rules on self-determination. Hence, new settlements have been emerging that do not always necessarily preclude self-determination in the terms of secession, while at the same time offering a new relationship between the central state and the secessionist unit, that could make continued the territorial unity possible.
But there are other external aspects which are of considerable relevance to the exercising of a peoples’ right to self-determination, but which do not necessarily entail the creation of an independent state.

A new consideration
A people or a community may consider it of importance to include in its exercise of self-determination the authority to participate in international discussions or be included in international organisations, where decisions taken affect their existence and development, or which fail exclusively in the competences of an autonomous component state of a federation - for example Flanders and Walonian participation in the work of the European Union, Tatarstan's separate representation at international conferences, Hong Kong's separate membership of economic organisations. The perception that only fully independent states can conduct international relations and participate in decision-making leads to the interpretation that demand for international participation by non-independent peoples threatens the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the states and is even tantamount to separatism. To be sure, the extent to which non-independent entities can participate in decision-making at international level is limited by the concept of state responsibility in international law. Under current international law, only states are endowed with legal responsibility and can be held responsible for the implementation of international treaties. Nevertheless, non-state entities can be recognised as representing legitimate interests internationally without threatening the continued existence of the state of which they form a part. Thus, under the constitution of Finland , the Sami not only have regional autonomy, but their elected body, the Sami parliament, also possesses the authority to represent the Sami community of Finland at the international level. Moreover, the provinces of Canada and the States of Australia are represented in London by ‘Agents-General’ on a consular level, while Flanders and Walonia have, separate from the Belgian diplomatic service, and political as well as commercial representatives in foreign capitals. They also have the authority to conclude international agreement within their constitutional competences; else the Belgian King (the Central Government) can really veto those agreements.

The Cyprus Problem
And that brings us back again to the Cyprus Problem, which as mentioned above, emerged from the 'Bloody Christmas’ of 1963, when in fact one wing of the Cyprus Government, the Greek Cypriot one, revolted against the other wing, the Turkish Cypriot one. The rebels, the Greek Cypriot wing, won, and became internationally recognised as the 'Government of the Republic of Cyprus ’.
However did the Turkish Cypriot wing of the original government and the Turkish Cypriot community become by the same token, the 'Rebels'? Although the rebellion of the Greek Cypriot wing of Cyprus Government was considered as a 'internal affair', the United Nations decided to send peacekeepers to the island. Not that those peace-keepers could do much for the protection of the Turkish Cypriot community. It was not a breakthrough of the principle of non-intervention, because the ‘Government’ of Cyprus gave its consent, but it opened the way for the UN to act as a mediator between the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriots.
The coup d’état against President Makarios was more an intervention by the Greek Army in order to annex Cyprus to Greece, than that it was a putsch by Greek Cypriots. The answer of the Turkish Army did not take long. To prevent the planned annexation and to protect the Turkish Cypriot community from annihilation, the Turkish Army intervened, with the known results: the prevention of the annexation but the division of the island into two parts.
The Turkish Cypriot community had little or no influence on the decision of the Government of the Republic of Turkey to send its troops into Cyprus . The question rather arises whether this deprives the Turkish Cypriot Community from the right to external self-determination, which this community acquired according the above mentioned ‘Programme of Action’, as a consequence of the treatment meted out to her by the Greek Cypriot dominated Government of Cyprus?
When the Indian Army intervened for humanitarian reasons in East Pakistan and in that way made the declaration of independence of Bangladesh possible, the international community, after initial hesitancy, recognised Bangladesh ’s independence. When the freely and democratically elected Turkish Cypriot Parliament, exercising the Turkish Cypriots’ right to external self-determination, after years’ of fruitless negotiations with the Greek Cypriots, declared unanimously the independence of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus on 15th November 1983, more than nine years after the intervention of the Turkish Army, the Security Council of the United Nation adopted on 18th November 1983 Resolution No. 541 (1983). It considered that declaration as legally invalid and called on all states not to recognise any other state other than the Republic of Cyprus .
Whether the Security Council was entitled to pronounce the declaration of independence of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus legally invalid, is another question. The Council doing so acted as a Court of Law, in spite of the provisions of article 36(3) of the United Nations Charter that legal disputes should as a general rule, be referred to the International Court of Justice in The Hague . However, Resolution No. 541 (1983) is there, and will not be withdrawn as long as Russia supports the Greek Cypriot dominated Government of the Republic of Cyprus . That does not have to be emphasised by a superfluous, and for the sphere of the negotiation process, counterproductive statement by a British Prime Minister.
And, as has been seen in the past, other countries will be more than reluctant to act against this Resolution and recognise the independence of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus !

Gagauzian case.
Recent practice has sought to address the self-determination deadlock in other innovative ways. Several new techniques have been deployed in this context. In Europe itself it has been an attempt to defend at least the principle of territorial integrity of the successor states of the dissolved USSR and former Yugoslavia . This technique has conceded wide-ranging self-government of secessionist units, coupled with a power-sharing mechanism for the continued existence of the threatened state. However this was not always successful. Gagauzia declared itself independent on 19th August 1991. In August 1994 it received the status of the Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia (Gagauz Yeri), it is situated in Southern Moldova and inhabited by Oghuz Turks. According to the Law on the Special Status of Gagauzia of 23rd December 1994, that autonomous entity "shall have the Right of External Self-determination" should Moldova cease being an independent state, for example through merger of its larger part (excluding Gagauzia) with Romania.

The Sudan settlement
The Sudan settlement is of a different type again. In a radical departure from the classical practice, the settlement clearly determines that the Southern Christian part will be entitled to exercise the right to self-determination, with no conditions attached. The settlement is contained in the Machakos Protocols of 2002 and a series of further Protocols adopted since. However, at the Nairobi Comprehensive Peace Agreements of January 9th 2005, it was agreed between the Islamic Government of Sudan in the North and the Christian South Sudan , that the latter would be granted autonomy for six years to be followed by a referendum about independence. The settlement requires that both sides cooperate to their utmost capacity over that interim period of six years to make the option of continued unity attractive in advance of the holding of a referendum in Southern Sudan, Hence the interim governance is to be used to reduce the thirst for independence of Southern Sudan. In this face-saving way, the central-government in Khartoum could consent to an agreement that, in the end, might result in independence for Southern Sudan