Annan Plan for Cyprus

The Annan Plan was a United Nations proposal to bring about the reunification of the divided island nation of Cyprus as the United Cyprus Republic. It was named in recognition of United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who largely devised the proposal in conjunction with Didier Pfirter.

Contents

1 Proposal 2 Negotiations 3 Rejection 4 Recent Developments 5 Sources 6 External links

Proposal

The Annan Plan proposed the creation of the United Cyprus Republic, covering the island of Cyprus in its entirety (except for the British Sovereign Base Areas). This new country was to be a loose confederation of two constituent states – the Greek Cypriot State and the Turkish Cypriot State – joined together by a minimal federal government apparatus.

This federal level, which was loosely based on the Swiss confederal model, the model of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the divisive Cyprus constitution of 1960 (that was devised by the British who were the former colonial power), would have incorporated the following elements:

• A collective Presidential Council, made up of six voting members, allocated 2:1 (instead of in direct proportion to the population of Greek and Turkish Cypriots which was 9:1), and selected and voted in by parliament. An additional three non-voting members would also be assigned 2:1.
• A President and Vice President, chosen by the Presidential Council from among its members, one from each community, to rotate in their functions every 20 months during the council's five-year term of office.
• A bicameral legislature:
  • A Senate (upper house), with 48 members, divided equally between the two communities.
  • A Chamber of Deputies (lower house), with 48 members, divided in proportion to the two communities' populations but counting each Turkish Cypriot twice for every Greek Cypriot (with no fewer than 12 for the smaller community) thus in practice it would not be in proportion to the two communities' populations at all but would penalise the Greek Cypriots.
• Each community would have been given the effective right to veto any legislation it wished in any or all of the above institutions.
• A Supreme Court composed of equal numbers of Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot judges, plus three foreign judges; to be appointed by the presidential council would have been the real power broker.

The plan included a federal constitution, consititutions for each constituent state, a string of constitutional and federal laws, and a proposal for a United Cyprus Republic flag and national anthem. It also provided for a Reconciliation Commission to bring the two communities closer together and resolve outstanding disputes from the past.

• The plan would have given the Turkish Cypriots the full right to return while it would have only given the Greek Cypriots a limited right to return between the territories of the two communities by imposing percentage population quotas which would only have had effect on the larger community.
  • In order it prevent the Greek Cypriots from challenging this iniquity the Annan Plan requested the European Court of Human Rights to dismiss all pending cases concerning Greek Cypriot property rights and demanded that the court be forbidden from examining any new applications concerning the violation of the Greek Cypriots property rights and their rights to settlement and freedom of movement. (1)
• The Annan Plan would have allowed both Greece and Turkey to maintain a permanent military presence on the island, albeit with large, phased reductions in troop numbers, but provided no security guarantees to ensure that both sides compiled.
• Virtually all of the Turkish colonists from Anatolia who were brought into occupied Cyprus in violation of Article 49 of the Geneva Convention, most of whom had been given paramilitary training and who would have posed a real threat to any Greek Cypriots deciding to return, would have been given citizenship of the UCR and allowed to keep the Greek Cypriot properties they occupied.
• Under the constitution of the Turkish Cypriot Constituent State the Greek Cypriots residing in the north would not have been given the right to vote unless they spoke fluent Turkish.

Negotiations

In January 2002, direct talks under the auspices of Secretary-General Annan began between Republic of Cyprus President Glafcos Clerides (Greek community) and Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash.

In November 2002, Secretary-General Annan released a comprehensive plan for the resolution of the Cyprus issue. It was revised in early December. In the lead up to the European Union's December 2002 Copenhagen Summit, intensive efforts were made to gain both sides' signatures to the document prior to a decision on the island's EU membership. Neither side agreed to sign. The EU invited the Republic of Cyprus to join on 16 December 2002.

Following the Copenhagen Summit, the UN continued dialogue with the two sides with the goal of reaching a settlement prior to Cyprus's signature of the EU accession treaty on 16 April 2003. A third version of the Annan plan was put to the parties in February 2003. That same month the Secretary-General again visited the island and asked that both leaders agree to put the plan to referendum in their respective communities. Also in February 2003, Tassos Papadopoulos was elected as the fifth president of the Republic of Cyprus. On 10 March 2003, this most recent phase of talks collapsed in The Hague, Netherlands, when Denktash told the Secretary-General he would not put the Annan Plan to referendum.

In February 2004, Papadopoulos and Denktash accepted the Secretary-General's invitation to resume negotiations on a settlement on the basis of the Annan plan. After meeting with Annan in New York, talks began on-island on 19 February 2004. The two community leaders, Rauf Denktash and Tassos Papadopoulos, met nearly every day for negotiations facilitated by the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Cyprus, Álvaro de Soto. In addition, numerous technical committees and subcommittees met in parallel in an effort to resolve outstanding issues. When this stage of the talks failed to reach an agreed settlement Rauf Dentaksh refused to attend the next stage of meetings which were scheduled to take place in Bόrgenstock on 24 March 2004 and sent Mehmet Ali Talat and Serder Denktash as his agents. The talks collapsed and no negotiated agreement was reached by the two communities. The Secretary-General then stepped in as arbitrator and on 31 March presented to the two sides a proposed final settlement. Rauf Dentaksh rejected Annan's proposal immediately and Tassos Papadopoulos rejected the plan a week later while Mehmet Ali Talat supported it.

Rejection

See: Cyprus reunification referendum, 2004

The plan was placed before the two communities in a simultaneous vote in the reunification referendum of 24 April 2004. Whilst the proposal received a 65% favorable vote from the Turkish community, the Greek Cypriot community rejected it by three to one. Since implementation of the plan was dependent on its approval by both communities, reunification did not take place. Had there been a positive vote on both sides, a unified Cyprus would have acceeded to the European Union on 1 May 2004.

Recent Developments

(1) On 6 April 2005 the European Court of Human Rights decided that, "even the adoption of the plan would not have afforded immediate redress" of the Greek Cypriots property rights.

Admissibility of Application no. 46347/99 by Myra XENIDES-ARESTIS against Turkey (http://cmiskp.echr.coe.int////tkp197/viewhbkm.asp?action=open&table=285953B33D3AF94893DC49EF6600CEBD49&key=46883&sessionId=1970154&skin=hudoc-en&attachment=true)

Loukis Loukaides the Cypriot judge on the European Court of Human Rights, has since called on the Greek Cypriot political leaders to stop backing the Annan Plan as a basis for negotiations, because its basic philosophy violates fundamental human rights and the EU acquis. (Cyprus Weekly 15 April 2005)

He recomends the following action be taken:

1 - The drafting of an official information bulletin on the violation of the EU acquis by the Annan Plan.

2 - To declare clearly that the Plan is incompatible with the European Human Rights Charter and other International Human Rights Treaties, which are already binding on us and also as a result of our EU accession.

3 - To cease at last to refer to the Annan Plan as a basis for a settlement, or negotiations. So long as this continues, foreign officials and organisations that could assist us achieve a good settlement, will not do so.

Sources

• "Negotiations" section adapted from public domain U.S. State Department background note on Cyprus, April 2004 (http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5376.htm)

• Supplementary material based on:
  • Letter by the President of the Republic, Mr Tassos Papadopoulos, to the U.N. Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, dated 7 June, which circulated as an official document of the U.N. Security Council (http://www.moi.gov.cy/moi/pio/pio.nsf/All/E570E4948868A105C2256EAE003CAAE0?OpenDocument)
  • Legal Issues arising from certain population transfers and displacements on the territory of the Republic of Cyprus in the period since 20 July 1974 (http://www.moi.gov.cy/moi/pio/pio.nsf/All/BD477C55623013C5C2256D740027CF98?OpenDocument)
  • Address to Cypriots by President Papadopoulos (FULL TEXT) (http://www.hri.org/news/cyprus/cna/2004/04-04-08.cna.html#01)
  • House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee report on Cyprus (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmselect/cmfaff/113/11302.htm)

External links

• The Annan Plan (http://www.cyprus-un-plan.org/): full text and additional information from the United Nations
• Cyprus Decides (http://217.158.96.20/cyprus_decides/English/default.htm): a bipartisan information resource about the Plan
• The Republic of Cyprus (http://www.moi.gov.cy/moi/pio/pio.nsf/index_en/index_en?opendocument): press and information offce
• The BBC report on the plan (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2839603.stm)de:Annan-Plan