Cyprus

29.04.04

Mr HANCOCK (United Kingdom). – The Assembly should reflect with great sadness on what has just happened. I commend your efforts, Mr President, in trying to put this matter to us. For a Parliamentary Assembly to deny access to people who want to come to speak to us is a step backwards and one that we shall regret.

This morning, we held a debate on Kosovo and much blame was laid at the door of the international community because it had taken its eye off the ball. The international community thought that the situation was under control and that it would be dealt with by those who had been left in charge. Manifestly, that was not the case.

When we reflect on what happened in the ballot, we must acknowledge that the majority of the people who voted against the settlement must have had that at the back of their mind. Could they trust the international community? Was its track record good enough for them to have the confidence to say, “We trust you”? There were more than 9 000 pages of documentation and it was not even in a form that could be easily disseminated to the overwhelming majority of people. For people to suggest that they did not know what the issues were is naïve in the extreme, but for people to say that it was impossible to read the small print of the proposals is undoubtedly correct. It was a huge task and I defy anyone in this Chamber to claim that they know all the documentation inside out. Would not it have been nice if the Turkish army had made a gesture of support and if 50% or 65% of them had left Cyprus before the referendum as a token of their support for it? How do we know that the 65 000 Turkish settlers eligible to vote do not make up the overwhelming majority of Turks in the north who voted yes? Surely they would have seen that as the only certain way for them to achieve EU citizenship. Was that not a contributory factor in their yes vote? One would have to be extraordinarily naïve to imagine that it was not a consideration. It certainly would have been for me in that situation.

If I were a Turkish Cypriot, would I have wanted to endorse this vote as eagerly as some have suggested? I do not know. I do not know how easy it would have been for me to regain the property that it now occupied by Greek Cypriots on the Greek side of the island. I do not know whether it was explained fully that I would have the right simply to walk across the green line and re-enter the property that was mine by birthright. Equally, the Greek Cypriots were not convinced that that facility would be offered to them, so surely we are all wrong to be surprised by the outcome of the ballot. So many questions were not answered properly and fully for the benefit of that community.

I am amazed – gobsmacked – by some of the expressions we have heard today, and the idea that people should have been fearless and embraced the proposal. They have had thirty years of partition; they have had thirty years of self-doubt. They did not trust each other, so when the United Nations said, “It’s make your mind up time, take it or leave it. We are not coming back to this, and if you vote against it we will wash our hands of it for a generation,” was that really helpful? Is putting that sort of fait accompli to people in an election really the right way to deal with a situation which has not only caused many people to lose their lives in the past, but for which many people, as we have heard today, continue to be willing to put their lives on the line? We should not be surprised. As an Organisation, we must work to bring these two communities together, but many issues must be resolved. One of them, sadly, is the inability of our Greek Cypriot colleagues to allow a Turkish Cypriot colleague – a fellow countryman – to speak to this Assembly. I am saddened by that, Doros. I respect you enormously, but you do your case no good at all by refusing this Assembly the opportunity to hear the other side of the story from someone affected. I am with you, Doros, but I am against you on this issue and it has done no good at all to the case of Cyprus.