Cyprus - Foreign Relations
The Republic of Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004. The EU’s body of common rights and obligations (acquis communautaire) is suspended in the area administered by Turkish Cypriots pending a settlement to the island’s division. The Republic of Cyprus aligned itself with European positions within the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy. Cyprus has long identified with the West in its cultural affinities and trade patterns, and maintains close relations with Greece. Since 1974, the foreign policy of the Republic of Cyprus has sought the withdrawal of Turkish forces and the most favorable constitutional and territorial settlement possible. This campaign has been pursued primarily through international forums such as the United Nations. (See Political Conditions.) Turkey does not recognize the Republic of Cyprus.
Cyprus enjoys excellent relations with Greece and cooperates closely on a range of issues. As Turkey doesn’t recognise the Republic of Cyprus, relations with Turkey are much more difficult and strained. The continued division of Cyprus and the need for a solution impacts significantly on Cyprus’ relations with its neighbors and beyond.
Cyprus and the UK have a long-standing and wide-ranging bilateral relationship, based on historical ties and now strengthened through EU Membership. Over 300,000 Greek and Turkish Cypriots live permanently in the UK and over 10,000 students from Cyprus come to the UK annually to take up full time education. In May 2009 Gordon Brown gave a speech to Cypriot diaspora at an event hosted in the Foreign Office. Just as many Cypriots choose to live and work in the UK, many British citizens have relocated to Cyprus which has a large ex-pat community while hundreds of thousands more visit the island each year.
There have been several initiatives since 1974 to try to achieve a settlement of the Cyprus problem. All of these for one reason or another have run into the sand. Most recently, on 24 April 2004, the UN Secretary General’s Comprehensive Settlement Proposals, known as the “Annan Plan”, failed when put to separate and simultaneous referenda on both sides of the island. In the referenda, 65% of the Turkish Cypriots voted in favour of the plan and the Greek Cypriots rejected it by a 3 to 1 majority (76%).
Unfortunately, all efforts subsequent to the failure of the Annan Plan proved unproductive until the Cypriot Presidential elections in February 2008. Since then, Republic of Cyprus President Christofias and leader of the Turkish Cypriot community Mr Talat have met regularly. Fully fledged negoatiations started on 3 September 2008.
Negotiations to resolve the Cyprus Problem take place in a community-to-community framework, with the Republic of Cyprus president representing Greek Cypriots and, since the 1983 declaration of the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus," the "TRNC president" representing Turkish Cypriots. As such, the RoC FM does not take active part in the bi-communal discussions. Even so, Kyprianou has influence, and he attempts to shape debate in meetings of the Council of Ministers, formally the RoC executive branch's highest deliberative body. In Cypriot eyes -- and amongst many Europeans hostile to Ankara joining the Union -- Turkish EU accession is dependent on moves to normalize Turkey-Cyprus relations.
The Republic of Cyprus enjoys close relations with many countries, including Greece, Russia, China, France, Cuba, Israel, Egypt, Lebanon, and other countries in the region. Cyprus is a member of the United Nations and most of its agencies, as well as the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Council of Europe and the British Commonwealth. In addition, the government has signed the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency Agreement (MIGA).
Part and parcel of its non-recognition of the Republic of Cyprus, Ankara regularly opposes Cypriot membership in international bodies in which the GoT already sits, from the Wassenaar Arrangement and Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) to the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism (GICNT). Of greatest recent interest to Nicosia has been a spot in the Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia (CGPCS), since Cyprus maintains the world's eleventh-largest merchant fleet.
Under President Demetris Christofias, Cyprus sought to warm relations with Havana, Caracas, Tehran, Moscow, and Damascus. Since Christofias's election in February 2008, however, there was an ideologically-motivated attempt to turn back the clock to the heydays of the Non-Aligned Movement. He has publicly praised Fidel Castro, welcomed a new Venezuelan Embassy in Nicosia, lauded Iran, and vilified NATO and the Partnership for Peace (PfP). Christofias's commitment to Russian President Dimitri Medvedev to promote the latter's European security proposal within the EU seemed gratuitous, and his outreach to Hugo Chavez and Venezuela was an intentional move to distance his government from the United States. While the questionable policy shift is the president's making, the US called Kyprianou on it, urging him to use the new and/or upgraded relations with rogue states to demand better behavior and improvements in their abysmal human rights records.
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