Theresa May in Ankara to obtain Cyprus (the EU enlargement policy at a crossroads)

27/01/2017

 

 by Dimitris Konstantakopoulos

The British Prime Minister Theresa May is rushing to Ankara to discuss Cyprus, the Middle East and Turkey’s accession to the EU. She will first be going to Washington to test where the new US administration stands on this issue and to lobby there for the type of solution she wants to impose for the conflict in Cyprus. Britain has always been the architect of Western policy on Cyprus and Mrs. May will try not only to influence the Administration, but, if possible, secure  some promises from  Americans to Erdogan, in order to persuade him to give the go ahead to the Geneva plan for Cyprus.

The International Conference on Cyprus, hastily organized on the initiative of President Anastasiades, under pressure from the previous US Assistant Secretary Victoria Nuland, has, as a first  goal, to abolish the agreements of Zurich and London of 1960, which oblige Britain, Greece and Turkey to guarantee the sovereignty of the Republic of Cyprus and then, as a second, to  abolish the Republic of Cyprus altogether and create in its place a strange and unstable international protectorate, under the rule of an “International Police” force. (1)

Under normal conditions, May would have no chance of success. Erdogan would be ready to give everything they asked of him, on two conditions. Firstly that they would stop all assistance to Kurds and give him guarantees that they would not try to overthrow him. But the US under any administration, Trump’s included, is not ready to “sell off” Kurds, because it considers them a major strategic asset in the whole area. Besides that, Exxon Mobil (a strong supporter of an Annan-type solution for Cyprus) now commands considerable influence in official Washington and has already signed the most lucrative contracts for oil exploration in Iraqi Kurdistan. The atmosphere in Ankara, around Erdogan, is shaped by fears of an international conspiracy not to permit the existence of any state in the Middle East with a population of greater than 10 million people, as the ex-Consul to Mosul and now CHP deputy Ardaham Miletkveli has put it.

But nobody knows if the present conditions are “normal”. Everybody who feels badly cornered wants to persuade himself that an easy way out is available and many experienced leaders before Mr. Erdogan have succumbed to this kind of temptation.  And if there is anybody in the world who could try to organize such a delicate operation it is the Prime Minister of Britain Theresa May.

The British cards

The British PM is probably the only Western leader who could have any chance of being believed and trusted now by President Erdogan of Turkey, who suspects most of the Western establishment of being behind the coup attempt against him, and indeed of still harboring plans to overthrow him and dismember his country (2)

If Mrs. May has decided to go personally to Turkey to persuade Erdogan, it is because she believes the Cyprus affair is of paramount importance, for three reasons – the future of British bases on the island, the future of the Turkey-EU relationship and, also, possibly, other plans for the Middle East. (3)

There is also a fourth reason that Mrs. May is rushing to Ankara. This is that we are moving full steam ahead towards a new crisis of Greece and of the EU, so it is best to better to tidy up the loose ends before it explodes. As Germany, European Commission and the IMF are now staging yet another attack on Greeks and on Greece and its government (which has already accepted the proposed Cyprus settlement), Mrs. May is racing against the clock.

Britain has lost its past Empire but not its instincts and the diplomatic skills it commanded. Last summer the British Ambassador to Ankara was the only Western diplomatic representative to go quickly on record denouncing the coup. Of course one might wonder how it happened that the British Intelligence Service did not know anything about an impending  coup in one of the most important NATO countries, or if they did know, why they did not warn the government of an allied and friendly nation. But Turkish officials were probably very happy to receive any kind of Western support at that time, so they preferred not to question the intentions of Britons bearing gifts.

We don’t know what gifts for Turkey Mrs. May might really be carrying now in her luggage, for implementation in the Middle East. She will probably tell Mr. Erdogan how irresponsible those Western leaders are who play with the Kurdish fire and will promise him to make them come to their senses. She will doubtless try to persuade him how Israel and Saudi Arabia are much better friends than such impolite and ugly people as the Russian President and the Teheran Ayatollahs. And after all, in the Middle East, alliances and friendships can change more quickly than the seasons.

 

Read more at http://www.defenddemocracy.press/theresa-may-in-ankara-to-obtain-cyprus-the-eu-enlargement-policy-at-a-crossroads/