Katie Clerides: a true believer in a bizonal, bicommunal federation

Katie Clerides who died last week was a rare bird. Her father was the Greek Cypriot president of the Republic of Cyprus 1993-2003 and her mother was from India which was unusual in Cyprus at the time.

Although it was frowned upon during Cyprus’ struggle for union with Greece 1955-59, Katie had an English education, like many children of mixed heritage – usually at the English School and the American Academy.

I attended both and was in upper sixth form with Katie at English School in 1967. She was a quiet and studious girl, and my abiding memory of her at school was when she would don an Indian sari on United Nations day, which the school celebrated owing to the number of international students – British, German, Yugoslavian, Saudi Arabian, Israeli and Chinese, to name a few of the nationalities in my time – mostly the children of diplomats.

After the English School I met up with Katie and her husband, the peace activist Costas Shammas, on and off for the odd lunch and on class reunions. But I followed Katie’s political career with interest. Unsurprisingly, she championed peace and rapprochement with the Turkish Cypriots in Cyprus and was a fervent supporter of a bizonal, bicommunal federation (BBF) free of cynicism about Turkish intentions.

And she could be as courageous and tough as the toughest and showed it when she fell out with former president Nicos Anastasiades, saying he was the greatest disappointment of her life over the Crans-Montana debacle in 2017 when BBF came close to agreement but then Anastasiades and the current president, Nikos Christodoulides, faltered — bottled it if you prefer.

They deny blame and claim that Turkey was to blame although Christodoulides now wishes to pick up the pieces from where they were left at Crans-Montana which suggests that an opportunity was indeed missed in 2017.

Like my other friend from the English School, the late Zenon Stavrinides who died last year, Katie was a true believer that Cyprus can be put back together again if people get rid of the rancour of the past and learn to trust each other. 

Shamefully, I could not attend her funeral, but I am sure she would approve my dedicating this week’s column to her in the cause of rapprochement and BBF that she espoused. Many Turkish Cypriots attended her funeral including Mustafa Akinci and Mehmet Ali Talat and the current leader of the Republican Turkish Party all of whom are true believers too.

There will be elections for “president” in the “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC)”, and BBF is on the ballot box – one candidate, Tufan Erhurman, favours BBF, and the other, the incumbent Ersin Tatar, insists on two states – a euphemism for separatist independence which is another name for partition.

For Turkish Cypriots to appreciate how taboo two states sound to Greek Cypriots, imagine how you would feel if the Greek side insisted on union with Greece? It is no way to conduct international relations to insist on solution that is taboo to the other side. 

Two states are as much in breach of the treaty of guarantee as union with Greece which Turkey invoked to justify its invasion of Cyprus in 1974. To remind readers, the treaty of guarantee says that “Greece, Turkey and the UK undertake to prohibit any activity aimed at promoting directly or indirectly the union of Cyprus with any other state or partition of the island.”

Two states would also be unlawful because it would legitimise the use of force against the territorial integrity and political independence of another state. In the Kosovo advisory opinion the International Court of Justice said at paragraph 81 that the Turkish Cypriot UDI of 1983 was a breach of an absolute rule of international law.

Apart from being wrong and unlawful, two states would disturb many Turkish Cypriots’ notion of being Cypriot. Even Ersin Tatar in his interview with the influencer and MEP Fidias Panayiotou on being asked who he was began by identifying himself as a Turkish Cypriot, which was more revealing than he intended.

Deep in their psyche many Turkish Cypriots have a vague notion they are part of the same tree trunk as their Greek Cypriot compatriots without whom they would lose their Cypriot identity, natural as well as legal.

They must know they would all lose EU citizenship if they break away as it is based on their citizenship of the Republic of Cyprus (RoC). Turkey is unlikely ever to become a member of the EU and it would be unwise to throw away such a valuable citizenship – for what exactly?

President Erdogan of Turkey told the UN General Assembly recently that BBF had been tried and failed in 2017. But BBF has never been tried in Cyprus; what was tried and failed at Crans-Montana in 2017 were negotiations about the nature of the BBF yetto be implemented.

One of the main arguments in favour of BBF and against two states is that it has never been tried. It is true that in their heart of hearts many Greek Cypriots find it difficult to embrace BBF, but so what?

The answer is not to abandon BBF altogether and insist on a solution that is haram for Greek Cypriots, but to make fine adjustments in the cold light of day to improve on the BBF model available at Crans-Montana with tools not available back in 2017.

Thank you Katie for championing BBF and condolences to her husband Costas and the wider Clerides family.