Just Another Ugly American in Cyprus

Just Another Ugly American
By PHILIP TERZIAN
The Providence Journal
Aug 10, 2004, 05:04

NICOSIA, Cyprus -- It was more than a little embarrassing to be an American in
Cyprus last week.

A bumptious State Department bureaucrat, Laura Kennedy, was touring the country
and visiting the northern third of the island under Turkish military
occupation. She lectured the Greek Cypriots about their rejection this spring
of the Annan reunification plan, which would have effectively delivered their
free-market, democratic republic into the hands of the generals in Ankara. She
then dined with the political leader of the Turkish Cypriots at a Kyrenian
restaurant whose Greek owner had been driven out by the Turkish army.

The Cypriots, to their credit, regarded Kennedy's offensiveness with a sense of
humor. They graciously assumed that she didn't realize the Greek Cypriot
restaurant owner had been ethnically cleansed from Kyrenia, and they smiled at
her description of the Annan plan as "fair and balanced." They are accustomed
to American officialdom's repeating such talking points -- and repeating them
over and over -- and wondered if she had deliberately adapted the Fox News
slogan.

There's no question about it: The State Department is annoyed with the Republic
of Cyprus for rejecting Kofi Annan's confusing proposal. In truth, many Greek
Cypriots were conflicted about the plan: While they fervently wish to see their
island reunified, and the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities politically
reconciled, they could not get past the dangerous flaws, and the obvious
concessions to the Turkish military, in the Annan formula.

The U.N. plan would have allowed the Turkish army to remain on Cyprus
indefinitely, without security guarantees for the Greek majority. It would have
forced Cypriot taxpayers to subsidize the cost of repairing the damage from the
Turkish invasion, and decades of plunder and neglect by a foreign invader. It
would have barred Greek Cypriots from traveling in parts of their own country,
or seeking compensation for stolen property. And on and on.

To be sure, American impatience is not grounded in American hostility to the
Republic of Cyprus. It could hardly be so: Cyprus is a democratic member of the
European Union, historically friendly to the United States, a faithful ally in
the war on terrorism. American impatience is caused by the fact that Cyprus is
a thorn in the side of Turkey, and America's strategic relationship with Turkey
supersedes all else in the region. This may not be practical, and it is
certainly unwise; but it is a fact of life that the Cypriots understand, and
sadly accept.

Because Turkey is ambitious to join the European Union, and because the United
States is Turkey's foremost advocate for membership, the United States needs
the Cyprus problem to go away. Turkey cannot join the EU so long as its army
illegally occupies one-third of the territory of an EU member, and so
Washington is anxious to "solve" the problem by any means necessary. Of course,
the United States would have rightfully objected to the provisions of the Annan
plan applied to, say, nearby Israel, or our own territory; but the Greek
Cypriots were expected to take a deep breath and swallow their medicine.

Kennedy, and her successors, can return to Cyprus again and again to pronounce
the Annan plan "fair and balanced," but repeating such slogans doesn't make
them true. Can American policy ever be expected to move from accommodation of
the Turkish military to embracing the U.S. national interest? Maybe. The
challenge for Cyprus is that it is universally perceived as a problem when, in
fact, it constitutes an opportunity for the United States and the European
Union.

Cyprus sits at the easternmost limits of Europe in the Mediterranean, but its
culture is indisputably European. A visiting American feels comfortable in
Cyprus, in familiar (if exotic) surroundings. It is also a crossroads society,
and has been for centuries: A mixture of Christian and Muslim, a variety of
disparate nationalities, astride the trade routes of the classical world and
the modern Middle East. The fact that these various streams have flowed
together harmoniously for so long, and within a lively democracy and
conspicuously prosperous economy, is not insignificant.

Americans talk about secular Turkey as a beacon for the Muslim world, and a
bridge between East and West. But no Arab looks to Turkey as a model for
anything, except for things to avoid; and Turkey's neighbors are united in
disdain for the Ankara regime. Cyprus, by contrast, is everything American
policymakers claim for Turkey -- but without the military junta, human-rights
abuses and record of genocide. If Kennedy and her colleagues seek a model
multicultural society in the region, planted firmly in the democratic West, but
circulating comfortably throughout the Middle East, they need look no further
than Cyprus.

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