September the third is the date on which the immediate future of the divided island of Cyprus will be decided. Since the election this February of Dimitris Christofias as the Greek Cypriot leader there has been a huge growth in the belief that a feasible plan for reunification can be worked out between the Turkish and Greek sides. Christiofias, who took over from the five year incumbent Tassos Papadopoulos, has stated that his government’s primary aim is the reunification of the island. His ascension to power has kick started the discourse on reunification, and he and his fellow political left winger, the Turkish Cypriot Talat, have already agreed to cooperate on issues such as crime prevention, environmental policy and cultural heritage. That kind of cross-border cooperation would not have happened under Papadopoulos, who publicly decried attempts at reunification and who, it is argued, massively influenced the failure, by referendum, of the Annan plan four years ago. Another key factor that is leading to speculation that this round of talks, due to start officially on September 3 of this year, will bring results is that Turkey itself is now in a position where it must show tangible support for a revived diplomatic attempt at reunification. Cyprus, which is already a member of the EU, has warned Turkey, which is currently attempting to join the EU, that Cypriot support will be predicated on this cooperation. Markos Kyprianou, the Greek Cypriot Foreign Minister, said earlier this week that, “Our goodwill to keep Turkey’s EU path open is not without limit.”He went on to add that, “If we see that Turkey is not being positive or constructive in its stance at a time when a new phase in finding a Cyprus solution has begun then we should reconsider our general policy towards Turkey’s EU accession.”Kyprianou was making it very clear that Turkey relies on Cyprus’s support in order to join the EU. Whilst his words could me construed as a thinly veiled threat, what they do highlight is the fact that the current round of talks on reunification are under the scrutiny of an international community that has effectively moved away from the political arena of the Cyprus Problem for the last four years - since the failure of the Annan plan. Turkey’s aspiration to join the EU gives some leeway to political pressure such as this from Kyprianou, whilst Christiofias’s announced desire for reunification, not to mention the shared ideological field as his Turkish counterpart, mean that the September 3 round of direct negotiations definitely hold the most graspable chance for reunification yet. The impact this has for foreign property investment in North Cyprus is massive, as house prices are expected to sky rocket up to the same height as those in the rest of the island as soon as reunification occurs.
