The plea of Talat

The visit, which was originally planned for March 30 but was postponed because of pressures from the Greek lobby that the first Cypriot contact of the new Obama administration should not be with the Turkish Cypriot side, as well as because of complications in Clinton’s program, is coming now after a meeting between Clinton and Greek Cypriot Foreign Minister Kyprianou on the sidelines of the EU summit at Prague and a scheduled April 20 meeting in Washington with the Greek Cypriot minister.

That is, in a way the meeting with Talat is sandwiched in between two meetings of Secretary of State Clinton with Kyprianou.

This is a rather improved situation compared to the past when Turkish Cypriots were unable to meet at all any executive of foreign governments to explain their views, but still, this sandwiched meeting will demonstrate the immense difficulties the Turkish Cypriot side has been facing to make their voice heard.

As an "internationally recognized" government, Greek Cypriots have the possibility to address every possible forum, meet with anyone they would like, face no difficulty in coming together with their counterparts, but an invitation by a foreign minister to Talat not in his capacity as president, but as a "Turkish Cypriot citizen of the Republic of Cyprus" is treated by everyone as if Turkish Cypriots were accorded an incredibly important bonus.

In no way can Talat’s forthcoming visit to Washington and the scheduled April 15 meeting with Clinton be considered as insignificant developments. Yet, if this visit was designed to show Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriot opponents of Talat, the stick part of a new U.S. "stick and carrot" policy for Cyprus, it is obvious that the stick that will be shown is a cracked one.

It should not be ignored either that the invitation was extended to Talat at the request of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who has been very much worried that Talat’s Republican Turks’ Party, or CTP, is heading to a humiliating defeat in the April 19 parliamentary polls in northern Cyprus. Erdoğan’s hope is that with the effect of this visit on the electoral perception a single-party UBP government might be avoided and a UBP-CTP grand coalition or a CTP-Democrat Party, or DP, or UBP-DP coalition might be achieved.

The UBP coming to power in northern Cyprus either as a single-party government or as senior partner of a coalition will indeed have no immediate impact on the Cyprus peace talks, though it might be difficult for Talat to continue the talks without a more efficient consultation mechanism with the government. There might be some serious confrontation between the president and the government regarding amendment of the Land Commission Law and rewriting the history books. Though Eroğlu has agreed so far that Talat should continue as negotiator, a UBP-dominated Turkish legislature may even eventually want to strip Talat with the power of representing Turkish Cypriots at the Cyprus talks. Still, not only Turkish Cypriots, everyone must learn to respect the outcome of elections.

Visit: A golden opportunity

Furthermore, rather than approaching with palliative and conjectural concerns, the Talat’s visit to Washington should be considered as a "golden opportunity" that he should utilize to make some Turkish Cypriot plea heard by the U.S. administration.

According to what we have been hearing from Talat’s staff, the Turkish Cypriot president is preparing to herald talks with Clinton some key demands of his people. These include an expectation that the U.S. should use its "persuasive power" on Greek Cypriots to agree to a "power sharing deal" based on the "political equality" of the two peoples of the island and the "bi-zonal, bi-communal federation" calls of the UN Security Council. He will as well stress that the international isolation of Turkish Cypriots should be eased and the U.S. can and should play a pioneering role in achieving that goal. If this current process is allowed go down the drain like the previous efforts because Greek Cypriots refuse to share power with Turkish Cypriots, it might be very difficult to sustain the concept of a reunified federal Cyprus.