It’s been nine months since Ersin Tatar assumed the presidency of the self-declared Turkish republic of Northern Cyprus and, like his predecessors, he has found little has changed.
Embargos, international isolation and political restrictions remain perennial problems for his unrecognised state. Even today, nearly 38 years after the territory proclaimed independence, foreign dignitaries pass through his colonial-era office and still object to being photographed next to the flags on his desk.
“They’re afraid of the Greek Cypriots telling them off,” said the self-avowed nationalist, pointing to the Turkish and Turkish Cypriot ensigns positioned either side of a portrait of Kemal Ataturk behind him. “Our friends in the south will do everything they can to stop us from being able to prosper … their policy is to stifle us until we give up.”
Still, Ersin is in ebullient mood.
Ahead of his mentor, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, visiting the territory on Tuesday to commemorate Turkey’s 1974 invasion – a “peace operation,” he contends, that saved his people from “certain extermination” – he appears to be on a roll. “In Turkey he’s treated like a pop star,” one aide said. “People come up to him in the streets. He loves it.”
At 60, the Cambridge-educated politician attributes the public displays of enthusiasm to Erdoğan himself. Ankara, he insists, has not only stood by the statelet through some “hard and lonely” times; from the outset the Turkish president has embraced his proposal of a two-state solution to the Cyprus problem after years of failed peace talks aimed at uniting the Mediterranean island in a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation.
“People think [he] instructed me to follow his policy. That is not true. I am the man who convinced Erdoğan that after all these federation opportunities had been exhausted we should go for this two-state solution,” he told the Guardian, downplaying the EU’s refusal to discuss a settlement along such lines.
“He supported me and is very happy to do so because Turkish public opinion has bought it … For 85 million Turks, Cyprus is a very high-powered national issue. I have always said that the only way forward to a realistic solution is a two-state solution.”
Turkish Cypriots, he says, are not only indebted to a motherland that intervened militarily to safeguard the minority in 1974 – following an Athens-inspired coup aimed at union with Greece – but a protector that has also bankrolled them to the tune of about $300m annually. To this day, Turkey is the only country to recognise the entity.
“We obviously have people like Mustafa Akıncı [his moderate predecessor] and others who think otherwise but they are not in power,” said Tatar. “I am now in power … and I am the president of Turkish Cypriots all over, here, in Turkey, in England, Canada and Australia.”
The invasion in 1974 resulted in Turkish troops seizing 37% of Cyprus in the name of what was then 18% of its population. Ever since, both communities have been forced to live either side of a UN-patrolled ceasefire line, symbolic of the inability of mediators to solve the west’s longest-running diplomatic dispute. At the height of the conflict, about 250,000 Greek Cypriots were displaced from their homes, pushed into what is now the internationally recognised south.
In 2004 Turkish Cypriots voted in favour of a reunification deal brokered by the UN seen as the closest yet to ending the dispute. It still irks Tartar, a former prime minister, that while Greek Cypriots rejected the plan they were allowed to join the EU.
“Whether Greek Cypriots like it or not, Turkish Cypriots are co-owners and co-founders of the [1960] Republic of Cyprus. Numbers are irrelevant … there have been times in the past when probably there have more Turkish people here than Greeks,” he said. “A lot of water has flown under the bridge, so why don’t they just wake up to the reality of the new Cyprus so that we can have peace? We are two states anyway.”
In the history of the breakaway republic, no election has been as contentious as that of Tatar elevated to the post after garnering only 4,000 votes more than the leftwing Akıncı , a vocal opponent of policies his own supporters have long feared will lead to the north’s annexation by Turkey.
Turkish Cypriots opposed to a settlement that would seal the island’s permanent division, claim that without Ankara’s flagrant interference in the run-up to the October poll, victory would never have been secured for the conservative National Unity party leader. A recent report, released after months of inquiry by lawyers, academics, activists and researchers, concluded the ballot had been riddled with irregularities, including bribes-for-votes and threats against Akıncı, his family and close associates.
“Tatar was handed the election on a plate,” said Mine Atli, a Turkish Cypriot lawyer who was among the report’s authors. “The Turkish embassy in [northern] Nicosia was turned into an election campaign headquarters. Tatar is merely a puppet of the Erdoğan administration … we are the real owners of this island, not them, and so we will decide its future.”
Celebrations marking the 47th anniversary peaked on Tuesday with Erdoğan confirming that steps would be taken to resettle the ghost town of Varosha, a Greek enclave that for decades had remained untouched until Ankara controversially announced it would reopen parts of the resort in a move also thought to have swung the vote in his protégé’s favour.
Lashing out at Europe and vowing to “do what we need to do,” the leader declared that with further demilitarisation of the zone – long under Turkish army oversight - a new era had began in what will be seen as intensified efforts to exploit an area of the occupied north that had remained an emblem of hope for Greek Cypriots.
The move, in violation of UN resolutions along with the hardening of Ankara’s stance more generally on Cyprus, has been derided as a stunt aimed at currying favour with nationalists back home at a time of domestic problems for the strongman. “He will use Cyprus like Margaret Thatcher used the Falklands,” said Atli, who was raised in Britain.
Opposition MPs, many appalled by Erdoğan’s authoritarianism, boycotted parliament when the leader unveiled plans for the construction of a government complex to help boost the state ‘s international standing in an address before lawmakers on Monday.
For Turkish Cypriots who support reunification under the roof of a shared federation and have taken to the streets in the past in protest over the territory’s creeping Islamisation, the softly spoken Tatar, who trained as a chartered accountant and logn worked in the UK, is their worst nightmare. Many have applied for Republic of Cyprus passports – issued by the south – and fled, leaving the north to become inhabited by socially conservative settlers from Anatolia.
The visit is being watched closely by the EU. But while the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, says the bloc will “never, ever” accept a solution that would legitimise the permanent partition of a member state, the Turkish Cypriot leader remains seemingly unperturbed.
If there is no solution, ties with Turkey will inevitably deepen, he says, even if he also cherishes the idea of his people one day joining Europe.
“I want to be in Europe and Turkey has not told me there is no such policy … but unless we recognise the realities on the island, we won’t reach an agreement and the status quo will prevail,” he said. “Turkish Cypriots will still be under embargo and isolation, restricted and without a recognised state … but we will adjust accordingly.”