HOW THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY MADE A CYPRUS SETTLEMENT POSSIBLE

Abstract

Michael Stephen is Master of Laws LL M of the Inner Temple Barrister and a former member of the British House of Commons. He is also member of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House and author of The Cyprus Question, London, 1997. The crux of the current Cyprus problem is not the failure of Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots to reach agreement, but the internationalisation of the issue, and the failure of the international community to recognise the enormity of the injustice done for nearly forty years to the Turkish Cypriots by the Greek Cypriots and by the international community itself. The failure of the international community to acknowledge the reality of Cyprus and to refrain from seeking to impose its own framework for a solution, starting from the fiction that there is today only one state and only one government in the island, has made a Cyprus settlement impossible. Until this international attitude changes, no amount of talks or diplomatic pressure will succeed or will deserve to succeed.

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