Block Aggression on a Divided Isle

Every once in a while you read a two-line column-filler that acts like the proverbial alarm in the night. One such was the announcement this month that Turkey is beginning the process of “integrating” the occupied part of northern Cyprus, and will complete the absorption if the Republic of Cyprus applies in earnest to join the European Union.

A cynic might say that Turkey, having invaded and occupied the northern tier of the island, having crudely expelled its indigenous Greek-speaking inhabitants, and having imported Anatolian settlers (unpopular with Turkish Cypriots) was doing no more than to formalize its conquest. But this, though true enough as an observation, would miss an essential point: For the first time, a NATO member with a large United States subsidy would actually be digesting the physical territory of a small neighbor.

Things are bad enough as they stand. The invasion has created a line of separation that no Cypriot is permitted to cross. A kind of apartheid reinforces every sort of antagonism and suspicion between the two communities. And, while international bodies have been looking the other way, Cyprus has become the location of a highly toxic regional arms race with both Greeks and Turks bankrupting their strained treasuries in the acquisition of high-tech weapons.

Endless resolutions by the United Nations and the U.S. Congress calling for the withdrawal of Turkish troops and the demilitarization of the island have been ignored for almost a quarter of a century. And now the tendency toward European unification, at both the economic and political levels, is about to be put sharply into reverse. Cyprus qualifies for EU membership and has met all the relevant conditions. It is not for Turkey to veto such a decision, let alone to riposte with threats of outright annexation.

The absurd thing is that Turkey seeks to become an EU member on its own; Greece already is a member and Cyprus a candidate or threshold member.

European Union rules abolish any restriction on the movement of capital and labor. The forced assimilation of northern Cyprus by Turkey would mean that a Cyprus passport was valid for travel or business or settlement anywhere in Europe--except northern Cyprus--against the day when all three countries would be members of the same customs union. But that day would be indefinitely postponed, and there would be a casus belli in the meantime.

Cypriots--Greek and Turkish--have different historical narratives, different languages and religions. But as any visitor to the the island can attest, they also have a very high level of education, a generally secular culture and a strongly democratic tradition. Indeed, until the Cold War intervened, there was no record of intercommunal violence. Most of the killing that U.S. Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke is now urging people to forget was instigated by outsiders.

Now that the Cold War is history, Cyprus could be the counterexample to Bosnia and also a model for Greek-Turkish reconciliation on a wider front. The alternative, of a war within NATO and fought with NATO weapons, is not in the least bit unthinkable, unless you actually think about it.

The Greek Cypriot majority (82% versus 18% at the last reliable count) is opposed to physical partition but is reconciled to federation. It has agreed in writing to a confederal solution with substantial autonomy for the Turkish minority. But it cannot be expected to tolerate the absorption of one-third of its former territory into that of a vastly stronger neighbor. Nor can mainland Greece bear such a combination of threat and insult.

Many of the historic rights and wrongs inflaming the world’s trouble spots are complicated, but this one is not. As Turkey’s paymaster and armorer, Washington has a right and a duty to demand that Ankara’s foolish talk of Anschluss be abandoned, and that the Turks and Greeks of Cyprus be given their own fair chance to share in an expanded Europe instead of becoming prisoners of an expansionist Turkey.