ABSTRACT
The European Commission’s recommendation to suspend eight of the 35 chapters in negotiations for membership in November 2006 was the result of Turkey’s failure to extend aspects of the Customs Union Agreement to the Republic of Cyprus. This was not, as an initial reading might suggest, a result of a trade dispute but rather is a direct result of the protracted confl ict on the island of Cyprus. A historical review of the accession process suggests that the EU has shifted the burden of confl ict resolution in Cyprus to Turkey. What is surprising is the little engagement, academic or otherwise, which examines the effi cacy (and integrity) of such a policy, let alone the narrative which accompanies it. Nonetheless, Turk asserts that: ‘the dynamics of the Cyprus confl ict need to be changed if there is to be hope of success concerning any future UN-brokered solution that might be proposed.’1 In order to achieve this, he suggests that it requires the involvement of not just Turkey and the Turkish and Greek Cypriots but also the European Union, Greece, the United States and the United Nations. In particular, Turk contends that there is a signifi cant onus on Greek Cypriots:
in order to rise above the ‘uncompromising position taken by the present government,’ opposition forces, moderates from all political elements, and leaders of civil society must generate debate of the critical ‘core issues’. They must understand that regional stability will result from the twostate model and accept that the 1963 actions of the Greek Cypriots against Turkish Cypriots are as responsible for the confl ict as the 1974 actions of Turkey against the Greek Cypriots. They must also acknowledge that upheaval from their homes and mourning their missing apply equally to Turkish Cypriots as well as Greek Cypriots, and reconsider the advantages of implementing the bizonal and bicommunal principles to which Greek Cypriots agreed more than thirty years ago.2
