GUARANTEES AND CYPRUS: PART OF THE PROBLEM OR PART OF THE SOLUTION

In my opinion, there should be no Treaty of Guarantee after a comprehensive solution to the Cyprus problem. What is to be guaranteed? The constitution, the territorial integrity, the human rights or the demilitarization?

The Cypriots experienced that the Treaty of Guarantee, signed in 1960, was not observed by the signing parties: Turkey, Greece and Great Britain. One of the guarantor powers, Greece, staged a coup d’Etat against the legitimate President and the government of the Republic of Cyprus in the summer of 1974 and the other guarantor power, Turkey, used this as an excuse to invade and occupy the 37% of our island’s territory, on which a separate statelet was proclamed afterwards. The third guarantor power, the Great Britain, watched all these developments, only by safeguarding its sovereign military bases on the island. 

The Treaty of Guarantee, in my opinion, should be totally abolished. There is no need to amend its content and scope, which are both outdated and contrary to the new state of affairs.

The Republic of Cyprus is since 1 May 2004 an equal member of the European Union.

It is interesting to note that there is a Protocol on Cyprus stipulating that the Treaty of Accession of Cyprus will not apply to the British Sovereign Military Bases in Cyprus. Another Article of the Protocol says that “The application of the acquis shall be suspended in those areas of the Republic of Cyprus in which the Government of the Republic of Cyprus does not exercise effective control.”

At the moment, the most urgent guarantee that would be needed is a guarantee, which will restore the territorial integrity of the Republic of Cyprus, by withdrawing all the foreign troops and the Turkish settlers. Then the acquis communitaire of the EU would be valid all over the island.

On the other hand, the Geneva Convention of 1949, section III, article 49, prohibits colonization by an occupying power. Article 49 states in its last paragraph: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” Today there are reported estimates of over 200,000 illegal Turkish settlers in the Turkish occupied part of Cyprus.

The unequal Treaty of Guarantee, like the Treaty of Alliance, which were signed together with the Treaty of Establishment of the Republic of Cyprus in 1960, have no provision about their termination and they date back to the days of “cold war against communism”, limiting the independence of the Republic of Cyprus.

As I mentioned above, the three guarantor powers did not respect the independence, the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of the Republic of Cyprus in the days of need. On the contrary, they promoted and protected their own interests rather than those of the Republic of Cyprus. What else, the three guarantor powers were all members of the NATO, whereas the Republic of Cyprus had a foreign policy supporting the non-aligned countries.

It was revealed 30 years later that a gentlemen’s agreement was signed secretly by the Prime Ministers of Turkey and Greece, on 11 February 1959, in the presence of the British Foreign Minister, Lord Perth. According to this secret agreement, Turkey and Greece would give every effort so that the Republic of Cyprus would become a member of the NATO with possible NATO military bases on the island and they would urge the President and the Vice-President of the new Republic to ban the activities of the communist party, the AKEL.

It is well-known that Turkey considered Article 3 of the Treaty of Guarantee the greatest Turkish gain at Zurich, saying that this was the vital point of the agreement. Turkey wanted to use the treaty arrangements to achive the partition by intervening in Cyprus militarily. Therefore, Turkey based her illegal invasion and occupation in 1974 on her own interpretation of the Treaty of Guarantee, insisting that the Treaty gave her a right to a unilateral military intervention.

Turkey has never accepted the submission of this issue to an international body so as to get clarifications on the content of this Treaty. Article 4 of the Treaty of Guarantee has been examined by eminent jurists over the years. All of these opinions support the view that the correct legal interpretation of the article is that it could not give a right to unilateral military intervention.

On the other hand, one should bear in mind that on the basis of the Charter of the UN, particularly of Article 2(4), the use of force by one state against another is forbidden. The provisions of the Treaty of Guarantee as well as of Article II and Article IV do not provide for or include any rights of military intervention. Therefore, the continuing presence of Turkish troops in Cyprus after the illegal invasion of 1974 constitutes the continuation of an illegality, which is contrary to the UN Charter, to the content of the Treaty of Guarantee as well as to the general international law.

Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, states that member states “shall refrain… from the threat or use of force.” Article 51 of the Charter authorizes the use of force for purposes of self-defence only. Turkey cannot avail herself of Article 51 since she was not attacked nor was she threatened with attack. Additionally, the use of force is permitted under the Charter in Article 53 in the chapter on Regional Arrangements. Article 53 is also not available to Turkey since the Treaty of Gurantee is not a regional arrangement. Article 53 states that “no enforcement action shall be taken under regional arrangements… without the authorization of the Security Council.”

If a guarantee would be unavoidable for the feeling of security of both the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriots, the guarantee of the UN Security Council, under Chapter VII of the Charter or a guarantee of the European Union could be proposed for a certain period of time.

On the other hand, one should not forget that the UN “Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation”, adopted in 1970, states that “No state or group of States has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any State. Consequently, armed intervention and all other forms of interference or attempted threats against the personality of the State or against its political, economic and cultural elements are in violation of international law.”

(Opinion given for the Master Thesis of Barıs Burcu at the Near East University, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Department of International Relations, under the title “A Study on the Treaty of Guarantee of Cyprus 1960 and its Reflections to the Future Solution of the Cyprus Problem: Whether it is a “Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution”, Nicosia 2009, pp.111-113)