NATIONALISTS AND DEEP STATE STIRRING THE "TRNC" POT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 NICOSIA 000301 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR EUR/SE E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/01/2017 TAGS: PREL PGOV UNFICYP CY TU SUBJECT: NATIONALISTS AND DEEP STATE STIRRING THE "TRNC" POT REF: A. NICOSIA 140 ¶B. NICOSIA 151 Classified By: Ambassador Ronald Schlicher, Reasons 1.4 (b),(d) ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: In recent months, nationalist elements in the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus" appear to be manufacturing and/or exploiting events in order to pressure pro-solution "President" Mehmet Ali Talat and "Prime Minister" Ferdi Soyer to toe a harder line more consistent with policies of the mainland Turkish "Deep State." Instigators may also intend to affect Turkish presidential and parliamentary elections by putting in play the "national issue" of Cyprus. While we cannot assess the campaign's success in Ankara, the nationalist drumbeat here has forced Talat to look continually over his shoulder, vacillating as he contemplates negotiations under the July 8 Process framework. Still regrouping after a series of electoral defeats, local nationalist parties such as Tahsin Ertugruloglu's UBP have not yet been able to craft a credible opposition message to take full advantage of Talat's shrinking political stature. Soyer, in fact, has assured the Ambassador that the majority of Turkish Cypriots still support his "government." Nonetheless, the political tide in the Turkish Cypriot community seems to be turning right, dampening hopes for movement on Cyprus Problem settlement negotiations. END SUMMARY. -------------- RELATIONS GETTING DOWNRIGHT UGLY -------------- ¶2. (C) Relations between "President" Talat's CTP-led "government" and local representatives of the Turkish "Deep State" have grown increasingly strained in 2007 (Ref A). With elections in Ankara around the corner, hard-line Turkish nationalist elements on Cyprus appear bent on injecting the Cyprus card into the mainland political process. Should the AKP (which has strongly backed Talat and the CTP) lose political ground in Turkish elections later this year, anti-solution nationalists in the Turkish Cypriot community hope they will emerge from the political wilderness to which they have been exiled since the 2004 Annan Plan referendum and the end of the Denktash regime. Right-wing groups, therefore, have stepped up their public sniping against Talat, Soyer, and the CTP "government" -- often with brazenly open support from mainland Turkish military brass stationed here. A recent series of incidents, all widely reported in the Turkish Cypriot press, have provided ammunition for reactionary critics of the Talat administration. It is unclear whether these incidents have been manufactured or merely seized upon as targets of opportunity -- but taken together, they smell of a nationalist smear campaign against the north's erstwhile pro-solution civilian leadership. -------------- Yet More Flags? -------------- ¶3. (SBU) In January, for example, an organization calling itself the "Flag at the Summit Association" began publicly lobbying to fly two massive flags on the summit of Besparmak (Pentadaktylos, in Greek) Mountain, a garish complement to the half-mile-long Turkish Cypriot flag painted on a prominent hillside closer to Nicosia. The organization reportedly is holding fund-raisers to raise the 80,000 YTL ($56,500) required for the project. In early February, members garnered additional press coverage by conducting a tree-planting event on the slopes of Besparmak. While the mainstream media, much of which still supports Talat, has tried to starve the story of oxygen, few have criticized the flag initiative. One pro-solution activist privately told us that although most Turkish Cypriots understand that poke-in-the-eye gestures like this will only complicate settlement prospects, very few people are willing to be seen speaking out "against the flag" in the current, charged environment. -------------- -------------- Debate Over 1963 "Bathtub Massacre" Proves Irresistible -------------- -------------- ¶4. (SBU) In late February, public debate in the Turkish Cypriot community over an iconic photograph brought an immediate response from the nationalists. The photo depicted a T/C family brutally murdered in the bathtub of their Nicosia home during the December 1963 outbreak of inter-communal violence in Cyprus. Their killers are generally believed to have been Greek Cypriot EOKA NICOSIA 00000301 002 OF 003 guerrillas; the famous photograph of the crime scene is etched in every Turkish Cypriot's brain, and "government" officials long ago transformed the home into the much-visited "Museum of Barbarism." In a February 27 interview with prominent newspaper "Kibris," however, a former Turkish Resistance Organization (TMT) fighter cast doubt on the circumstances in which the photo was taken, claiming that he had discovered the corpses elsewhere and moved them to the bathtub for greater shock effect. Far-left daily "Afrika" went further, publishing allegations that Turkish nationalists themselves committed the murders in hopes of provoking Turkey's intervention to end the inter-communal clashes. ¶5. (SBU) Few mainstream Turkish Cypriots accepted Afrika's revisionist version of events (and indeed, despite some doubt about where the family was killed, no serious evidence has emerged suggesting that anyone other than EOKA pulled the trigger). Nonetheless, nationalist veterans' groups, led by the Turkish Cypriot Fighters' Association, used press coverage of the story to re-ignite public discussion of Greek Cypriot "barbarism" -- and slander any traitors who questioned the long-held "official" version of events. They orchestrated the return to the island of the husband/father of the victims, Brigadier General (retired) Nihat Ilhan, a former Turkish Army physician, who was feted by NGOs and political parties alike as he attended "Martyrs' Day" events. Pressed for comment, Talat described as "false and shameful" the suggestion that ethnic Turks had perpetrated the massacre. Other politicians hurriedly declared their support for Ilhan -- and, by extension, for Turkey. -------------- Shake HIS Hand? Never! -------------- ¶6. (U) A "handshake crisis" erupted on March 18 when the Commander of the Turkish forces on the island, Lieutenant General Hayri Kivrikoglu, allegedly refused to shake "Prime Minister" Ferdi Soyer's hand at a dinner reception in honor of Ilhan. The two argued at the dinner, and Soyer reportedly stormed out. According to a right-wing journalist who published an "expose" on the spat in the press, Kivrikoglu told Soyer he would not shake the hand of a "Prime Minister" who did not play the (Turkish) national anthem or hang Ataturk posters and Turkish flags at his party's general assembly earlier that day. Soyer insisted that there had been posters and flags (which were, indeed, visible on television coverage of the event). "Don't you believe we are Turkish?" Soyer reportedly asked the general. "Prove you are!" Kivrikoglu replied. ¶7. (C) Reaction to the Soyer-Kivrikoglu spat was widespread and broke along ideological lines. Tahsin Ertugruloglu of the right-wing UBP endorsed the general's behavior, calling it "a natural reaction to bad conduct." In a subsequent meeting with the Ambassador, he commented that that if Soyer did not behave like a "proper 'Prime Minister,'" he should expect "ugly incidents." Soyer and the CTP should decide to which "state" they belong. Retired Fighters' Association chairman Salih Direktor urged Soyer to apologize to the Turkish Cypriot people for not defending them adequately, for having changed school history texts (Ref B) to "appease" Greek Cypriots, and for singing a socialist anthem, rather than the national anthem, at his party congress. Eighteen opposition mayors visited Kivrikoglu March 22 to express their gratitude to Turkey for respecting the martyrs, the flag, and the national anthem. ¶8. (SBU) Scrambling to protect their right flank, members of the ruling CTP echoed Soyer's defense of the party's "Turkishness." Party Secretary General Omer Kalyoncu was quick to point out, however, that "certain circles" were using the handshake scandal for political point-scoring -- disrespecting the "free will of the Turkish Cypriot people," who had elected CTP on its pro-solution platform. He blamed the UBP for "hiding behind Kivrikoglu." Calls from pro-solution NGOs for the general to apologize (and butt out of politics) went unheeded. -------------- Smoothing Things Over...For Now -------------- ¶9. (C) The CTP-led civilian "government" is clearly worried about the implications of an open fight with the military -- especially after this year's bruising fight between Talat and the army over the removal of the Ledra Street bridge. "PM" Soyer has made public moves to put the handshake episode NICOSIA 00000301 003 OF 003 behind him. During a "Martyrs' Commemoration" speech on March 25, he made soothing noises toward the army, declaring that there should be no ill-will between Turkey and the "TRNC." Kivrikoglu's deputy, Major General Mehmet Eroz, reportedly made a point of immediately shaking Soyer's hand. It is unclear that this charm offensive has been totally effective, however. April 2 press reports quoted Kivrikoglu saying he would never forgive Soyer for disrespecting Turkishness. ¶10. (C) In private, CTP insiders understand that their cold war with the military and their UBP allies is far from over. Soyer privately told the Ambassador March 27 that anti-solution forces (both here and on the mainland) "hate" him. Nationalist forces were trying to destroy the CTP's pro-solution base of support, he said, by provoking the party of Talat to take uncharacteristic, hard-line steps. The UBP was hoping to exploit tension on the island that was spiking in response to upcoming presidential elections in Turkey, Soyer continued. The "PM" was confident, however, that the majority of Turkish Cypriots still supported his government. ¶11. (C) CTP's greatest asset may indeed prove to be the weakness of nationalist feeling in the north. Although hope for Cyprus reunification and support for the EU have both fallen precipitously in the T/C community, Ertugruloglu conceded recently to the Ambassador that his nationalist, anti-solution UBP did not yet have a lock on mainstream Turkish Cypriot sympathies. Nonetheless, the party has been clearly seeking to capitalize on its ideological similarities to the "Deep State" -- credible rumors abound that the military has been funding the UBP, veterans' groups, and other nationalist forces that clearly hope to muster greater public support over time. -------------- But Tension Likely To Bubble Up Again -------------- ¶12. (C) COMMENT: We have yet to see a smoking gun that links Besparmak, the Bathtub Murders, and the handshake row. Nor is it certain that nationalist forces manufactured these particular scandals as part of a broader effort to discredit Talat, Soyer or the CTP. Nonetheless, the right wing has taken advantage of these and similar events and hopes they can help it gather political steam. While public bickering over the handshake and bathtub seem certain to fade, the underlying animosity between the "TRNC government" and nationalists (including the UBP, the DP of Serdar Denktash, the Turkish military, and army proxies like the T/C Fighters' Association) seems set to spike as Turkish elections draw near. Political friction in north Cyprus is at least partly a proxy battle between Erdogan's AKP and the mainland "Deep State." ¶13. (C) Meanwhile, Soyer's fears that the nationalists were attempting to provoke Talat to move right are more than well-founded; we'd say a turn already has occurred. One might only look to the July 8 UN process for proof Despite signing the agreement eight months ago and pledging to implement it in a November exchange of letters with UN Under Secretary Gambari, it now appears "President" Talat is SIPDIS seeking to ditch the document and return to the 2004 Annan Plan as a basis for CyProb negotiations, a complete non-starter on the Greek Cypriot side. Nationalist pressures undoubtedly underpin Talat's backwards slide into inflexibility. 14 (C) Talat's credibility at home and internationally is best-served politically by returning to his pro-solution beat and supporting the Gambari framework; this is especially true now, when RoC President Tassos Papadopoulos is scoring significant political points by showing uncharacteristic flexibility. In his meetings with Talat, Soyer, and other Turkish Cypriot leaders, the Ambassador has stressed that an active UN process would help reduce tension between nationalists and pro-settlement forces in northern Cyprus and keep the island from being used as a political pawn in mainland Turkish politics and Turkey's EU accession negotiation. We will continue to urge an immediate start to the Working Groups/Technical Committees process, although serious Turkish Cypriot engagement will require encouragement from Ankara -- from both AKP and the military. END COMMENT. SCHLICHER