The Annan Plan was a United Nations proposal to settle the Cyprus dispute of the divided island nation of Cyprus as the United Cyprus Republic. It was named in recognition of the then United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who largely devised the proposal in conjunction with Didier Pfirter.

Proposal

Proposed flag of the United Cyprus Republic

The Annan Plan had undergone five revisions in order to reach its final version. The 5th revision of the Annan Plan^[1] proposed the creation of the United Cyprus Republic, covering the island of Cyprus in its entirety except for the British Sovereign Base Areas. This new country was to be a loose confederation of two component states ? the Greek Cypriot State and the Turkish Cypriot State ? joined together by a minimal federal government apparatus.

This federal level, loosely based on the Swiss federal model, would have incorporated the following elements:

• A collective Presidential Council, made up of six voting members, allocated according to population (per present levels, four Greek Cypriots and two Turkish Cypriots), and selected and voted in by parliament. An additional three non-voting members would be assigned 2:1.
• A President and Vice President, chosen by the Presidential Council from among its members, one from each community, to alternate in their functions every 20 months during the council's five-year term of office.
• A bicameral legislature:
  • A Senate (upper house), with 48 members, divided 24:24 between the two communities.
  • A Chamber of Deputies (lower house), with 48 members, divided in proportion to the two communities' populations (with no fewer than 12 for the smaller community).
• A Supreme Court composed of equal numbers of Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot judges, plus three foreign judges; to be appointed by the Presidential Council.

The plan included a federal constitution, constitutions for each constituent state, a string of constitutional and federal laws, and a proposal for a United Cyprus Republic flag and a national anthem. It also provided for a Reconciliation Commission to bring the two communities closer together and resolve outstanding disputes from the past.

It would also have established a limited right to return between the territories of the two communities, and it would have allowed both Greece and Turkey to maintain a permanent military presence on the island, albeit with large, phased reductions in troop numbers.

Negotiations

In January 2002, direct talks under the auspices of Kofi Annan began between the representatives of the two communities, the President of the Republic of Cyprus Glafcos Clerides and Turkish Cypriot Leader Rauf Denkta?.

In November 2002, Kofi Annan released a comprehensive plan for the resolution of the Cyprus issue. It was revised in early December. In the lead up to the European Union (EU)'s December 2002 Copenhagen Summit, intensive efforts were made to gain both sides' signatures to the document before a decision on the island's EU membership. Neither side agreed to sign. The EU invited the Republic of Cyprus to join on 16 December 2002.

Following the Copenhagen Summit, the UN continued dialogue with the two sides with the goal of reaching a settlement before Cyprus's signature of the EU accession treaty on 16 April 2003. A third version of the Annan plan was put to the parties in February 2003. That same month the Annan again visited the island and asked that both leaders agree to put the plan to referendum in their respective communities. Also in February 2003, Tassos Papadopoulos was elected as the fifth president of the Republic of Cyprus. On 10 March 2003, this most recent phase of talks collapsed in The Hague, Netherlands, when Denkta? told the Secretary-General he would not put the Annan Plan to referendum. "The plan was unacceptable for us. This was not a plan we would ask our people to vote for," Denkta? said. The UN plan had undergone several revisions in an attempt to win support. It was the Turkish Cypriot side which refused to even talk further, and which was blamed for the failure of the peace process. ^[2]

In February 2004, Papadopoulos and Denkta? accepted Kofi Annan's invitation to resume negotiations on a settlement on the basis of the Annan plan. After meeting with Annan in New York, talks began on-island on 19 February 2004. The two community leaders, Rauf Denkta? and Tassos Papadopoulos, met nearly every day for negotiations facilitated by Álvaro de Soto, Secretary General's Special Adviser for Cyprus. In addition, numerous technical committees and subcommittees met in parallel in an effort to resolve outstanding issues. When this stage of the talks failed to reach an agreed settlement Rauf Denkta? refused to attend the next stage of meetings which were scheduled to take place in B?rgenstock on 24 March 2004 and sent the then prime minister Mehmet Ali Talat (who later became Denkta?' successor as President) and his son Serdar Denkta? (who later served as deputy prime minister). The talks collapsed and no negotiated agreement was reached by the two communities. Annan then stepped in as arbitrator and on 31 March presented to the two sides a proposed final settlement. Rauf Denkta? rejected Annan's proposal immediately and Tassos Papadopoulos rejected the plan a week later while Mehmet Ali Talat supported it.

Referendum

The main reason for the 75 percent "no" vote among Greek Cypriots in the referendum was their perception that the Annan Plan was unbalanced and excessively pro-Turkish as it stated that one Turkish Cypriot's votes would be equal to two Greek Cypriot votes^[3], and that it would not safeguard Greek Cypriot rights in the north. On the Turkish Cypriot side, the plan was felt to be excessively pro-Greek, but most Turkish Cypriots were willing to accept it as a means of ending their prolonged international isolation and exclusion from the wider European economy. The political leaders of both sides (Tassos Papadopoulos and Rauf Denkta?) campaigned for a 'no' vote.

Recent developments

(1) On 6 April 2005 the European Court of Human Rights decided that, "even the adoption of the plan would not have afforded immediate redress" of the Greek Cypriots property rights.

Loukis Loukaides the Cypriot judge on the European Court of Human Rights, has since called on the Greek Cypriot political leaders to stop backing the Annan Plan as a basis for negotiations, because its basic philosophy violates fundamental human rights and the EU acquits.^[4]

He recommends the following action be taken:

1 - The drafting of an official information bulletin on the violation of the EU acquits by the Annan Plan.

2 - To declare clearly that the Plan is incompatible with the European Human Rights Charter and other International Human Rights Treaties, which are already binding on us and also as a result of our EU accession.

3 - To cease at last to refer to the Annan Plan as a basis for a settlement, or negotiations. So long as this continues, foreign officials and organisations that could assist us achieve a good settlement, will not do so.

Also, a constitutional advisor to the Cyprus Government, Claire Palley, revealed that Kofi Annan and his staff misled the public in regard to the plan and that in her opinion, the plan represented nothing more than a one sided bow to Turkish wishes while sidelining legitimate Greek-Cypriot concerns over the plan.^[3] For example, she points out that the now famous 11 points by Turkish Ambassador Ziyal that were virtually incorporated in Annan 5, and that the US and the UK promoted the plan by threat, disinformation, by violating cardinal rules of the UN Charter, Security Council resolutions on Cyprus and European law.^[3]

See also

• 2004 Annan Plan Referendum
• Cypriot refugees
• Kashmir reunification
• Chinese reunification
• Korean reunification

References

Sources

• "Negotiations" section adapted from public domain U.S. State Department background note on Cyprus, April 2004
• Supplementary material based on:
  • Letter by the President of the Republic, Mr Tassos Papadopoulos, to the U.N. Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, dated 7 June, which circulated as an official document of the U.N. Security Council
  • Legal Issues arising from certain population transfers and displacements on the territory of the Republic of Cyprus in the period since 20 July 1974
  • Address to Cypriots by President Papadopoulos (FULL TEXT)
  • House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee report on Cyprus

External links

• The Annan Plan: full text and additional information from the United Nations
• Cyprus Decides: a bipartisan information resource about the Plan
• The Republic of Cyprus: press and information office
• The BBC report on the plan
• Annan Plan: The "known-unknown" behind the scenes facts: Very well documented site with information for and against the Annan Plan with many rare and unknown documents
• The ?Yes? and the ?No? Votes: An Explanation.
• Cypriots split over UN plan.
• Still torn

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