ColetivoBrasil.org

Cyprus is currently approaching something of a watermark After five years of stalled negotiations there is now a date set for Demetris Christofias, the Greek Cypriot President, to sit down and begin discussions with his North Cyprus counterpart, Mehmet Ali Talat. Under his predecessor, the opposed to reunification Tassos Papadopoulos, there was next to no dialogue between the Greek and Turkish sides of the divided island. The Annan plan, which was viewed as the most feasible and realistic plan for reunification was rejected in 2004. The plan was put to referendum; it was almost universally excepted in the North, but dismissed by Greek Cypriots. Papadopoulos was himself not shy with his opinion on the move toward reunification, but his influence was bolstered by the Greek Orthodox Archbishop Chrysostomos II. With the succession earlier this year of Demetris Christofias as President the political climate has changed, and long dormant discourse on the route to reunification has been revived. Christiofias has made public his goal of uniting the north and south sides of the island, and has dismissed the hitherto dominant attitude of nationalism that has characterised attitudes to the problem on both the Turkish and Greek Cypriot sides. However, with Christiofias now in charge and this September hosting the first direct talks between north and south there has been much speculation as to how the church, and Archbishop Chrysostomos II especially, will react to the emergent path toward reunification. Only recently did it look like the Archbishop would be a figure in the public eye who would hinder Christiofias’s attempts at diplomacy. Last Tuesday, at a conference for overseas Cypriots, the Archbishop had the Bishop of Paphos Georgios read out a speech on his behalf. In it, he lampooned the President for entering into a dialogue with the North, and compared the recent opening of certain sections of the Green Line with the opening of the gates for ‘atilla.’ On the day, Christofias rebuked the Bishops words and the left winger gave him a very public, very obvious dressing down. The question has lingered though: will a rift appear between church and state? If so, will it be this domestic discourse that threatens reunification at a time when Christiofias and Talat appear to be resolved to working together towards a blueprint of workable compromise. It is, after all, only four years since Chrystomos was responsible for a campaign that informed Greek Cypriots who voted in favour of the Annan Plan that they ‘will not go to heaven.’ Whilst the church might be letting its opinion known a recent survey found that a groundswell of opinion change has already made its way through the Greek Cypriot side. In a survey conducted for the Politis newspaper it was found that 75 percent of people wanted to see direct negotiations to be well underway by this autumn.