10 February 2004

1. "Will Iraq Start To Unravel?", Kurdish calls for autonomy are generating fears of ethnic conflict that could complicate U.S. exit plans.

2. "Thousands of Kurdish refugees return to Kirkuk, creating tension in northern Iraq", the Kurdish parties say they are not encouraging returns, just providing humanitarian assistance when needed.

3. "Goobye 'Returning Home...'; Hello 'Back to the Beginning'", PKK/KADEK, amnesty, and American Iraq policy.

4. "The United States should look to Main Street in Iraq", the thousands of Iraqis who joined the recent wave of demonstrations in support of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani’s call for general elections during the Iraqi transition of power process sent a strong message to Iraqi and American politicians.

5. "A Door Opens for Cyprus", with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the prime minister of Turkey pushing for unification of Cyprus, 30 years of crisis and division between Greeks and Turks over the Mediterranean island might be near an end.

6. "Analysis: What chance of Cyprus peace?", on the face of it, the odds on the 30-year division of Cyprus coming to an end in the next three months seem to be shortening by the day.

1. - Time Magazine - "Will Iraq Start To Unravel?":

Kurdish calls for autonomy are generating fears of ethnic conflict that could complicate U.S. exit plans

ARBIL / 16 February 2004 / by Brian Bennett*

If you want a glimpse into the challenge the U.S. faces as it tries to prevent Iraq from coming apart, consider the plight of Salim Izzat. Five months before the U.S. invasion last March, Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime ordered Izzat to vacate his farm outside the northern-Iraq town of Dibagan, 50 miles southeast of Mosul. The command was part of the regime's systematic, 15-year-long campaign to populate the predominantly Kurdish reaches of northern Iraq with ethnic Arabs. Kurds like Izzat were pushed out of their homes by force; dissenters, including Izzat's brother, were executed. A few days before the war, most of the Arabs who had taken up residence in Dibagan left town, but not before they demolished houses, ransacked shops on the main street and plundered every scrap of metal that would move. Izzat's Arab tenants razed his crops, stole more than 200 chickens and ran off with his life savings. Now Izzat lives with his wife and nine children in a crumbling three-room guardhouse in a parking lot in Dibagan; every day a policeman comes to tell him he has to move off city property. Izzat isn't ready to forgive the people he blames for his predicament. "I hate the Arabs," he says.

Ethnic grudges die hard in Iraq. In towns like Dibagan all across the country, long-simmering disputes between Arabs and Kurds, Sunnis and Shi'ites, and even secular and religious Iraqis are bubbling to the surface—all of which has complicated the U.S.'s plan to transfer power to a new Iraqi government by June 30 and raised questions about whether Iraq will remain whole after it does. And so it was not entirely surprising that the Bush Administration last week scrambled for help in sorting out the mess. In a meeting at the White House, President Bush asked U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to come up with a plan for Iraqi self-rule that the country's squabbling factions could accept. A U.N. team arrived in Iraq last week to evaluate the coalition's plans for transition and assess the feasibility of holding broad-based elections before the June 30 deadline. The elections have been demanded by Iraq's top Shi'ite cleric, Grand Ayatullah Ali Husaini Sistani, but are resisted by U.S. officials, who say a general vote cannot be held safely. The intrigue deepened last Thursday when Sistani's bodyguards said the cleric had escaped an assassination attempt outside his home in Najaf. Sistani aides later told U.S. military officials that accounts of the purported attack had been fabricated.

Still, the rumors seemed to underscore fears that the country could quickly slide toward chaos. Retired General Anthony Zinni, the former top commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, told TIME that foreign jihadists are trying to incite a civil war in Iraq. "They want Iraq to come apart," he says. "They want the U.S. to fail, and they want to see it become three theocratic states. They don't want to see Iraq hold together as a democracy." Says Herro Kader Mustafa, a Kurdish-American coalition official in Mosul: "We are doing our best to make sure things don't erupt."

Nowhere is that task more delicate than in northern Iraq, home to most of the country's 4 million Kurds. The area has been among the nation's most peaceful since the overthrow of Saddam, but that calm was shattered on Feb. 1 when a pair of suicide bombers detonated themselves in the offices of the two main Kurdish political parties in the city of Arbil, killing more than 100. The attacks raised fears that the violence plaguing the rest of Iraq might now routinely spill into the Kurdish areas and might have strengthened the Kurds' determination to defend the autonomy they have enjoyed since 1991, when the U.S. established a no-fly zone in northern Iraq to protect the Kurds from Saddam. The U.S. has assured the Kurds that the new government in Baghdad will allow them to maintain their own parliament and security forces. But many observers believe such a federal structure is only the first step toward the Kurds' ultimate goal: independence. "The Kurdish problem is the most difficult for Iraq's long-term territorial integrity," says Phebe Marr, a veteran Iraq expert retired from the Pentagon's National Defense University, "because they are really separatists."

The U.S. is worried that Kurdish hopes for greater autonomy could spark clashes with Arabs living in northern Iraq, especially if the Kurds claim control over Kirkuk, an ethnically mixed city in an area prized for its vast oil reserves. The prospect of an oil-rich, autonomous Kurdish state also frightens Iraq's neighbors—Syria, Iran and Turkey—all of which have large, restive Kurdish populations that might be emboldened and financed by wealthy Iraqi Kurds. Turkey, which has fought a 15-year war against Kurdish separatists, has threatened to send its army into Iraq to prevent the Kurds from attempting to secede. In a press conference in January, the deputy chief of staff of the Turkish army, General Ilker Basbug, warned that "Iraq's future might be very bloody if there was a federal structure, especially based on ethnicity."

The U.S. has so far been able to ward off sectarian violence between Kurds and Arabs. "There isn't obvious ethnic hatred in the north," says Mustafa, the U.S. official in Mosul. "But there is a real conflict that political parties are exacerbating with their attempts to manipulate public opinion." Some locals say Kurdish authorities have incited ethnic hostility by giving benefits to their kinsmen. Nasser Rahim Jusef, a Turkish employee of the Northern Oil Co., says the former regime's program of "Arabization" is being replaced by "Kurdization": at the expense of other ethnic groups, Kurds are being recruited back into jobs Saddam's regime pushed them out of. "The oil business needs to be a meritocracy," says Jusef, who has worked at the company for 28 years, "not one based on racial discrimination."

Yehya Assi Mahmoud, an Arab attorney in Kirkuk, says he saw Kurdish militias seize 28 Arab homes in his village of Shaheed last April. In June he quit the city council to protest what he considered to be American favoritism toward the Kurds; now he fears that the coming transfer of power will result in wide-scale reprisals by Kurds against their Arab neighbors. "If the U.S. left now, Kurds would move in to ethnically cleanse the remaining Arabs in Kirkuk," he says.

Kirkuk may be the most combustible place in northern Iraq. The city is fairly evenly divided among Arabs, Kurds and ethnic Turkomans. Kurdish leaders want the city and its environs, which hold some 40% of the country's oil reserves, to be part of Kurdistan within a federal Iraq. That way, says a U.S. official in Kirkuk, the Kurds hope to secure a sustainable source of oil income for themselves in case a new government in Baghdad proves incapable of running the country once the U.S. hands over power. U.S. and Iraqi officials fear that Kurdish authorities may try to run Arabs and Turkomans out of Kirkuk and move Kurds south into the city, then hold an independent referendum to decide whether Kirkuk should join Kurdistan. Says Rogar Ali, a political adviser to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (P.U.K.), one of the two large Kurdish political groups: "Elections will decide the destiny of Kirkuk and other Kurdish areas."

For their part, the Kurds say autonomy is their only safeguard against the possibility of oppression by Iraq's Arab majority. And as mostly Sunni Muslims, the Kurds fear domination by a directly elected Shi'ite government. While the perpetrators of the suicide bombings in Arbil are unknown—some Kurdish officials suspect loyalists of Saddam's regime, whereas others finger foreign terrorists from Ansar al-Islam, a radical Islamist outfit linked to al-Qaeda—the attacks served as a grisly reminder to the Kurds of the ruthlessness of their enemies. At the P.U.K. headquarters, where a suicide bomber blew up more than 50 partygoers on the first day of the Muslim feast of 'Id al-Adha, colorful streamers still hang from charred walls pockmarked by shrapnel and bits of human flesh. There had been so much carnage to remove, the cleanup crew had missed a severed right hand that still lay on the floor, between an overturned couch and a stereo speaker. Across town, at the headquarters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, Shwan Hala Salih surveyed a similar scene of devastation. His cousin had been killed in the blast. "Terrorists are of many kinds," he said, holding a hand-colored photograph of his relative. "Most are enemies of the Kurdish people."

The shock of such a brutal atrocity is likely to bolster calls for revenge. Yet in towns where Arabs and Kurds have lived together for generations, members of both groups say they are determined to stay. In Mukhmur, 30 miles south of Arbil, locals have painted over the portrait of Saddam with a picture of an Arab and a Kurd holding a flagpole. Hanging together above the two men are the Kurdish and Iraqi flags, and above these fly the American and British flags. Naffisa Abdullah, an Arab woman dressed in a black head scarf and a navy blue aba, says she will resist any attempts to force her out of her home. "I consider this area my native place," she says. "We just want to have a good life and get along with each other."

Such sentiments seem wishful in a land where so many still have grievances to settle. In Arbil last week, Hajji Maluwd, 62, a mechanic, walked in the funeral procession for a Kurdish leader who was killed in the 'Id bombings and ran down a list of personal demands: he wants his demolished home rebuilt, and he wants to move back to the land that Saddam's regime took away. At the same time, Maluwd doesn't think a civil war will erupt between the Kurds and the Arabs, and he says he's willing to wait for his house and his land and let democracy work. Gesturing his cigarette at the procession of Kurds mourning the death of a fallen leader, he says, "We've walked in too many of these." Iraq's only hope is that many more of his countrymen feel the same.

*With reporting by Massimo Calabresi and Mark Thompson/Washington, Andrew Purvis/ Vienna, Philip Smucker/Mosul and Vivienne Walt/Najaf

2. - Associated Press - "Thousands of Kurdish refugees return to Kirkuk, creating tension in northern Iraq":

KIRKUK / 10 February 2004 / by Scheherezade Faramarzi

Piroz Nasser Zanganeh has moved from one refugee camp to another for 16 years, ever since Saddam Hussein's security agents drove her from this northern Iraq city.

Now she ready to come home.

But Zanganeh and her relatives can only get as far as a tent at the edge of the city because the U.S.-led coalition says it's too soon for them to come back.

More than 4,000 Kurdish families are in the same situation, creating friction among the factions vying for control of Kirkuk, as well as with the U.S.-led administration in the Iraqi city.

U.S.-led forces are trying to keep Kurds who lost their homes in Saddam's campaign of ethnic cleansing from coming back too quickly, hoping to avert humanitarian and political problems.

Kirkuk, which sits on some of the world's largest oil reserves, is considered a difficult case in the political tangle of the new Iraq. Its inhabitants are made up of Kurds, Turkomen, Arabs and Christians. Rivalry among the three Muslim ethnic groups has led to bloodshed in recent months.

Saddam brought Arabs to Kirkuk, sometimes given homes of displaced Kurds to ''Arabize'' the city. Many Kurds want the Arabs who came during Saddam's rule to return to where they came from, something the Coalition Provisional Authority opposes.

Some Turkomen leaders accuse the two dominant Kurdish parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party, of encouraging the Kurds' return to increase their numbers in time for a possible referendum on the future of the city or strengthen their bargaining position in the future.

The Kurdish parties say they are not encouraging returns, just providing humanitarian assistance when needed.

The U.S.-led coalition asked the PUK to stop supplying tents to the returnees to discourage them from coming back.

''If all come back at the same time, the city simply can't cope in terms of providing services,'' said Paul Harvey, a Briton, who heads the coalition office in Kirkuk.

But Zanganeh, whose husband was taken away by Saddam's security agents, cannot understand why she is not welcome.

''For so many years Saddam denied us from living in this city,'' said Piroz, 36. ''We've been homeless for too long.''

She, her three sons, her mother, two sisters, four nieces and two nephews left their previous camp in Chamchamal, 24 miles to the east on April 14, a day after Kirkuk fell to the U.S. Army, and moved into a tent on the edge of the city.

Zanganeh's son, Amin, 20, fears that promises that eventually they will be allowed to settle in the city may fall through. ''The sooner we return and have a foothold here the better because this way we are more assured that we will stay and won't be uprooted. This is my home. This tent is erected on my land, the land of my ancestors,'' he said.

Kurdish officials accuse coalition officials of lacking sympathy.

''It is their right to return the moment they desire to do so,'' said Hassib Rozbayani, a Kurd and Kirkuk's deputy mayor.

Harvey said the return especially of those whose property was confiscated and handed to Arabs could take more than a year.

The Iraqi Governing Council in Baghdad has ordered the creation of a claims commission in each of the country's 18 governorates to address property disputes, due to start work by the end of the month.

''But it will take time to process those claims,'' said Harvey. ''There's no instant fix.''

Complicating matters, some confiscated homes have been sold and resold multiple times.

''You will have somebody in their property today who bought it in good faith and to tell them that they have to move out is a problem,'' Harvey said.

The absence of international aid agencies, including the United Nations, has also slowed resettlement. Relief organizations withdrew from Iraq last year following a series of suicide bombings at U.N. and international Red cross headquarters.

The few agencies who are here are trying to provide the 60 sites where returnees are staying with electricity, clean water and sanitation.

The home of Rabiya Abdullah Amin, 73, has been fixed up in the village of Qarahanjir, about 30 miles northwest of Kirkuk. But she can't occupy the property until 800 more houses scheduled to be repaired are done so everyone can move in at once.

She and other families are squatting nearby to make sure they don't lose their homes again.

''I am afraid someone would come and occupy it again and never give it back,'' said Amin. ''As soon as they give the key, I will take my old man and move into our house.''

3. - CUMHURIYET - "Goobye 'Returning Home...'; Hello 'Back to the Beginning'":

PKK/KADEK, amnesty, and American Iraq policy.

10 February 2004 / by Mustafa Balbay

Besides Cyprus, there are also important developments in Iraq concerning Turkey. The deadline of the repentance law was February 6. The main goal of the law was to remove the members of the terrorist organization from northern Iraq, make them come to Turkey and cause the organization to collapse. The United States was one of the countries pressuring for the repentance law. The US has even called Ankara and expressed its satisfaction when the law was passed by the Parliament. The law would enable US to press from south and Turkey would open its doors from north and the terrorist organization would be ‘eliminated’ as the Americans say.

The figures display that this didn’t happen. The result is this: about 700 Hezbollah militants and 650 PKK/KADEK militants enjoyed an amnesty or a reduction in punishment. These figures are actually not much important. Consequently, the goal could not be reached. Similar laws were also passed in 1985, 1988, 1990, 1992, 1995. The seventh law has also ended now. At the Prime Minister’s visit to the US, there were reports that the extension of this law was discussed but nothing came out.

If we look at today ant to the future, the terrorist organizations activities in Iraq are going on. We also see that the promises that the US gave don’t have any influence. The number of the terrorists in northern Iraq is about 4500. At least half of them went to the region in the year 2000. In other words more than half of the people in the terrorist camps didn’t engage in any terrorist activities. This means that the organization is growing instead of shrinking. The critical question is this: Will the US go for eliminating the organization? It sometimes goes but for meetings. There was some news on northern Iraq during Prime Minister’s visit to the US: The offices of a subsidiary organization of the terrorist organization were raided and closed down. The Turkish delegation visiting America linked this to the visit. Let’s first summarize the situation: When the US could not raid the bases of the terrorist organization; it raided the parties’ offices which were formed with its permission. There comes another report: The party in question makes a congress in Baghdad on January 28-29 (during Prime Minister’s visit to the US). The US sends such messages to Ankara:

The organization’s activities will be prevented this summer. It may also happen in spring. Goodbye returning home. Hello back to the beginning.”

4. - The Daily Star - "The United States should look to Main Street in Iraq":

10 February 2004 / by Hiwa Osman*

The thousands of Iraqis who joined the recent wave of demonstrations in support of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani’s call for general elections during the Iraqi transition of power process sent a strong message to Iraqi and American politicians. Their message was simple but emphatic: “Count us in!”

The Iraqi people feel marginalized. “We were passive observers in the past,” says one Iraqi journalist, a Shiite from Baghdad. “We still are passive observers.” The former Iraqi regime failed largely because it separated the people from the decision-making process. As evidence of this, consider that no one living in Iraq today has ever voted for a head of state.

Following liberation, many Iraqis, especially the oppressed Shiite and Kurdish populations, felt that at long last the country was coming back to them ­ that it was no longer Saddam Hussein’s Iraq but theirs. They were excited that a new chapter had opened and that a new Iraq was in the making, one that wouldn’t marginalize them. But ominously, a series of meetings on Iraq’s future was then held behind closed doors, and the people had only a distant vision of these, provided only by Arab satellite television stations.

What Iraqis saw chilled them: American and selected Iraqi participants parading in and out of these meetings, occasionally issuing only the most general and noncommittal statements to the media. The rebuilding of the new Iraqi state still has not taken the shape of a real national project. So far, political parties recognized by the US have been scrambling to grab as large a slice of the pie as possible. These parties have no experience in nation building.

Worse, some of them have a stronger commitment to Iraq’s neighbors ­ their old allies in the pre-war world of exile politics ­ than they have to building a healthy state. These parties have evolved from opposition politics. Not one of them appears to have a program, a platform, a vision or even an idea of how to remake the country properly.

The Kurdish leadership in the north wants federalism, but the Kurdish street is much more hard-line. The Kurdish leaders are leftovers of the struggle against Baghdad and the fight for autonomy, but younger Kurds are much more self-confident. They don’t see federalism as a victory. Rather, they see it as a concession they would have to make to post-war Iraq.

Iraqi Shiites, who remember the failures of both the mullah-led regime next door in Iran and that of Arab nationalism, seek a moderate, secular state in which they might have majority representation. However, Iraqi Shiites are not represented. Under Baathist rule, political activity inside the country meant a one-way trip to Saddam Hussein’s prisons. As a result, Shiite parties developed clandestinely, if at all. Today’s Shiite leadership, which includes mullahs and politicians, spent years under Iran’s sponsorship, and those leaders have another agenda than the one desired by the Shiite street. The Shiite leaders want an Iranian-style theocracy.

Meanwhile, the Islamist contingent and their faux-liberal business partners on the Iraqi Governing Council recently managed to pass a bill repealing Iraq’s progressive civil status law. This sent thousands of angry women running into the streets in protest. Although the US civilian administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, has yet to sign the bill, the Islamists’ effort to impose the repressive legislation shows their ultimate desire to apply Sharia, or Islamic law, across the country.

Whether Shiite or Sunni, Arab or Kurd, the truly liberal and democratic majority in Iraq has yet to find its voice. Worse, the US has not even considered opening its ears to the genuine voices of the Iraqi people. The Americans are dealing with a handpicked leadership in a country with no transparency and no accountability. More significantly, the opposition leadership bears little resemblance to the reality in the street.

The situation is made worse by the near complete lack of effective local media to inform the people about activities in the corridors of power. As a result, what little information reaches the street does so only through half-truths, rumor and innuendo. The street is isolated from the Iraqi leadership and the Coalition Provisional Authority. This is why people are calling for direct elections, without giving much thought to the various obstacles and difficulties of holding a truly fair election process.

Under the current set-up, an election might prove disastrous for the US and for those Iraqis who want a liberal, democratic, pluralistic and federal country. Mullahs and warlords with ties to neighboring states who do not want to see a successful Iraq will tell ­ and are telling ­ the Iraqi people that America is the cause of their continuing misery. Those are the same persons who will try to win seats in forthcoming elections.

If the US really does wish to rebuild Iraq as a healthy model for political change in the Middle East, then it will have to reach beyond the current leaders to Iraq’s silent but otherwise liberal, secular and democratic-minded majority. In a word, the US needs to look to Main Street if it wants real political success in Iraq.

*Hiwa Osman is a Baghdad-based editor and journalism trainer with the London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting (www.iwpr.net).

5. - The Los Angeles Times - "A Door Opens for Cyprus":

10 February 2004

With Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the prime minister of Turkey pushing for unification of Cyprus, 30 years of crisis and division between Greeks and Turks over the Mediterranean island might be near an end.

The small island has loomed large in world affairs for centuries, first as a source of conflict on the edge of Europe and more recently as a site of potential Muslim-Christian conflict on the edge of the Muslim world.

After a White House visit by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Annan and Powell urged Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot leaders to hold a new round of talks on uniting the island, which would affect Turkey's entry into the European Union. Annan is bringing both sides to the table in New York this week: They shouldn't let the opportunity slide by.

A settlement on Cyprus would ripple far beyond its 3,600 square miles (less than Los Angeles County's area), offering a pattern for accommodation by ethnic groups elsewhere, including Iraq. It also would give a boost to Turkey, a strategic nation during the Cold War and now a key U.S. ally, a secular Islamic democracy on Iraq's northern border. Its well-being could shape how the surrounding region evolves.

Come May 1, Cyprus is scheduled to join the European Union sans the Turkish part. Ten months ago, the stubbornness of Turkish Cypriot leader Raouf Denktash denied the people of northern Cyprus the opportunity to decide their future within the European Union in a democratic referendum. That continues to hurt Turkey's own chances with the EU.

Cyprus, off Turkey's southern coast, was divided in 1974 when Turkey occupied the northern third of the island in response to a Greek Cypriot coup aimed at uniting it with Greece. A year later, the United Nations launched a diplomatic initiative to find a political solution to the crisis. Two years ago, Annan presented a unification plan that allowed for separate states but a single Cypriot citizenship, which remains the framework for the current talks.

Erdogan has said Turkey is prepared to get the Turkish Cypriots to resume negotiations with their Greek Cypriot counterparts. He has also said the U.N. secretary-general should just "fill in the blanks" in the peace plan to reunite Cyprus. The United States should hold him to his promise and also make sure that Greeks and Greek Cypriots come to the table ready to talk.

6. - BBC - "Analysis: What chance of Cyprus peace?":

CYPRUS / 10 February 2004 / by Tabitha Morgan

On the face of it, the odds on the 30-year division of Cyprus coming to an end in the next three months seem to be shortening by the day.

The leaders of the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities have agreed to meet the UN Secretary General in New York on Tuesday for a "ceremonial session" to mark the resumption of talks on the UN's plan to re-unite the island.

Mr Annan's invitation comes with certain conditions.

He wants to see a deal struck by 1 May when Cyprus joins the European Union, so that membership can apply to both communities.

He is therefore insisting that both President Tassos Papadopoulos and Rauf Denktash, president of the breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, sign up to a tight timetable.

Implicit

Mr Annan is also demanding that before talks recommence both sides agree to put the plan to a referendum on 21 April, whatever stage the negotiations may have reached by then.

UN sources insist that in agreeing to meet the secretary general in New York the leaders have implicitly accepted his terms - albeit with reluctance on both sides.

This latest push for a solution has been given impetus by the formation of a new coalition government in Northern Cyprus after elections last December.

There is one other critical factor: if they miss this chance there may never be another one

The pro-European Prime Minister, Mehmet Ali Talat, was elected on the strength of his promises to re-unite the island and allow Turkish Cypriots a share in the prosperity that EU membership would bring.

Mr Talat and his supporters will also be encouraged by recent remarks by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that the UN should "fill in the blanks" on those issues where the two sides cannot agree.

Turkey desperately needs to sort out the lingering Cyprus problem in order to smooth the way for the start of accession talks on its own EU candidacy.

Co-existence

If the Republic of Cyprus goes ahead as scheduled and joins the union while the island remains divided, Turkey will find itself in an awkward position.

It will continue to have 30,000 troops occupying Cypriot territory, with Cyprus acquiring the power to veto the Turkish application - not a situation any potential candidate country would relish.

The New York meeting will also be the first such encounter since crossing restrictions between the two sides of the island were eased last March.

Hundreds of thousands of Cypriots have since travelled across the island's militarised buffer zone that kept them both apart, proving wrong those politicians who claimed the two sides could never again co-exist peacefully.

So what is to stop a solution on Cyprus being pieced together at last after more than 30 years?
One answer is Rauf Denktash.

The obdurate Turkish Cypriot leader, who recently celebrated his 80th birthday, has spent his entire political life defending Turkish Cypriots against what he sees as the encroachments of the Greek Cypriot majority.

He is adamant that the Annan plan does not grant Turkish Cypriots political equality, and claims his minority community will soon be outnumbered by Greek Cypriots moving to the north of the island.

Tough line

There are other potential problems.

Many Greek Cypriots - not the least refugees from the north - are unhappy with the terms of the Annan plan and would be likely to vote against it in any referendum.

Mr Papadopolos himself is no fan of the UN proposals - he was voted into office on the promise that he would take a tougher line in negotiations.

But the pressure for the latest peace efforts to succeed is enormous.

The United States and the EU have put their considerable political weight behind it.

Turkey and Greece, for different reasons, also need the plan to work.

And there is one other critical factor: if they miss this chance there may never be another one.

But it would a rash gambler who would put his money either way for the time being.