America Abroad

By Strobe Talbott

In a world where countries seem to be breaking down and falling apart, there is one that may actually be coming back together. It is Cyprus, whose very name has for more than 30 years been a synonym for tribal hatred, religious strife and diplomatic failure. Intensive negotiations at the United Nations this fall may finally yield a breakthrough.

Cyprus is a single island with two communities one Greek, Christian and fairly prosperous; the other Turkish, Muslim and relatively poor. The Greeks outnumber the Turks 4 to 1, and long before the island won its independence from Britain in 1960, many Greek Cypriots wanted enosis, or union with Greece. Given that alternative, Turkish Cypriots not unreasonably preferred partition and, in due course, the creation of their own state. After much provocation, Turkey invaded in 1974 and seized the northern third of Cyprus. The Greek community ended up with 160,000 refugees. Turkish Cypriots fared even worse. No country but Turkey itself would grant them diplomatic recognition, and their crippled economy became a drain on Ankara's resources.

Over the decades, a parade of big-name U.S. peacemakers came and went. George Ball, Dean Acheson, Cyrus Vance and Clark Clifford all broke their picks on the problem.

Now, quite suddenly, in talks due to resume in October, the U.N. may be able to sponsor the creation of a "bizonal and bicommunal federal state": each of the two communities would have its own territory but share a number of ministries and government functions. Bulent Aliriza, a once -- and perhaps future -- Turkish Cypriot diplomat, who is currently a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, sees the makings of "the first settlement of an ethnic conflict in the new world order."

Cyprus is perhaps the best example of what might be called the John Donne principle of world affairs: no country is an island, entire of itself; every country is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. The "intercommunal" enmity between Greek and Turkish Cypriots has always been an extension of the regional feud between Greece and Turkey proper.

Even though Greece and Turkey are both members of NATO, they have bickered constantly over airspace, territorial waters and the continental shelf, sometimes coming to the brink of war. Both long ago became adept at playing Moscow and Washington against each other: the Kremlin used the Cyprus imbroglio to try to weaken the Western alliance and to make all kinds of mischief in the eastern Mediterranean, from conducting espionage to sponsoring terrorism.

Now Russia is cooperating with the U.S. and Britain in the U.N. Security Council, enabling Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to exert more influence than any of his predecessors on the contending parties in the Cyprus dispute.

These days Greece is eager to bury the hatchet with Turkey. That is largely because of all the trouble in the Balkans, where Greece has political interests and ethnic kinsmen. Noting that "clouds are massing on our northern borders," Prime Minister Constantine Mitsotakis has proclaimed that "we do not face a threat from the East." He has vowed to pursue "rapprochement" with Ankara. And for the first time the Greek Cypriots have in George Vassiliou a President who has truly repudiated enosis and is prepared to accept a federation that will preserve the identity, guard the rights and foster the economic development of the Turkish community.

For Turkey too, new priorities have inspired new flexibility. What used to be the Soviet republics of the Caucasus and Central Asia are populated largely by Turkic-speaking peoples, many of whom are looking to Ankara for help. Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel sees an opportunity to make Turkey a major regional power "from the Adriatic to the Great Wall of China," and that makes him eager to settle quarrels with his western neighbor. Demirel is nudging the Turkish Cypriots to give up about a quarter of the territory they have occupied since 1974 in exchange for an end to their isolation both on the island and in the world.

In the past, U.S. domestic politics have been a complicating factor. There are more than 20 times as many Greek Americans as Turkish Americans, and earlier governments in Greece and Cyprus have mobilized the powerful Greek lobby in Washington, tilting U.S. policy toward Athens and Nicosia.

Mitsotakis and Vassiliou have broken with that pattern, encouraging the Bush Administration to play honest broker. Says Nelson Ledsky, the career diplomat who has served as the Administration's special envoy for Cyprus: "This problem has often been termed insoluble. I don't believe that. I think it will be solved." If it is, it will be not only a credit to him and the other mediators but also a bonus from the end of the cold war.