Queen’s Speech

Lord Sharkey Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharkey (LD)]

My Lords, in last year’s debate on the Queen’s Speech I spoke about the situation in Cyprus. I thought we were then looking at the most favourable prospects for reunification that we had yet seen and I called upon the Government to increase their involvement. A year later, my cautious optimism seems not to have been entirely misplaced. Detailed negotiations are under way. The FCO has been very active and deserves congratulations for that. It has continued its informal dialogues with the diasporas, talked to civil society organisations and taken the bold step of inviting the Turkish Cypriot leader and his negotiator to London. This is the first time that Turkish Cypriots have been invited formally to London and it is a welcome step. None of this means, of course, that negotiations will be easy or successful.

On Monday, I attended a lecture at the LSE given by Dr Kudret Özersay, the Turkish Cypriot chief negotiator. Dr Özersay was frank about the difficulties but he was cautiously optimistic. He made a compelling point about the conditions for success. Clearly, the first condition is the production of a federal, bi-zonal, bi-communal plan acceptable to the political leaderships of both sides. However, if this plan is to gain popular approval in a referendum on both sides, it must pass one other test. Will acceptance of the plan produce a better state of affairs for the people of the north and the south, or, as Dr Özersay put it, will both sides recognise the harm to them involved in rejection of the plan? This was clearly not the case for the Greek Cypriots with the Annan plan.

The international community has a role to play here, especially the guarantor states and the EU. We cannot and should not intrude upon the negotiations—any solution has to be by Cypriots for Cypriots—but we can encourage and help make clear the benefits of reunification. Britain and the EU here have an opportunity to redeem past mistakes—Britain for allowing the divided island to join the EU in the first place; and the EU for the post-accession broken promises that it made to the north.

The situation in the eastern Mediterranean grows increasingly unstable and dangerous and the BBC is reporting that ISIS is now fighting for Tikrit after taking Mosul. This growing instability is a reminder that we need a Cyprus settlement this time around—not only because failure will undoubtedly provoke a deepening and hardening of the divisions on the island but because, regrettably, the behaviour of Turkey is becoming more worrying.

Turkey’s stability and orientation are vitally important to NATO and to the interests of the West in general. Turkey’s development has been hugely impressive: from authoritarian, agrarian and poor to democratic, industrial and relatively wealthy, but inclining once again towards authoritarianism. There is a sad record of imprisonment of journalists, of restrictions on the freedom of speech and of executive interference with the police and the judiciary. There is the danger of a deepening division between the secular west and the pious Anatolian heartlands. This is greatly to Turkey’s disadvantage, not only in its relations with the West but economically.

Admiration of western values has long been a driving force in Turkey, both politically and culturally. However, unfortunately, the attraction of the West and of the EU has declined significantly in recent years. Prime Minister Erdogan’s then chief adviser, Yigit Bulut, recently called the EU,

“a loser, headed for wholesale collapse”.

Turkey’s last EU Minister and chief negotiator said:

“Turkey doesn’t need the EU. The EU needs Turkey. If we had to, we could tell them ‘Get lost, kid’”.

All this is bad news for the EU, for the West and for Turkey. Our influence has been allowed to wane.

Given the public hostility of France and Germany and the long delays in the accession negotiations, it is no wonder that many Turks no longer see the prospect of EU membership as either realistic or desirable. This is a cause for concern. The West needs Turkey as a friend and an ally. Her Majesty’s Government have always understood that, while others have not. We are currently engaged in persuading our EU partners of the merits of reform, and the merits of Turkish accession may not sit easily alongside these discussion. Nevertheless, I urge Her Majesty’s Government to persist in their strong advocacy of Turkish accession. Europe will be weaker and more vulnerable without it.