Queen’s Speech

Lord Sharkey Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharkey (LD)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a co-chair of the APPG for the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. I follow other noble Lords in welcoming the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, to his new post.

In six days’ time, negotiations resume in Geneva on the reunification of Cyprus. Many observers and participants see this as the final chance for a settlement. There have been 40 years of discussions and negotiations prior to this; all have failed. In those 40 years, the people of north Cyprus have been greatly disadvantaged. They have been under an embargo for all that time, which means little foreign investment, little direct trade and no direct flights. GDP per capita in the north is now half of that in the south. In practice, the north is an economic dependency of Turkey. That is unhelpful. It threatens the identity of the community in the north, impoverishes their people and is unsustainable. We should all hope that the current negotiations will succeed, that the island will be reunited and the embargo lifted, and that the settlement will provide much-needed economic growth in all parts of the island. Without a settlement, for example, it may not be possible at all to develop the oil and gas fields in Cyprus’s territorial waters, to the great disadvantage of all Cypriots.

The United Kingdom is a guarantor power and will have a seat at the Geneva conference. I know that the Government greatly desire a settlement to end the division of the island and that they agree with Kofi Annan’s comment after the failure of the 2004 attempt at unification that a settlement to the long-standing Cyprus problem,

“would benefit the people of Cyprus, as well as the region and the wider international community”.

This was true when he said it in 2004; it is even truer in 2017, as stability and peace have declined dramatically across the whole of the eastern Mediterranean region. I know that the FCO is working hard to assist the negotiating parties. Here, I acknowledge in particular the efforts of Sir Alan Duncan in this regard. It is right that we work hard to facilitate a settlement and equally right that any such settlement has to be by Cypriots, for Cypriots. The United Kingdom has a legal and moral duty to help and to continue to help. Our legal duty arises from our guarantor status; our moral duty arises from our catastrophic error in allowing a divided island to join the EU. Jack Straw, who was instrumental in this decision, now openly acknowledges his mistake.

At the time, the EU promised by way of compensation an end to the embargo and other relaxations. Kofi Annan said, after the rejection by the Greek Cypriots of his plan for reunification in 2004, that he regretted that the Turkish Cypriots would not equally enjoy the benefits of EU membership but hoped that ways would be found to ease the plight in which those people find themselves through no fault of their own. That was 13 years ago, and no ways were found—none. The embargo remains in force and the EU has not delivered on any of its promises.

The current Geneva talks are, realistically, the last chance to put things right, and I urge the Government to continue their efforts to help, but we must recognise that the talks may fail—they have failed before—and there is a very short window available for compromise before elections in the south will dominate political discourse there. There are already signs that this is happening. There are already fears in the north that the Greek Cypriots are no longer really committed to reunification on the basis of political equality. If the talks fail, we must recognise that they are unlikely to be resumed for decades, if at all, and because that is true, Her Majesty’s Government must look to other ways of discharging their legal and moral responsibilities. They must have a plan to support the people of the north if the talks fail. In particular, Her Majesty’s Government must be prepared to help bring about an end to the embargo. They must encourage inward financial investment, they must help integrate the Northern Cyprus financial institutions into international systems and, in particular, they must allow direct flights into and from Northern Cyprus.

Direct flights are crucial to the economic sustainability of the north. At present, all flights to and from the UK to Northern Cyprus must first land in Turkey. This adds time and cost. Since 1 June, action by HMG has added more time and more cost to these flights. Since 1 June, flights between the UK and Northern Cyprus must not only touch down in Turkey but require an additional security check in Turkey and a change of planes. The Government explain this additional requirement as a necessary security measure because they have “no visibility” of security at Ercan airport, the airport in Lefkoşa in Northern Cyprus. This does not explain why these additional security checks are required on outbound flights from the UK to Ercan; it explains only why the additional checks are required on flights inbound to the UK from Ercan.

I entirely understand that it is the duty of the UK authorities to take whatever measures seem to them necessary to protect the public and that while they have no visibility of security at Ercan outbound measures are justifiable, but I hope that these measures will remain in place for only as long as it takes the UK authorities to acquire visibility and satisfy themselves that Ercan airport security meets the required standards. There is no legal obstacle to doing that. There is no legal obstacle to UK authorities visiting, communicating and agreeing protocols with Ercan, particularly in light of the High Court ruling of 3 February this year that law enforcement officers of the UK and north Cyprus can collaborate on criminal matters. Will the Minister and the Department for Transport look urgently at this situation? Why are the additional inbound to Ercan security measures necessary? Are we working to acquire visibility of security at Ercan so that we can reinstate the previous flight rules when it is safe to do so? We should surely minimise the economic damage to north Cyprus as much as we can. Will the Minister say whether the Government have plans to provide assistance to north Cyprus in the event of the failure of the Geneva talks?