CYPRUS: The fragile Turkish Cypriot coalition government resigned yesterday, putting northern Cyprus into political limbo and putting at risk any future negotiations to reunite the island writes Michael Jansen in Nicosia.
The Prime Minister of nine months, Mr Mehmet Ali Talat submitted his resignation to the head of the breakaway state, Mr Rauf Denktash, who will meet party leaders over the next few days to see if a new coalition can be forged.
Since factional incompatibility makes this is unlikely, elections could be held within 60 days. Mr Talat will head a caretaker administration until a new government is formed.
The coalition was always at odds with itself. Mr Talat's Republican Turkish Party had as its partner the Democratic Party of Mr Sardar Denktash, son of the veteran Turkish Cypriot leader.
Mr Talat favours the reunification of Cyprus on the basis of the plan for a federation put forward by the UN Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan. Mr Sardar Denktash, who served as foreign minister, does not. But he went along with Mr Talat because he had the backing of an overwhelming majority of Turkish Cypriots and Ankara.
Although 64 per cent of Turkish Cypriots voted in favour of the Annan plan in the April referendum, 76 per cent of Greek Cypriots rejected it, halting the UN's four-year effort to achieve a Cyprus settlement ahead of the island's accession to the European Union on May 1st.
Two days after the referendum, several deputies pulled out of the Turkish Cypriot coalition, rendering it a minority government. Mr Talat failed to recruit politicians prepared to grant the Greek Cypriots major concessions.
It is not certain that in a new election Mr Talat will be able to once again win control of the Turkish Cypriot assembly. Last December his party narrowly defeated parties backing Mr Rauf Denktash, who has spent his life striving for a separate Turkish Cypriot state in the north.
A victory for his supporters would end any hope of reunification.
Greek Cypriot rebuff of the Annan plan undermined Mr Talat's credibility amongst Turkish Cypriots. His position has also been eroded by disillusionment with the slow pace of EU normalisation.
The EU put together a package of benefits for the Turkish Cypriots, excluded from the advantages of EU membership, as a reward for their Yes vote in the referendum. But the EU has failed to deliver.
Amongst the benefits is €259 million in financial assistance. The Greek Cypriot majority republic, now a full EU member, has barred investment of the money in the development of land or properties belonging to Greek Cypriots before Turkey occupied the north in 1974.
The Cyprus government is determined to use its position in the EU to maintain pressure on Ankara and the Turkish Cypriot leadership to agree to extensive revisions in the Annan plan that would incorporate Greek Cypriot demands excluded in the version put to referendum. If there is no movement towards a settlement, Cyprus could veto Turkey's EU candidacy.