CYPRUS: Tens of thousands of people crammed into a Nicosia square yesterday for the biggest demonstration in Turkish Cypriot history, demanding an end to decades of isolation and a deal to win them a place in Europe.
Estimates of the size of the crowd of European Union flag-waving Turkish Cypriots ranged from 50,000 to 70,000 - a huge number for an isolated enclave of around 200,000 people.
There was hardly a single flag of the internationally unrecognised Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Instead, olive branches and the blue-and-gold EU emblem dominated as protesters hoped to pile pressure on leader Mr Rauf Denktash to reach a deal in United Nations-sponsored peace talks.
Demonstrators chanted "Denktash resign" and held up banners with slogans such as "We can't wait another 40 years" and "Make peace Denktash, enough is enough".
The Mediterranean island, which joins the EU in May 2004, has been divided since a Turkish invasion in 1974 in response to a Greek Cypriot coup engineered by the military in Athens.
UN efforts to reunite the island's estranged north and south resume this week, with hopes of a smooth European Union expansion hinging on the negotiations.
Mr Denktash says he has serious reservations about the UN plan, particularly in terms of land exchanges, but pledges to negotiate in good faith. He also said he has no plans to quit.
He is to meet Cypriot President Glafcos Clerides for talks today but said demonstrations weakened his ability to negotiate changes to the UN draft peace plan.
Washington's Cyprus co-ordinator, Mr Thomas Weston, told reporters after meeting Turkish foreign ministry officials that he hoped a deal could happen by the UN's February 28th deadline.
But many Turkish Cypriots doubt 78-year-old Mr Denktash, who has led the north since it declared itself a state in 1983, is ready to sign a reunification deal and win a place in the EU.
Nicosia's mayor, Mr Kutlay Erk, said some 70,000 people had attended the demonstration.
Witnesses said it was clearly more than the 30,000 to 40,000 who gathered for a rally in December.
"If the vast majority of the people can gather it is obvious Denktash no longer supports the Cypriot people. The only way out is for him to resign and retire," said union leader Mr Ahmet Barcin.
Not all were so categorical.
"I came here to hear what they have to say," said Mr Huseyin Ismailoglu, who remembers the inter-communal fighting in the 1960s and 1970s that tore Cyprus apart.
"We want peace and the embargoes to stop but we don't want the Greeks here because I know what the Greeks are like. I still think Denktash is the man for the job," he said.
Only Turkey recognises Mr Denktash's administration, which is under international sanctions that have stunted its growth.
The domestic pressure on Mr Denktash is compounded by international diplomacy and a new government in Ankara that has called for revisions to decades of policy on Cyprus.
The UN wants acceptance of its plan in the next six weeks, as it fears that EU admission of a divided island will cement a partition that is a permanent source of tension between Greece and Turkey.
The plan calls for power-sharing, territorial handovers by Turkish Cypriots and a scaling down of military forces.
If the plan succeeds, it will prompt one of the largest population shifts in Europe since the Balkan wars, affecting at least 100,000 people. - (Reuters)