VZCZCXRO7624
PP RUEHDBU RUEHFL RUEHKW RUEHLA RUEHNP RUEHROV RUEHSL RUEHSR
DE RUEHNC #0767/01 3381149
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 041149Z DEC 09
FM AMEMBASSY NICOSIA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 0352
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK PRIORITY 1568
RUEHBS/USEU BRUSSELS PRIORITY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 NICOSIA 000767 
 
SIPDIS 
 
EUR/SE 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/04/2019 
TAGS: PGOV PREL TU CY
SUBJECT: CYPRUS: INCREASING TURKISH CYPRIOT EURO-SCEPTICISM 
 
Classified By: AMBASSADOR FRANK C. URBANCIC FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) 
AND (D) 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary: The Turkish Cypriot UBP party, led by its 
leader and current "Prime Minister" Dervis Eroglu, are 
long-time euro-sceptics. Disappointment with the EU is 
growing among Turkish Cypriots who believe the Union has not 
kept promises made and that its policy towards Turkey and 
Cyprus is deeply influenced, if not managed, by the RoC and 
Greece. If Turkey and Turkish Cypriots turn away from the 
goal of EU membership, a key impetus to the reunification 
talks will be removed. End Summary. 
 
¶2. (SBU) Turkish Cypriot "Prime Minister" Dervis Eroglu has 
frequently indicated to embassy officials that he has a 
largely unfavourable view of the European Union. A recent 
example of his distrust was seen at the reopening of a church 
restored with EU funding. When he was introduced to speak by 
the EU presiding official as "Mr." Eroglu, rather than as 
"Prime Minister," a clearly upset Eroglu made a speech 
demanding the EU (and the Greek Cypriots) accept the 
existence of the "TRNC." He later cancelled participation of 
15 out of 21 TC participants at a long-planned EU-sponsored 
working visit to Prague on the environment. This prompted an 
angry letter from the EU stating the "government" did not 
understand how the EU works, offended the Czech hosts, wasted 
EU resources, and ultimately punished TCs and the Cypriot 
environment. We subsequently have been told that Eroglu 
referred to the proposed visit to Prague as a "brainwashing 
trip." 
 
¶3. (SBU) The head of the EU Support Office which manages EU 
assistance to north Cyprus complains that 7500 Euro-diaries 
for schoolchildren are sitting in the storage room of her 
office basement because the "government" prevented their 
distribution due to the fact that they contain a short 
introduction by European Commission President Manuel Barrosso 
that includes the word "reunification." Eroglu has therefore 
deemed the diaries "propaganda" material and will not allow 
their distribution. This reflects the UBP's resistance to a 
federal solution to the Cyprus problem. Supporters of a two- 
state settlement, the UBP blames the EU for shifting the 
balance in the current intra-island talks towards the Greek 
Cypriots by accepting them into the EU in 2004, "awarding 
Greek Cypriot intransigence and punishing Turkish Cypriot 
peace efforts" in the wake of the Annan Plan referendum. 
 
¶4. (SBU) While Eroglu and his UBP party pay lip service to EU 
values and support Turkey's accession process, our 
interaction with UBP officials indicate that they hold 
different views. They argue that the EU has proven that it 
cannot be trusted, it's too "soft and lenient" when it comes 
to Greek Cypriots, too "aggressive and dominant" when it 
comes to Turkish Cypriots. "After all," they argue, the EU is 
-unofficially - a Christian club, and naturally pro-Greek 
(anti-Turkish)." They strongly believe that Cyprus and 
Greece, as members of the EU, bias the Union against Turkish 
interests and therefore cannot be considered an honest 
broker. 
 
¶5. (SBU) The UBP's vision of Europe is shaped by a 
traditional, protectionist, Attaturkist view of Turkish 
society and Turkey's place in the world that has not been 
mitigated by recent changes in Turkish foreign and domestic 
policies. Central to the UBP's world view is a somewhat 
hostile attitude towards the motherland's" neighbors and a 
wary outlook towards Europe and the West in general, embodied 
in the old Turkish saying "a Turk has no other friend but 
another Turk." As an example, Eroglu has told us that during 
the run-up to the referendum on the Annan Plan, the EU and US 
were "deviously" working to convince Turkish Cypriots into 
voting "yes" to the reunification plan. Both then-"president" 
Rauf Denktas and Eroglu have attacked the EU and the US for 
"showering people with money" to back the allegedly pro-Greek 
Cypriot Annan Plan as a means to disenfranchise the Turkish 
Cypriot people. He still voices his "fears" regarding yet 
another EU/US effort to "deceive" people in a potential new 
referendum on a plan Christofias and Talat may devise. 
 
¶6. (SBU) Comment: Eroglu has shared with Embassy officials on 
multiple occasions that he does not believe that the EU will 
ever accept Turkey as a member. Given widespread 
disappointment with the EU among Turkish Cypriots -a result 
of the EU not following through with promises of direct trade 
in the wake of the TC "yes" vote for the Annan Plan -Eroglu 
scores points with the general public when he demands that 
Turkish Cypriot sovereignty be maintained and questions EU 
fairness given Cyprus and Greece are both members of a club 
from which all Turks are denied a voice. In the run-up to the 
 
NICOSIA 00000767  002 OF 002 
 
 
April 2012 presidential elections, UBP will continue to build 
on its position as a Euro-sceptic party, securing its base 
among relatively less educated, more Turkey-dependent members 
of the electorate, and benefiting from the growing 
disillusionment with the EU. If more TCs begin to view EU 
membership negatively, one of the key drivers for yes voters 
in 2004 will be gone. End Comment. 
 
 
URBANCIC