nature in the ensuing 24 years. I am very much encouraged by what I have heard here today, and I have a couple of ideas that I would like to table for you as new departures, I think, which may or may not help. I leave that to you. But I will cede the microphone to my colleagues.

Senator BIDEN. What are you new ideas, before you cede the microphone?

Mr. BOYATT. First of all, I think that it would be important to transfer the venue as far as the United Nation's aspect of the problem is concerned from the Secretary General to the Security Council. A very big part of the New World order involves the major powers acting in concert. And they act in concert within the context of the Security Council, and not the Office of the Secretary General.

I think that the Secretary General has been involved in Cypress too long. The talks have been conducted under his auspices too long. That is a dead end in a structural sense. And I think it would reenergize the process if the whole thing were moved under the Security Council. If the Security Council appointed the special representative, the special negotiator, that would send a very big message to everybody. The message would be that the great powers are involved, they are going to stay involved, and they are interested in a solution. And when there is a solution, the great powers will have to be the guarantors of that solution or it will not last.

So, you might as well face all of that now, move the thing under the Security Council-and I also think, Mr. Chairman, it would generate that kind of personal diplomacy of which you spoke. It would be on the agenda of Mitterand and Majors and Kohl and the others, and it would be part of that ongoing process and facilitate the President's use of his personal diplomacy, at which he is incredibly effective, as you note.

Second, I think it is important for the United States and the coalition to sustain the pressure on Turkey to achieve the withdrawal of the troops. Whether there are 30,000 Turkish troops in Cyprus or 5 will not change the security situation of the Turk Cypriots a damn bit. And I think what we should be doing is encouraging the Government of Turkey to initiate this action unilaterally, because it is very much in their own interests. The funds lose nothing on the security side, and they gain tremendous advantage on the political and the negotiating side.

Third-and this thought is so old it is new. Because of your invitation to appear here today I had to go back and review a lot of history, and I reviewed the London-Zurich agreements. And I have to say that from a constitutional point of view, I found much there that was very valuable. I found a lot of elements both on the detail side and sort of major approaches that I think would be very useful to putting Cyprus back together in a communal sense; because if there is going to be a solution, it is going to be in terms of knitting together these two communities.

And so I would just throw those three thoughts out for your consideration.

Senator BIDEN. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Nimetz, welcome back.

STATEMENT OF HON. MATTHEW NIMETZ, ESQ., PAUL, WEISS, RIFKIND, WHARTON & GARRISON, NEW YORK, NY

Mr. NIMETZ. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I feel as though I could give the same testimony I gave 11 years ago, unfortunately.

Senator BIDEN. Unfortunately, I think you may be right.

Mr. NIMETZ. Mr. Chairman, Ambassador Ledsky mentioned an article I just published a few months ago in The Mediterranean Quarterly. I would ask that the article be introduced.

Senator BIDEN. That will be placed in the record in full.

[The Article from Mediterranean Quarterly information referred to follows:]

[The Mediterranean Quarterly]

THE CYPRUS PROBLEM REVISITED

(By Matthew Nimetz)

It is some 10 years since I have had an official position in Government and thus I look at the Cyprus problem without the benefit of classified information, cables from embassies, and day-to-day advice from the State Department professionals. Perhaps this is an advantage-it permits me to focus on the essence of the dispute rather than its daily manifestations.

What I see is a paradox: however dramatically the world has changed during the last decade or so, it is clear that the Cyprus problem has remained virtually the same. When we looked at the world situation in 1977 when the Carter administration took office, certain world problems seemed overwhelming in their complexity and severe in their danger: the United States-Soviet standoff; the nuclear arms race; human rights problems in Eastern Europe; the Rhodesian conflict; rigid apartheid in South Africa; the Middle East situation; the lack of normal relations between the United States and China; and so on. Yet the end of 1990 many of those more intractable international disputes had been solved or were at least closer to solution, while the Cyprus problem remains deadlocked. Why?

To those familiar with its intricacies, the Cyprus problem appears solvable. After all, the island is small and prosperous; its people are educated and responsive to a democratic political process; the two metropolitan powers-Greece and Turkey—are at peace and nominal allies. The issues that divide the two sides are negotiable— legalistic concepts to be settled in devising a constitutional structure and territorial issues to be settled in determining the border between the two federal zones. If the Cyprus problem were presented to 100 world experts on constitutional and political systems, there would be 100 proposed solutions-all of which would be reasonable and any one of which would have a fair chance of working. However, if we were actually to perform that experiment, based on past experience I would guess that neither the Greek nor Turkish Cypriots would be willing wholeheartedly to accept any of the proffered solutions.

I still remember my disappointment when the plan presented by the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom in November 1978 was summarily rejected by the Greek Cypriot side. It was a fair and sensible proposal-not perfect, but reasonable. The Greek rejection caused the Turkish side to breathe more easily-I am quite sure they were trying to decide how best to reject it also without offending us too much. Imagine where we would be today if both sides, instead of focusing on the plan's negative features, had accepted it as a working paper, invited United States, United Kingdom, and Canadian experts to help the U.N. Secretary General work out its details, and had entered into negotiations in good faith with a view of creating a new Federal Republic of Cyprus, If there had been any such demonstration of creative statesmanship, I have no doubt the past decade would have been a period of economic growth, political development, and social reconciliation for Cyprus. Similar opportunities have been lost throughout the history of modern Cyprus. And I see little reason to believe that there will be a lasting and satisfactory solution until the leadership of both communities is willing to be realistic about the range of acceptable solutions and negotiate in good faith toward a realistic settlement. Is this possible?

I

There are four dimensions to the Cyprus problem that make it particularly difficult to solve. I will briefly set them forth and comment on the type of progress that I think is possible.

First, although Cyprus is a nation-state, most of its citizens never really wanted it. It was born an orphan with three midwives-Britain, Greece, and Turkey. Many Cypriots, probable most, did not really want to be citizens of an independent statemost Greek Cypriots wanted union with Greece; most Turkish Cypriots wanted some attachment to Turkey. Geopolitics forced the issue and the result was the establishment of a state governed by an elaborately balanced constitutional system guaranteed by the three guarantor powers, an overly technical system that never really worked-perhaps because it never could, perhaps because no one ever really tried hard to make it work. Greeks in Cyprus traditionally fly the Greek flag (at least they did when I visited); Turks fly the Turkish flag; virtually no one flies the Cypriot flag. This ambiguity about nationhood affects the search for a solution, because one cannot go back to a common set of shared experiences, national aspirations, or common heritage that might be a basis for trust and understanding. If anything the past is divisive, for Greek aspirations are based on their resistance to centuries of Ottoman rule and their successful preservation of Hellenistic culture on the island.

A second important aspect of the Cyprus problem is its basis in the antagonism of two ethnic groups or nationalities that are divided by language, religion, and centuries of hostility. It is useful to view this antagonism in a global context. I believe we are living through an era of deepening animosities among nationalities. One need only look at the situation of Hungarians and Rumanians; Serbs and Croats; Czechs and Slovaks; Armenians and Azerbaijanis; Hindus, Sikhs, and Moslems; Tamils and Singhalese. What has caused the intensification of such national-ethnictribal-religious feeling? I am not sure there is an answer, but perhaps the liberation of peoples from the rule of colonial empires and the democratic spirit of the age have unleashed these long-suppressed forces. Perhaps the success of anticolonialism has led in the succeeding generation to demands by national minorities within newly independent states. Perhaps alienation of the individual in a world made up of billions of people and uncontrollable technology has given renewed importance to solidarity with one's compatriots. Perhaps the world has always been so divisive, but because of the mass media we are more attentive to these issues and because of the development of concepts of international law and human rights we are willing to consider more seriously the rights of smaller national groupings.

In any event, the intensity of divisive feelings on Cyprus is apparent to any visitor. Greek Cypriots are different from Turkish Cypriots—and compromise on any subject is a fundamental challenge. The slightest movement forward can be, and usually is, viewed as a betrayal of basic positions, undermining the survival of the Greek or Turkish culture on Cyprus. In searching for a solution there, we are dealing only on the surface with a constitutional issue. More deeply we must satisfy fears about the destruction of a national community. A solution is particularly difficult when we try to devise a federal system with only two constituent parts. Federalism works best in a larger, more diverse environment, where the groupings can vary from time to time-the United States, Australia, Canada, Switzerland, and India are examples. Where the federal structure is shared between only two entities-or is seen to be between a large majority and a beleaguered minority-the system runs the risk of breaking down, as it did in Pakistan, for example.

A third important dimension of the Cyprus problem is that both communities on the island have a nearby metropolitan power, Greece and Turkey. But the power they can bring to bear on the island is unequal because of the closer geographic proximity of Turkey. Thus the Turkish Cypriots, by far the weaker force on the island, are supported by the far greater regional power-which of course tilted the balance through Turkey's military action in 1974 and subsequent occupation of onethird of the island. The relationships between Greece and Turkey, complicated by other issues and aggravated by the Cyprus problem, is a key factor in prolonging or settling the dispute. And their rivalry is played out in a more complex environment involving the interests of the United States, Soviet Union, NATO, and European and Middle Eastern powers.

A final aspect of the Cyprus problem is the virtual stalemate that exists because of the United Nations Forces in Cyprus (UNFICYP), which supervises the division of the two zones and the role of the Secretary General in supervising the intercommunal talks. This U.N. presence, which has kept the peace for 16 years, has also made it less necessary, unfortunately, to find a lasting solution. I greatly admire

UNFICYP, having watched its work and having spent some time with the Canadian contingent on the island. But I often wonder what would happen if UNFICYP left. Would its departure force the two sides to reach understandings directly because they would have no intermediary handy to resolve dangerous incidents? The fact that the Secretary General has a special responsibility for Cyprus is, in my view, both a positive and negative factor. It is positive to the extent the parties want to invoke his good offices, but it is also a negative factor, because the Secretary General has no real power and so many other responsibilities that he cannot effectively move the process forward. Yet his formal role as the intermediary makes it difficult to develop other processes for pursuing a solution that might have a greater chance of succeeding.

II

Given these unique overriding factors affecting the Cyprus problem, I reach some disquieting conclusions. The factors working to maintain the stalemate-no shared national feeling, ethnic and religious division and historic antagonism, geographic division into two zones, unfriendly metropolitan powers, and an internationally sanctioned and policed stalemate-seem greater than the forces that tend to promote a solution. Yet everyone says they want a settlement-the status quo is not acceptable to the international community, to the region, or to the Cypriots. What then are the elements that will permit a breakthrough?

I believe a settlement can be achieved only when both sides on the island are realistic about the solution and have the political will to give it a chance, and also when the two metropolitan powers see a benefit to themselves in a settlement. The right time will come when the leadership of the main protagonists has the courage to move from the status quo.

The Greek Cypriots must give up forever the notion that the whole of Cyprus will be a Hellenist state. Hellenism will live forever on Cyprus, but not everywhere on Cyprus. Once this notion is accepted, all things are possible. Instead of trying to dominate the entire island through a strong federal government, the goal of the Greek Cypriots should be to solve the territorial issues in an acceptable way, win the cooperation of the Turkish Cypriots through_genuine decentralization, and then-with the Turkish Cypriots as partners-join Europe and give all Cypriots an opportunity to cross numerous borders, not just the Green Line, and to participate in a greater economy and a greater European political and cultural life.

The Turkish Cypriots must give up the idea that their administration will ever be accepted as a nation-state. The United Nations will never recognize a breakaway state created essentially by extreme force of arms. The near universal outrage at the invasion of Kuwait demonstrates once again that the contemporary world system is based on respect for internationally accepted borders. Just note how cautiously the United States has acted with respect to Lithuanian sovereignty where the claim is so very much stronger than the case for Turkish Cyprus. On the other hand, Turkish Cypriots should recognize that the other Turkish-only solution-incorporation into Turkey-would wipe them out as a community and lead to a lower standard of living and reduced political life as a remote miniprovince of a large country with many political and social problems. A solution of substantial autonomy in a federal Cyprus is the best realistic solution of the Turkish Cypriots.

For Greece, it should be recognized that a solution to this problem would help the process of resolving other outstanding differences with Turkey. Greece's orientation for the next decade must be to overcome its own internal divisions between right and left, to invigorate the economy, and to more fully become a part of the new Europe. This process, begun in the late 1970's under Constantine Karamanlis, was not pursued with enthusiasm during most of the 1980's, with unfortunate results. But now there is no alternative, particularly as Eastern European countries will soon be knocking at the door of the European Community (EC).

For Turkey, too, the Cyprus problem is a burden. It is a constant problem in strengthening relations with the United States and an impediment to entry into the European Community. It is a major negative factor in Turkey's attempts to improve its relations with Greece. The problems of Turkey are primarily internal-economic, social, and political. And to the extent that Turkey has security concerns, these come from instability in Iraq, Iran, and Syria, as well as from turmoil in Bulgaria, Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan as the Soviet empire struggles to redefine itself. Compared to these neighbors, Greece and Cyprus should be viewed by Ankara as stable, prosperous, and potentially friendly states that should become important trading partners of Turkey.

The European Community and the United States should take an active interest in prompting a solution. Perhaps we Americans were naive to believe we could contribute to a settlement in 1978. But perhaps we should try again. Certainly the EC should. Although Cyprus has submitted an application to join the EC, I think this initiative has no chance of acceptance until the Cypriots settle their internal problems. The EC has enough on its hands without internalizing the Cyprus problem. But the EC should be encouraging: by informally letting it be known that if the Cyprus problem is settled, then the Cypriot application-supported by both Greek and Turkish constituents within the federation-would receive reasonably prompt attention.

III

If the above basic premises are accepted-and if there is enlightened leadership on all sides-it is my view that the Greek and Turkish leaders of Cyprus should jointly develop a strategy for forward motion. We do not need a new Cyprus planwe all know the outlines of the solution. It is what I call a minimalist settlement: a return of territory to the Greek side (with territory divided roughly 71 to 29 percent), a loose federation along the lines proposed by the Secretary General in 1985, and a firm schedule for the withdrawal of foreign military forces. The real issue is not the formal terms of the settlement but the willingness of people on both sides to work together. Successful reconciliation will require day-to-day administration by leaders whose guiding principle is harmony and cooperation rather than winning or losing. It will mean the establishment of new institutions answering to both communities and responsive to the needs of each. It will mean letting a new generation of Cypriots have a chance to know each other and work together and hopefully to forge a new destiny for the Republic of Cyprus.

This result is difficult to achieve after more than 16 years of mutual distrust, and a breakdown of even the most attenuated relationships between Greek and Turkish Cypriots. What is needed immediately is a concrete program of confidence-building measures; exchanges of young people, professionals, and businessmen; the development of common institutions such as a university; joint initiatives in Europe; resolution of missing persons cases; and the development of economic opportunities. The so-called embargo of the north could be relaxed and the city of Varosha restored to Greek administration. The confidence-building measures undertaken under the Helsinki Final Act between East and West in Europe were remarkably successful and had a significant role in facilitating the political process that is now breaking down the division of Europe. These types of measures in Cyprus would test whether the leaders of the Greek and Turkish communities and their citizens are ready to put into place a comprehensive settlement that will finally solve what we all know as the "Cyprus problem.'

Mr. NIMETZ. And let me just give you my by basic view. First, I think the problem is in stalemate. I think it is in fundamental stalemate. And I think however much the parties want to solve the problem, their fears about what a realistic solution entails outweigh their desire for a comprehensive settlement. The stalemate is reinforced by the snail-like pace of the negotiations under U.N. auspices and the fact that both the Greek and the Turkish Cypriot sectors are at peace and economically and politically viable.

I think there is unlikely to be any real movement until the Greek and Turkish Cypriot leadership is willing to make the political commitment necessary not only to compromise on the issues, but to work out a federal structure together. One need only consider the problems of federal states with ethnic and religious divisions such as Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, India, and even Canada, to recognize how difficult that undertaking will be.

In my view, and it may be unique, the solution to the problem is not that difficult. What is difficult is getting the Cypriots to summon up the courage to embrace it and then try to work on it. Third, I believe that while the U.N. needs to play a major role in the settlement, it cannot shoulder the whole burden. My reading of the experience over the past 17 years, or the past 24 years, is that