The Annan Plan (), also known as the Cyprus reunification plan, was a United Nations proposal to resolve the Cyprus dispute. The different parts of the proposal were based on the argumentation put forward by each party (Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots) in meetings held under the auspices of the UN. The proposal was to restructure the Republic of Cyprus to become the "United Republic of Cyprus" (Greek: Ενωμένη Κυπριακή Δημοκρατία, romanized: Enoméne Kypriakí Dimokratía; Turkish: Birleşik Kıbrıs Cumhuriyeti), a federation of two states. It was revised a number of times before it was put to the people of Cyprus in a 2004 referendum, and was supported by 65% of Turkish Cypriots, but only 24% of Greek Cypriots.
Proposal
The Annan Plan (named after UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan) underwent five revisions before it reached its final version. The fifth revision proposed the creation of the United Republic of Cyprus, covering the island of Cyprus entirely except for the UK's Sovereign Base Areas. This new country was to be a federation of two constituent states – the Greek Cypriot State and the Turkish Cypriot State – joined by a federal government apparatus.
This federal level, purported to be loosely based on the Swiss federal model, would incorporate the following elements:
A collective Presidential Council, made up of six voting members, was allocated according to population (per present levels, four Greek Cypriots and two Turkish Cypriots), and selected and voted in by parliament. An additional three non-voting members would be assigned 2:1.
A president and vice president, chosen by the Presidential Council from among its members, one from each community, to alternate in their functions every 10 months during the council's five-year term of office.
A bicameral legislature:
A Senate (upper house), with 48 members, divided 24:24 between the two communities.
A Chamber of Deputies (lower house), with 48 members, divided proportionately to the two communities' populations (with no fewer than 12 for the smaller community).
A Supreme Court composed of equal numbers of Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot judges, plus three foreign judges; to be appointed by the Presidential Council.
The plan included a federal constitution, constitutions for each constituent state, a string of constitutional and federal laws, and a proposal for a United Cyprus Republic flag and a national anthem. It also provided for a Reconciliation Commission to bring the two communities closer together and resolve outstanding disputes from the past.
It would also have established a limited right to return between the territories of the two communities, and it would have allowed both Greece and Turkey to maintain a permanent military presence on the island, albeit with large, phased reductions in troop numbers.
Negotiations
Annan Plans I & II
Following the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1250 of 29 June 1999, which requested the Secretary-General to invite the two leaders of the communities on Cyprus to negotiations, Álvaro de Soto was appointed as Special Advisor to the Secretary-General on Cyprus (1 November), the Secretary-General visited Turkey and U.S. President Bill Clinton visited Turkey and Greece (November), and proximity talks in New York were arranged beginning 3 December. The motivation for this renewed attempt at a Cyprus settlement was Cyprus' impending membership of the EU, and the fear that this development would create an obstacle to Turkey's hopes of joining. This prospect was of particular concern not only to Turkey, but also to the US and the UK, which were both keen to promote Turkey's membership of the EU. A further concern was the future of the British military bases and installations on Cyprus which were regarded as essential by both the UK and USA.
On 10–11 December, the Helsinki EU summit's conclusions welcomed the launch of the talks in New York and declared that "a political settlement will facilitate the accession of Cyprus to the European Union." This was followed by the observation that "If no settlement has been reached by the completion of accession negotiations, the Council's decision on accession will be made without the above being a precondition." The EU kept its options open, however, by adding: "In this the Council will take account of all relevant factors."
Following the talks in New York, four more rounds of proximity talks were held in Geneva: 31 January – 8 February 24 July – 4 August, 12–26 September, and 1–10 November 2000. On 24 November, in response to the Secretary-General's assessment of the talks (8 November 2000), which the leader of the Turkish Cypriots Rauf Denktaş rejected, Denktaş announced his withdrawal from the talks "because no progress could be made until two separate states are recognized". He was supported in his decision by Turkey.
After almost a year of no talks and therefore little progress, Álvaro de Soto announced on 5 September 2001 that "on behalf of the Secretary-General I have conveyed to his Excellency The Greek Cypriot Leader Glafcos Clerides and Rauf Denktaş, the Turkish Cypriot leader, an invitation to resume the search for a comprehensive settlement to the Cyprus problem under the Secretary-General's auspices... with separate meetings of the Secretary-General with each of the two leaders on 12 September 2001 in New York." Denktaş rejected Annan's invitation on the same day, but the visit to Cyprus in October 2001 of the President of the European Commission Romano Prodi prompted him to think again. During his visit Prodi stated that Cyprus would become an EU member with or without a settlement. Shortly thereafter Denktaş entered into correspondence with Clerides, and a meeting in the presence of Álvaro de Soto was organised in Nicosia on 4 December 2001. After the meeting, de Soto announced that the two leaders had agreed the following:
That the United Nations Secretary-General, in the exercise of his mission of good offices, would invite the two leaders to direct talks;
That these talks would be held in Cyprus starting in mid January 2002 on UN premises;
That there would be no preconditions;
That all issues would be on the table;
That they would continue to negotiate in good faith until a comprehensive settlement was achieved;
That nothing would be agreed until everything was agreed.
The new round of talks was held in Nicosia and ran from 16 January. In September the venue was moved to Paris, and then, in October, meetings were held in New York. After the New York meetings, Álvaro de Soto read a message from the Secretary-General to the effect that "a comprehensive settlement has to be a complex, integrated, legally binding and self-executing agreement, where the rights and obligations of all concerned are clear, unambiguous, and not subject to further negotiations."
On 11 November 2002, Álvaro de Soto presented a comprehensive plan for the resolution of the Cyprus issue (Annan Plan I). Following feedback, but no negotiations between the two sides, a revised version was published on 10 December (Annan Plan II), two days before the EU Copenhagen summit. In his report to the Security Council of 1 April 2003, Kofi Annan revealed that the Copenhagen European Council Summit of 12 and 13 December 2002 was seen as a deadline:
My Special Adviser helped to guide the discussions and by mid-2002 he was making concrete suggestions to assist the parties to build bridges. I refrained however from making a written substantive input until 11 November 2002, when, no breakthrough having been achieved, and believing that no other course of action remained open if the opportunity was to be seized, I put forward a document which I believed constituted a sound basis for agreement on a comprehensive settlement. Following intensive consultations, I put forward a revised proposal on 10 December 2002, hoping to assist the parties to reach agreement in time for the Copenhagen European Council on 12 and 13 December 2002.
According to Claire Palley, the revisions to Annan Plan I "were not even-handed".
"... seen overall, the changes to Annan I, made before the Copenhagen summit, began to tilt the balance further than the existing 'compromises' in the 'bridging proposals' even though, for the sake of 'face', some relatively minor changes were made in response to Greek-Cypriot representations."
Intense pressure was exerted on both sides to agree to Annan Plan II before the Copenhagen Summit decision regarding Cyprus' membership application but to no avail. Nevertheless, the summit confirmed that all of Cyprus would become a member on 1 May 2004, but "in the absence of a settlement, the application of the acquis to the northern part of the island shall be suspended".
Cyprus will be admitted as a new Member State to the European Union. Nevertheless, the European Council confirms its strong preference for accession to the European Union by a united Cyprus. In this context it welcomes the commitment of the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriots to continue to negotiate with the objective of concluding a comprehensive settlement of the Cyprus problem by 28 February 2003 on the basis of the UNSG's proposals. The European Council believes that those proposals offer a unique opportunity to reach a settlement in the coming weeks and urges the leaders of the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities to seize this opportunity....
The European Council has decided that, in the absence of a settlement, the application of the acquis to the northern part of the island shall be suspended, until the Council decides unanimously otherwise, on the basis of a proposal by the Commission. Meanwhile, the Council invites the Commission, in consultation with the government of Cyprus, to consider ways of promoting economic development of the northern part of Cyprus and bringing it closer to the Union.
At the same time Turkey was told that a decision on a start date for accession negotiations would be delayed until after Cyprus had joined.
If the European Council in December 2004, on the basis of a report and a recommendation from the Commission, decides that Turkey fulfils the Copenhagen political criteria, the European Union will open accession negotiations with Turkey without delay.
Annan Plan III
There now followed a hasty attempt on the part of Álvaro de Soto and his team to come up with a version of the Plan which both sides could accept before 28 February 2003, a deadline which had been set by the EU so that the whole process could be completed before Cyprus's signature of the EU accession treaty, which took place on 16 April 2003.
In his Report of 1 April 2003, Kofi Annan wrote that he believed Annan III, which was submitted to the two sides two days before the deadline, should be the final version of the plan.
During the last week in February, I visited Turkey, Greece and Cyprus, and on 26 February I formally presented a third, and what I believed should be final, version of my plan, entitled Basis for a Comprehensive Settlement of the Cyprus Problem. Prior to my visit my Special Adviser had contributed to writing the important changes I had in mind. This version contained further refinements, particularly addressing the basic requirements of the Turkish side at the same time as meeting a number of Greek Cypriot concerns in order to maintain the overall balance. I also filled in all remaining gaps in the core parts of the plan, particularly those relating to security on which Greece and Turkey had not been able to agree.
According to Claire Palley, the UN team had "again made changes meeting Turkish concerns", and she cites the phrase "particularly addressing the basic requirements of the Turkish side" from the paragraph above as confirmation.
Having presented the "final" version of the Plan, Kofi Annan invited the Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders to The Hague on 10 March, where they were to inform him whether they were prepared "to sign a commitment to submit the plan for approval at separate simultaneous referendums on 30 March 2003". In the meantime the Plan had been altered with the addition of extensive "Corrigenda and clarifications", and in this new form was presented to the leaders on 7 March 2003. On the Greek Cypriot side there had been a change of leadership following elections on 16 February in which Tassos Papadopoulos was elected President of the Republic of Cyprus. He received the altered Plan when he was on his way to The Hague to meet the Secretary-General.
On 10 March 2003 in The Hague, Netherlands, the UN effort collapsed when Denktaş told the Secretary-General he would not put the Annan Plan to referendum. According to the BBC, "ultimately it was the Turkish Cypriot side which refused to even talk further, and which was blamed for the failure of the peace process." In the same news article Denktaş is quoted as saying: "The plan was unacceptable for us. This was not a plan we would ask our people to vote for."
In his report, Kofi Annan saw this as the end of the road:
On 11 March, at 0530 hours and following negotiations with the two leaders and the guarantor Powers lasting more than 19 hours, I announced that there had been no such agreement, and at that point the process which had begun in December 1999 reached the end of the road. The office in Cyprus of my Special Adviser, which opened in advance of the direct talks, is to close during April.
Annan Plans IV & V
As 2003 came to a close and the date for Cyprus's accession to the EU approached, a flurry of diplomatic activity got under way to revive the negotiations. US State Department Special Cyprus Coordinator Thomas Weston met with Foreign Minister George Papandreou in Washington on 17 September 2003 and told him the USA wanted "an immediate restart of talks by the two sides on the island".
At the meeting of the European Council in Brussels on 12 December 2003, the Council reiterated its preference "for a reunited Cyprus to join the Union on 1 May 2004" and urged "all parties concerned, and in particular Turkey and the Turkish Cypriot leadership, to strongly support the UN Secretary General's efforts" in an "immediate resumption of the talks on the basis of his proposals".
In December Thomas Weston visited Greece, Cyprus, and Turkey; and the US President George Bush wrote to the Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis on 26 December urging him to push for a Cyprus settlement: "We now have a window of opportunity to reach a settlement so that a united Cyprus joins the European Union. We must not let that window close."
Simitis responded by praising the Greek Cypriot side and pointing out that "time is running out due to the Turkish side's unwillingness to cooperate".
In the meantime parliamentary elections in Northern Cyprus (14 December 2003) had changed the political landscape. Mehmet Ali Talat leading a coalition of pro-Annan-Plan parties had narrowly defeated the incumbent Prime Minister Derviş Eroğlu. Elections had recently brought about a change of leadership in Turkey too, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had become prime minister on 14 March 2003. The Justice and Development Party implemented a major policy shift by supporting the peace process in the island. Erdoğan, keen to make progress on the issue of EU membership for Turkey, was "not in favor of following the Cyprus policy that has been followed for the last 30 or 40 years". He criticised Denktaş, saying, "This is not Mr. Denktaş's personal business," and adding that Denktaş "should pay more attention to what Turkish Cypriots think and the growing protest against his rule". However analysts have suggested that he and Denktaş were not so far apart in what they wanted from a settlement—they merely disagreed on tactics, with Erdoğan preferring that: "Neither Turkey nor Turkish Cyprus should give an uncompromising impression. We should not be the side keeping away from the negotiating table."
Following intervention by Erdoğan, the outcome of post-election manoeuvring in Northern Cyprus was that Talat formed a government in alliance with the Democratic Party led by Rauf Denktaş's son Serdar Denktaş. However Rauf Denktaş remained president, since the president is elected at separate elections.
On 4 February 2004, after having discussed matters with President Bush, Kofi Annan sent a letter to both sides in which he invited them to New York on 10 February 2004. In his letter, Annan proposed that talks resume with the aim of finalizing the plan by 31 March, and holding the referendum on 21 April. He also reserved for himself the task of completing the text of the plan if necessary:
"It is clearly desirable that the text should emerge completed from the negotiations... However, should that not happen, I would, by 31 March, make any indispensable suggestions to complete the text. Naturally I would only do this with the greatest of reluctance..."
At New York pressure was exerted on the two sides to grant the Secretary-General the powers of an arbitrator or mediator, but the Greek-Cypriot side would not agree. The Security Council had asked the Secretary-General to facilitate negotiations within the framework of his "good offices", and any extension to that mandate should have been sought from the Security Council, where, however, any one of its members could have used a veto to deny the request.
After intense negotiations the procedure outlined in Annan's letter was organised into phases. In Phase 1 the Cypriot parties would negotiate "within the framework of my [Annan's] mission of good offices" in Nicosia from 19 February in order to produce a final text by 22 March. Negotiations were to be restricted to matters that fell "within the parameters of the Plan".
In the absence of agreement, Phase 2 would involve the Secretary-General convening a meeting of the two sides, "with the participation of Greece and Turkey in order to lend their collaboration, in a concentrated effort to agree on a finalized text by 29 March."
In Phase 3 the Secretary-General would use his "discretion to finalize the text to be submitted to referenda on the basis of my plan".
The procedure enlarged the role foreseen for me, from completing any unfinished parts of the plan (filling in the blanks) to resolving any continuing and persistent deadlocks in the negotiations...
When Phase 1 got under way, the two Cypriot leaders, Rauf Denktaş and Tassos Papadopoulos, met nearly every day for negotiations facilitated by Álvaro de Soto. In addition, numerous technical committees and subcommittees met in parallel to work on the details. In his report the UNSG noted that Phase 1 of the effort "did not produce significant progress at the political level. However, positive results were achieved at the technical level by experts from the two sides assisted by United Nations experts."
According to Claire Palley, problems and delays were created in this phase by Denktaş's insistence on "producing proposals well beyond the Plan's parameters". For example, the Turkish side "demanded massive EU derogations", and "insisted on a right for all Turkish settlers to remain". James Ker-Lindsay notes that: "The situation was also hindered by the bad atmosphere generated by Rauf Denktaş, who appeared determined to scupper the process by holding frequent press conferences at which he revealed as much as he could to the media."
In addition Denktaş caused a "mini-crisis" (so described in Annan's Report) by declaring that he would not be attending the Phase 2 talks. In fact it was a major crisis. Technically the Phase 2 talks could not take place without the Turkish Cypriot leader there to negotiate with the Greek Cypriot leader, and Tassos Papadopoulos would have been within his rights to refuse to participate in the absence of the leader of the Turkish Cypriots. As it was he merely "stressed the need for a credible interlocutor who would represent the Turkish Cypriot side" and pointed out at the last Phase 1 meeting that no progress had been achieved on substantial issues.