The complaints Turkish Cypriot politics levels against the EU, Turkey, and the Greek Cypriot leadership are justified — but incomplete. The real question is whether we're willing to confront our own responsibility.
Dr. Nikolaos Stelgias
The grievances rising from the segments that backed Tufan Erhürman in the latest presidential election point to three major fault lines in Turkish Cypriot political life: the European Union's "loophole" diplomacy that turns a blind eye to Turkish Cypriots, the bloc's double-standard approach toward Turkey, and the Greek Cypriot leadership's rejection of political equality. No one can deny there's a kernel of truth in each of these three areas. The problem is that grievance can all too easily settle into a comfortable groove — a way of avoiding the mirror. This piece takes each of the three fault lines in turn and makes the case that the issue isn't solely about external actors; it needs to be sought at home, too.
The EU's "Loophole" Diplomacy: Is Brussels Alone to Blame?
The diplomacy the Turkish Cypriot side dismissively calls "loophole" diplomacy is, at bottom, a historical development. Brussels and the Greek Cypriot side aren't the sole culprits for the EU's sidelining of Turkish Cypriots. Who's going to answer for the fact that relations with the EU were effectively shelved between 2020 and 2025? What steps did the Turkish Cypriot leadership take — or rather, fail to take — during those five years? The "progressive" camp isn't exempt from this scrutiny either. Three currents stand out. You can't really claim that the faction urging "let's not upset Turkey any further" made any notable effort to shore up ties with the EU. The line that sees the UK as an outsider and the EU as little more than a capitalists' club might seem coherent from a class perspective — but it's practically indefensible in a context where Turkish Cypriot society receives EU support and any prospective settlement would be formulated within an EU framework. That leaves the "pro-EU left," whose resonance within society is very much open to debate. And it's impossible to gloss over this point without opening a parenthesis: in a climate where a mayor poses with tanks and rifles, and a minister challenges the other side to a fight over a meadow and a few sheep, how realistic is it to expect EU officials to come knocking on the north's door? Brussels' distant stance is, in part, a natural outgrowth of this rhetoric up north; looking for the cause solely on the outside renders the heavier share of responsibility invisible.
The EU-Turkey Axis: The Limits of Expecting Fairness
Those who object to the EU's posture toward Turkey overlook one reality: the north of Cyprus hasn't been closely tracking the EU's internal balances, Turkey's domestic transformation, or the broader EU-Turkey equation. Anyone who's carefully examined the past fifteen years would find today's picture anything but surprising. As Turkey backslid on democratization, the EU swung rightward — in some member states, sharply toward the far and populist right. The 2015 refugee crisis marked a breaking point in relations, soon compounded by tensions on the Turkey-Greece axis. The West's ambiguous stance toward the attempted coup by a group of putschist soldiers in 2016 — against an already troubled democracy — only darkened the picture. Layered on top of that came Turkey's disregard for European Court of Human Rights rulings and its entrenched positions on sensitive files like Selahattin Demirtaş, Osman Kavala, the Gezi prisoners, and Ekrem İmamoğlu. Under these conditions, is it realistic to expect a relationship built on fairness along the EU-Turkey axis? Another parenthesis is necessary here: in the face of the Demirtaş, Kavala, and Gezi cases, why did Turkish Cypriot society — apart from a small handful of intellectuals — not raise its voice in defense of democracy? Why weren't more "dissenting" voices heard over the withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention and the wave of femicides? Demanding fairness from the outside while failing to apply the same standard internally erodes the legitimacy of that demand.
The Greek Cypriot Leadership: Surprise, or Continuity?
The stance of the Greek Cypriot leadership — which Turkish Cypriots find objectionable — is hardly a new development. Have we forgotten the leader's agonized posture at Crans Montana, or the "anti-settlement" message dispatched from the negotiating table to the far-right flank in Athens on July 7, 2017? Is the Cyprus Orthodox Church's stance on 1974 anything new? Are we just now discovering that the Church-dominated education system presents the 1963–1974 period in a one-sided manner? Or are we laboring under the illusion that the Greek Cypriot Right's love affair with EOKA A is some recent phenomenon? If not, why do we deem it acceptable to chase after the provocateurs that have lately mushroomed, especially on social media? And one final question: are we even aware that a "political earthquake" is likely in the Republic of Cyprus' House of Representatives elections on May 24 — an institution with which Turkish Cypriots have severed ties since December 1963 — and that ELAM stands a strong chance of sending at least nine deputies to parliament? The rise of the far right in the south isn't solely a matter for Greek Cypriot politics; it's a parameter that will directly determine the terrain on which the north's vision of a settlement will be tested in the period ahead. Clinging to a language of grievance that misses this picture reduces the north to a passive spectator of radicalization in the south.
Conclusion: From Grievance to Strategy
Each of the three sets of complaints carries a measure of justification — but none of them, on its own, adds up to a political strategy. The EU's sidelining of Turkish Cypriots doesn't exonerate a leadership that failed to cement ties with the EU over a five-year span. Anger at Brussels' posture toward Turkey doesn't strengthen the demands of a society that stayed silent during democracy's trials. The familiar line of the Greek Cypriot leadership doesn't legitimize chasing after provocateurs in the north. Grievance begins where responsibility is externalized; politics begins where responsibility is embraced. The support given to Tufan Erhürman can be read as a marker of opposition to the status quo. But that opposition only gains meaning to the extent that it refuses to stop at blaming others, and instead lays its own camp's contradictions on the table with genuine candor — why relations with the EU were shelved, why the north fell silent in the struggle for democracy, why the militarist rhetoric up north was never seriously questioned. You can't change the world without looking in the mirror; that is the real test facing Turkish Cypriots. The period ahead imposes three simultaneous tasks: rebuilding ties with the EU, engaging with the democracy debates in Turkey on a principled footing, and analyzing with a cool head the political transformation unfolding in the south. None of this can be achieved through the language of grievance; each requires abandoning our own comfort zones. Whether the energy of dissent nourished by the support for Erhürman transforms into a durable politics will be decided at precisely this threshold.