EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW. “We Are Not on the Eve of a New Plan”: Özdil Nami on What Cyprus Is Really Negotiating

By Dr. Nikolaos Stelgias

In an exclusive interview with The Levant Files, Özdil Nami — former Foreign Minister of the unrecognised Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and a veteran Turkish Cypriot negotiator at the heart of successive rounds of the Cyprus talks — offers a sober reading of the diplomacy now gathering pace around the island. He cautions against the language of a “new plan,” parses what the United Nations may actually be attempting, and explains why, in his view, the cost of saying “no” remains the missing ingredient of every settlement effort since 2004.

Not a Plan, but a “Strategic Agreement”

Asked by The Levant Files whether the much-discussed new summit and the United Nations’ reported initiative mean the island stands on the eve of a fresh settlement plan — or whether this is merely another attempt to breathe life into a dormant process — Nami began by insisting on precision about the very word everyone is using. “We need to clarify what we understand by a new ‘plan,’” he stressed.

On his reading, the signals arriving through various channels point not toward a comprehensive solution but toward something narrower. “The information reaching us so far indicates that, instead of a new comprehensive settlement plan, the UN is aiming to have the parties sign a ‘strategic agreement,’” he explained. The architecture he describes is sequenced rather than sudden: if such an agreement is secured, it would be followed by a two- to three-year window in which negotiators try, on one track, to complete a comprehensive solution, while on a parallel track the island enters a period of confidence-building measures.

The Trapdoor: A New Status Quo If “No” Prevails

The most consequential element of this scenario, as Nami relays it, lies in what happens at the end of that period. A referendum would be held — but with a mechanism designed so that rejection no longer simply freezes everything in place. In his account, should one of the parties vote “no,” certain steps already taken would become permanent, hardening into a new reality on the ground. He pointed specifically to the opening of ports or the return of Varosha as the kind of measures that, under this design, would be locked in as a transition to a new status quo rather than reversed.

Connected to this, he added, the question of Guarantees is also said to be in motion, with “some alternatives that have not previously come to the table” reportedly being voiced. Nami was careful, however, to fence off the entire picture with a caveat. “These are, of course, uncertain, second-hand pieces of information,” he conceded. “The real situation may be very different from this.”

“The Most Realistic Model”: Two States, and the Federal Middle Ground

The Levant Files put to Nami the apparent contradiction at the centre of any new round: Ankara’s official position has not moved beyond the two-state framework, while the parties remain divided by deep differences — so what, in practice, would actually be on the table? In response, Nami drew a distinction between what an actor considers ideal and what it believes it can realistically obtain.

“What I understand from the statements being made is that Ankara sees the two-state solution as the most ‘realistic’ solution model,” he said — adding immediately that this does not amount to a door closed against other models. The Greek Cypriots, he noted, regard the unitary state as their own best outcome. “What you see as most ideal is one thing; what you think you can actually achieve is another,” he observed.

From this vantage point, the federal model is not anyone’s first preference but a negotiated meeting point. The federal solution, Nami recalled, “originally came onto the agenda as the middle ground between the Turkish side’s aim of separating and the Greek side’s aim of establishing a unitary state.” The crucial variable, in his telling, is what is built around it as a fallback. If a new construct emerges that answers a specific question — what the international status of the Turkish side would be in the event that the Greek Cypriots collapse the table or vote “no” to a federal solution at referendum — then, Nami believes, such a settlement effort would be given its chance.

Why a Year-End Finish Looks Unlikely

Could the new process realistically conclude by the end of the year — by the time the UN Secretary-General’s term expires? Nami’s answer was blunt. “I don’t think so,” he replied. For any new effort to produce a positive result, he argued, the talks would have to return to something resembling the original architecture of the 2004 Annan Plan process — one built around a fixed timetable, arbitration, and, crucially, a genuine cost attached to saying “no.”

That architecture, he explained, was once acceptable to the Greek Cypriot side only because of the pressures of the moment. Before EU accession, Nami noted, the Greek side accepted such a framework under the weight of international pressure — but the calculus has since changed. “For reasons that are well known, they obtained unilateral EU membership, and so the cost of saying ‘no’ disappeared,” he said.

The clearest demonstration of that shift, in his view, came at Crans-Montana in 2017–18. “Even though a solution was on the table, they overturned the table and faced no consequences whatsoever,” Nami said. Reversing that dynamic, he argued, would require international actors to step in and place meaningful pressure on the Greek Cypriot leader. He singled out the need for intensified dialogue and groundwork between Turkey on one side and the United States and leading EU member states on the other. Those conditions, he concluded, have not yet materialised — “and that is why this issue looks set to drag on.”

Reading Erhürman: The Unnamed Destination Is Federation

Turning to the new Turkish Cypriot leadership, The Levant Files asked Nami to assess Tufan Erhürman’s strategy: since his election, Erhürman has cautiously insisted that certain conditions must be met before the process can advance, while pointedly declining to commit to any particular solution modality — won’t the parties, in the end, still be forced to choose between federation and some other ground?

Nami read the signals as unambiguous, whatever the careful phrasing. Erhürman, he noted, has made clear that he is ready to resume negotiations from where they left off and to conclude them within a predetermined timetable — a posture that, for Nami, “clearly shows that the goal is a federal solution.” As he put it: “Even if you do not name it, the point the road leads to is clear.”

Any alternative ground, he maintained, can be constructed only as the answer to a single conditional question — what happens if the Greek Cypriots reject the federal solution at referendum. Absent that rejection, the destination remains the federation that no one is rushing to name.

Two Offices, One Interlocutor

Drawing on his long experience, The Levant Files closed by asking whether the visible disagreement in the north between the Foreign Ministry and the Presidency could, going forward, damage the new process. Nami did not minimise the problem. Such open friction between the two offices, he acknowledged, is a situation that erodes the credibility of the Turkish side.

Yet he was equally clear about where authority ultimately resides when it comes to the Cyprus talks. The figure whom both the Turkish Cypriot people and the wider world take seriously, listen to, and recognise as the interlocutor, Nami underscored, is the office of the President — the office that also carries the title of Leader of the Turkish Cypriot Community.