Our View: Tourism is just a new front in the zero-sum Cyprob game

Deputy Tourism Minister Costas Koumis in an indirect way on Wednesday confirmed the government was behind the move by tour operator Tui to stop taking tourists on day trips to the north as of August 31.

Although his words were couched in vague terms related to the Republic’s “cooperation with tourist organisations”, it became clear that the threat of losing the Cyprus government’s financial incentives to airlines and tour operators was what led to Tui’s decision.

Koumis said no regulations had been violated and that EU citizens were free to cross to the north any time they wished on day trips.  They just won’t be doing it as part of an organised excursion – with Tui at least.

The news has caused an apoplectic response in the north.  Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar was right in one way that this was not sign of goodwill and was bad for the peace process but that would be taking his comments in isolation and without context.

What goodwill? What peace process?

The Turkish side has decided not to sit at the negotiating table again without equal sovereignty. Even Tatar’s call for cooperation following the Tui reports, contained the caveat “a new cooperation moving forward”, meaning two states, not cooperation in the here and now.

We might ask where was the cooperation and goodwill when he unilaterally opened Varosha in violation of UN resolutions or when he recently went there to welcome the two-millionth visitor announcing that Varosha was a very important piece of land “which belongs to the Turkish Cypriot people”?

Tatar is now threatening retaliation by opening hotels for which Greek Cypriots have been compensated through the Immovable Property Commission.

As for the north’s own tourism policies, we keep reading that arrivals are down overall, that most Turkish Cypriots prefer to fly out of Larnaca as Tymbou airport (Ercan) is too expensive, that all ‘government’ incentives for tourism were axed, that there were “negativities regarding security and the environment”.

Perhaps Turkish Cypriot tourism authorities might look at their dependency on traffic from the Republic and focus on why their own arrivals from Europe are so drastically down – if they aspire to be an independent state.

Meanwhile, Greek Cypriots continue to support the Turkish Cypriot economy to the tune of millions per year. Granted, much of it is generated by self-interest, buying fuel and cigarettes, but business is business. 

It’s wrong that ordinary Turkish Cypriots trying to make a living must suffer due to this latest setback. But it is within the Republic’s right to give incentives and apply conditions including not indirectly subsiding excursions to the north.

It’s equally wrong that refugees from Varosha must witness their properties being usurped at this stage of the game after the town lay empty for half a century, partly due to successive failed negotiating strategies by the Greek Cypriot side.

The leaderships on both sides in Cyprus have shown time and again that they are willing to sacrifice the good of their respective peoples to play a never-ending zero-sum game under the misnomer of ‘negotiating’ a Cyprus solution.