Abstract
This chapter offers the institutional and political developments of Turkish Cypriot governance in the light of clientelism and rentierism. Backgrounds on the key political parties—CTP, UBP, TKP and DP—are presented, and the general structure of the state is also discussed. The chapter addresses the abiding issue of the ‘resettlement’ of Turkish Cypriots which included the allocation of immovable property to refugees, under the ITEM law, of those who had left their homes in the south of the island in the 1974 period, as well as migrants who were subsequently brought from Turkey to settle in the north. The author details the relevant laws in this regard and introduces data on the issues.
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Notes
- 1.
The Population Registry Office reports indicate that between September 1974 and December 1979, a total of 119,000 national identity cards have been granted (1979 Activity Report of the Ministry of Interior).
- 2.
US Cable (1975).
- 3.
Oke was the unit of weight measurement used in agriculture where 1 oke = 1.25 kg.
- 4.
US Cable (1975).
- 5.
Dodd (1993), p. 108.
- 6.
Hatay (2005), p. 18.
- 7.
According to the Republic of Cyprus constitution, the president of the Republic would be a Greek Cypriot and the vice-president would be a Turkish Cypriot. Thus, Turkish Cypriots continued to elect a ‘vice-president’ even after they claimed their autonomous state after 1967.
- 8.
According to Mehmet Hasgüler (2017), there are conflicting views about the reasons of why Berberoğlu withdraw from the elections, but he claims that the common ground is that he was ‘forced’ to withdraw. http://www.kibrisgazetesi.com/yazarlar/prof-dr-mehmet-hasguler/ctpnin-ilk-baskani-ahmet-mithat-berberoğlu/3010.
- 9.
Thirty years later, a similar case was heard in the Nicosia District Court where Doğuş Derya (an MP from CTP) accused Bertan Zaroğlu with the same reasoning ‘zem ve kadih’ (Fasil 148) as a result of comments made online. The court awarded Derya with 30,000 TL plus 15,000 for the attorney fees. This amount is much less than 200 million awarded in 1987 in the same court (with different judges).
- 10.
Kahveci (2013), pp. 69–70.
- 11.
Dodd (1993), p. 110.
- 12.
Ibid.
- 13.
See Sonan’s (2014) analysis on this.
- 14.
The status of these people was legalized by the law 22/1984. As of January 2018, 12 of these people are still working in the civil services according to Personnel Office data available at http://www.personel.gov.ct.tr/%C3%9CstMenu/%C4%B0statistik.aspx.
- 15.
Dodd (1993), p. 109.
- 16.
Ibid., p. 143.
- 17.
Ibid., p. 150.
- 18.
TRNC Official Gazette #74, 30.6.1990.
- 19.
Semsi Kazim, Cagatay Ali, Mustafa Guryel, Nejat Konuk, Umit S. Onan, Ozel Tahsin, Naci Talat, Ekrem Vural, Fuat Veziroğlu.
- 20.
Bozkurt Newspaper, 3 May 1985.
- 21.
Dodd (1993).
- 22.
Bozkurt Newspaper, 7 May 1985.
- 23.
I calculated the number of days each government has served and added the total number of days served by these three parties. If there was a coalition government, then I divided the total days by two to find each individual party’s days served. The total number of days for each government is available at Diler (2015).
- 24.
The top two contestants go to the second round unless majority vote is achieved in the first round.
- 25.
For example, on 19 January 2000, the council approved the purchase of eight different books in the amounts ranging from 1000 to 2000 copies (Decision Nos: E-61-2000–E-67-2000). I would be very glad if the Council grants the same courtesy for my book.
- 26.
TRNC Parliament Proceedings, 21 May 1993, pp. 7319–7359.
- 27.
Two of the earliest citizenships granted by the Council of Ministers were for the prime minister of Turkey in 1975 Bulent Ecevit and his wife Rahşan Ecevit.
- 28.
- 29.
Sonan (2014), p. 182.
- 30.
TRNC Council of Minister Decisions, #97/4/1997.
- 31.
Ekici (2016).
- 32.
Although Court of Accounts prepared a report on this issue, the police and attorney general as well as the parliament never acted on this despite many public criticisms.
- 33.
TR Economic Reports (2015), Table 19, p. 73. The numbers for Girne (Kyrenia) are not available in this report.
- 34.
Morvaridi (1993), p. 219.
- 35.
In 1978 and 1979, respectively, 4465 and 4724 TR citizens were granted KTFD citizenship (source: 1978 and 1979 TFSC Activities Report of Ministry of Interior).
- 36.
Greek Cypriots claim they had more land in the north, but for the discussion here, we use TCs’ own figures which still indicate that the amount of TC land in the south is a lot less than the GC land in the north.
- 37.
TFSC, General Secretariat of Ministry of Interior and Settlement, 1978 Activities Report, p. 25.
- 38.
KTFD’ne Bakis [A look at TFSC], May 1981.
- 39.
Another source puts the numbers between August 1974 and June 1983 at 23,164 families (91,225 people). Obviously, these numbers are not consistent with each other.
- 40.
TRNC Ministry of Labor, Activities Report 2000, p. 46.
- 41.
The report prepared at the eighth meeting of Social and Economic Council Meeting, p. 21.
- 42.
Atun (2016).
- 43.
There were also some other laws regarding property allocation but ITEM was the most important one. The readers can refer to Gurel (2012), pp. 16–30, for the details of other laws.
- 44.
Feridun (2015), pp. 59–61. He also added that the Turkish bureaucrats in charge of Cyprus-Turkey relations (Alper Orhon and Ziya Muezzinoglu) would express their dislike with this opinion.
- 45.
The head of this commission would be a lawyer with at least five years of experience, but the law does not specify how this person should be elected. In 1981, they changed this requirement to ‘a lawyer with at least five years of experience or anyone who has worked for at least ten years as civil servant and have worked at upper-level management’. And then in 1991, they also added ‘civil servant retirees who served as director or chief at the related ministry’ or ‘retired mayor or political civil servants (siyasal kamu gorevlisi)’ to the list.
- 46.
SPO (2005), p. 289. Mucahids include ‘Mucahids, Fighters (mukavemetci), and Turkish Peace Forces (Türk Barış Kuvvetleri, TBK) members’.
- 47.
Also change in item 4, instead of ‘large businesses’, ‘similar businesses’ were also included under equivalency law. Item 18 now allows the allocated properties to be used for loan applications at banks, state or coops (before banks were not in this list). But the equivalent properties are exempt from these rules (the allocated ones cannot be sold for 20 years).
- 48.
Kesin Tasarruf Belgesi (absolute ownership certificate) is not the same as title deed (Durduran claims that Denktaş gave this assurance to the USA, UK and West Germany representatives and informed the parliament, p. 4763).
- 49.
TRNC Parliament Proceedings (17 February 1989).
- 50.
Dossier number D.1/93, 12/91, p. 8. The court also states that according to the affidavit of ministry’s undersecretary, about 90% of all the allocations for the refugees from the south are completed by this time.
- 51.
In particular, Gülsen Bozkurt (TKP ) claimed that there are some people under ‘allocated’ categories who are going to be given titles which is simply not fair because there are still people under ‘equivalent property’ group waiting for a property in exchange for their points. Also the people who were ‘rented’ the properties without any written directives (instead by nepotism) will now be eligible to obtain titles under the new regulations, whereas the actual refugees who left property in the south and have points will have to wait for announcement of government packages.
- 52.
The archaeological sites’ rating is done under Antiquities Law.
- 53.
UBP and DP coalition government will sign a Council of Ministers decision in 2016 that changes some of the ratings of archaeological sites in Tuzla, Famagusta, whereby changing the ratings from second degree to first degree (more serious) and second degree to third degree. According to ITEM law, those who would be affected by this change could apply to the commission and obtain an ‘equivalent’ property elsewhere since their land now is rated first degree and they cannot use it for agriculture. Toparlaniyoruz Movement complained about this to High Court of Antiquities (Anıtlar Yüksek Kurulu) and they overturn this decision.
- 54.
SPO 2003 Annual Transitory Program, p. 409.
- 55.
The complete court decision can be found at hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-45610.
- 56.
- 57.
Details on annual compensation amounts and different types of compensation since the beginning can be found at http://www.tamk.gov.ct.tr/istatistik.html.
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Ekici, T. (2019). Economic and Institutional Foundations of Turkish Cypriot Governance and the ‘ITEM’ Law. In: The Political and Economic History of North Cyprus. Palgrave Studies in Economic History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13479-2_3
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