The EU's decision to go ahead with Cyprus's membership application could destabilise the entire region. In order to understand the danger, it is necessary to recall a little of the island's recent history. When British rule ended in 1960, the new constitution vested sovereignty jointly in the two communities. It provided for a Greek Cypriot president and a Turkish Cypriot vice-president, both with veto powers. Cyprus was forbidden to unite with any other state, and the 1960 accords were guaranteed by Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom. Many Greek Cypriots regarded the settlement as biased against them, and, in 1963, they drove the Turks out of there positions in government. In 1974, supporters of enosis -- union with Greece - staged a coup. As intercommunal violence flared, Turkish Cypriots called on the guarantor powers to intervene. When Britain did nothing, Turkey seized the Northern third of the island. The international community recognises the Greek Cypriot administration as the government of the whole island, acknowledging the 1960 accords. Yet those accords forbid Cyprus "to participate, in whole or in part, in any political or economic union with any state whatsoever". So EU membership is prohibited by the very constitution President Clerides cites as the source of his government's claim to the whole island. This is no narrow legal point. By accepting their unilateral application, the EU has taken away from Greek Cypriots any incentive to reach an accommodation with the north. At the beginning of the 1990s, the outlines of a deal began to emerge: Turkish Cypriots would relinquish some territory in return for recognition as equal partners in a bi-zonal federation. Once the Greek Cypriots realised they could treat with the EU on their own, however, they lost interest in the talks. Membership is viewed by the Greeks as an opportunity to reverse the balance of power in the Levant by engineering a situation where Turkey is occupying EU territory; Turks see admission as enosis' by another name. Brussels has been bullied into accepting this problem by Greece's threat to veto any enlargement of the EU. Turkey, which withdrew its threat to veto Nato expansion, is being punished for its responsibility, while Greece is rewarded for its intransigence. Britain has a special duty towards Cyprus as a guarantor power. The Government must insist that an internal settlement be in place before the application is accepted. This is not just a question of dealing fairly with the two communities, or acknowledging that Turkey has been shabbily treated by Brussels, or even sticking to the law. It is a question of preserving peace in the eastern Mediterranean.

The bids by Cyprus and Turkey to join the European Union were once thought to provide incentives for an easing of tensions between Greece and Turkey and between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, too. A general settling down of an agitated corner of Europe seemed the potential diplomatic prize. But that was before the European Union fumbled the opportunity away. Now there is fresh talk of war, and it's American diplomacy to the rescue, again. 
It was awkward enough when the European Union took in Greece but not its strategically more powerfully but economically and politically less ready rival, Turkey. That invited Greece to play the gatekeeper. Germany, inspired in part by its domestic argument over Turkish guest workers, took up a similar role. As a result, the Turks were insultingly denied a place in the queue of would-be new members. Others, including Cyprus and the new Central European democracies, went right into the line. The Turks countered excessively by suspending talks between the Greek government of divided Cyprus and the enclave that Ankara controls in the north, by threats to annex the enclave and by military gestures. Greek Cypriots imprudently ordered anti-aircraft missiles from Russia. 
  A year ago it was possible to wonder why the United States should get into this particular European mess. The answer -- the right answer -- was and is that the American leadership role in NATO makes Washington the rescuer of last resort when two alliance members depart reason. 
  The Europeans, however, should not be let off the hook. Greece and Turkey are not Middle East, they are Europe, Western Europe. This is not 1945, it is 1998. Europeans should have been able to compose a single political intelligence to deal with the Greek-Turkish question. At the least, the European Union could have handled its accession affairs in a manner that, if it did not ease national grievances, would not have aggravated them. Now the United States is left to help, if it can, bring Greeks and Turks back to the starting line.

Clinton Administration envoy Richard Holbrooke is in Cyprus today, trying to undo the vast damage done this week by the European Union to that troubled island's "peace process." It will not be easy. Turkey is Tattling sabers over the EU's ham- handed treatment of Cyprus's EU membership bid and over military provocations by Greece. To make matters worse, Mr. Holbrooke arrives with a peace plan whose moment, if it ever had one, has passed. That plan, long a staple of official U.S. government policy, is to end the 23-year division of Cyprus by creating "bizonal federation" between Greek and Turkish enclaves. Mr. Holbrooke hopes he can make this shopworn recipe work by adding his personal muscle to the mix. Perhaps. More probably, it will end in failure, just as past U.S., U.N. and EU diplomatic efforts have. The West's approach to Cyprus has long been based on the fantasy that unification is both feasible and desirable. This system was tried between 1960 and 1974, worked badly, and ended in disaster after a Greek military junta tried to seize the whole island for Greece, prompting a Turkish invasion. Since then the West refuses to recognize the self declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, choosing instead to view the Greek Cypriot government as the sole legitimate authority on the island. Such one-sidedness has done little to mollify Turkish Cypriots, and helps explain their reluctance to enter into negotiations whose goal is the dissolution of their state. Enter the EU, which recently put Cyprus on its fast-track membership list just months after gratuitously snubbing Turkey's application, and the result is a break- down of talks. Add to this explosive cocktail Greek purchases of advanced Russian missiles for installation in Cyprus, and what you get are the makings of the most serious crisis in the Aegean in years. The pity to all this is that as recently as a month ago the prospects for a settlement in Cyprus looked relatively good. In February, Greek Cypriots re-elected President Glafcos Clerides, a level-headed man who is probably the only Greek Cypriot capable of striking an acceptable bargain with Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash. Mr. Denktash has in the past shown a willingness to compromise in exchange for recognition of his state. Unlike other troubled corners of the world, Cyprus's problems are not intractable: Greeks and Turks stick to their side of the dividing line so a potential settlement might involve property restitution, but there are no Bosnia-style ethnic issues. Indeed, absent the provocations of the outside world, the players in Cyprus could come to an accord of their own. But the outside world cannot stay away. Both Greece and Turkey use their respective Cypriot enclaves as proxies in a larger dispute, steeped in Balkan history and histrionics. As for the Clinton administration, Cyprus seems a good target for its Quixotic experiments in diplomacy by therapeutic reconciliation. It hopes to effect that reconciliation by forcing two nations into a purposeless union of doubtful efficacy and guaranteed mutual displeasure. It is time for a change of tack. Northern Cyprus ought to be internationally recognized. Greek Cyprus, whose economy is thriving, ought to be accepted, on its own, into the European Union. The Greeks should cancel their missile order; the Turks should diminish their military presence. And Mr. Holbrooke should go home.

In an extensive analysis Martin Woollacott of the Guardian, asserted that the start of the accession talks between the Greek Cypriots and the EU increased the possibility of war in Cyprus. The analysis emphasised that a possible war would not be limited only to Cyprus but could also spread to the rest of the Aegean. “It would be, if ever it should happen, the most useless of wars, since none of the potential belligerents has anything to gain, territorially or otherwise. In Cyprus, the Greek Cypriots might covet some of the territory held by the Turks, they would hardly have a chance of getting it. The military balance in and around Cyprus, even if the Greek air force occupied bases there and had them defensively covered by those Russian missiles, would still be very much in Turkey's favour,” Woollacott stated.  Woollacott pointed out that “Europe’s failure to recognise that it needs a coherent diplomatic strategy for Turkey was at the root of what had gone wrong in the region. The lack of such strategy means that Europe’s Turkey has been pushed this way and that by Greece's fears and sometimes Greece's mischief-making, by Germany's anxiety to avoid an issue which is political loser in the anti-immigration atmosphere in that country.” Woollacott also pointed out that “Turkey was not only relegated to the extreme back of the queue for membership but was gratuitously insulted by the Luxembourg Prime Minister, Jean Claude Juncker.” Woollacott concluded his article by saying: “War is so manifestly a stupid and dangerous course for everybody concerned that it is still very unlikely. But, if the situation is to be transformed in a positive way, there will have to be truly serious efforts in 1998. They should include offering Turkey a place in the EU membership queue that Ankara finds acceptable, an attempt to get broader negotiations going between Greece and Turkey, and a number of concessions by both sides in Cyprus itself.”