EU shouldn’t have let Southern Cyprus join after rejecting Annan plan: Jack Straw

"We should never have let Cyprus join the EU," former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has stated, drawing attention to how the Greek Cypriot administration was admitted to the European Union despite rejecting the United Nations’ Annan plan in 2004.

In a piece published on Thursday, Straw wrote: “In retrospect, we could, and should, have put Cyprus’ accession on ice at this stage, and made it clear to both sides that only a united island would be allowed to join the EU.”

Straw stressed that against this background, by accepting the Greek Cypriot administration as a member, the EU effectively presided over the frozen conflict, and “in doing so, it has lost all serious leverage over Greek Cypriots.”

He also underscored that the Greek Cypriot administration in fact did not want a solution, as "any peace deal with the north, however accommodating to Greek Cypriot interests, will be less satisfactory than the status quo."

The Annan plan was accepted and supported by Turkish Cypriots and Türkiye.

Two-state solution

In his piece, Straw called for a two-state solution to the longstanding issue of the divided island of Cyprus, should talks for a charter for a united island fail yet again.

“There is, in my view, only one way through this impasse. And that is for the international community to commit itself to a two-state solution if negotiations for a new constitution for a united island fail yet again,” he wrote.

Stressing that Britain, along with Türkiye and Greece, is a guarantor state as recognised by the relevant international treaties, he also called on the UK to “put the two-state solution on the table and seek to persuade other partners that this is the best way to unfreeze this conflict.”

Straw also pointed to how Southern Cyprus, for a long time, was one of the major money-laundering centres for Moscow, with wealthy Russians buying thousands of citizenships by paying extravagant amounts of money.

Cyprus issue

Cyprus has been mired in a decades-long dispute between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots, despite a series of diplomatic efforts by the UN to achieve a comprehensive settlement.

Ethnic attacks starting in the early 1960s forced Turkish Cypriots to withdraw into enclaves for their safety.

In 1974, a Greek Cypriot coup aimed at Greece's annexation of the island led to Türkiye's military intervention as a guarantor power to protect Turkish Cypriots from persecution and violence. As a result, the TRNC was founded in 1983.

It has seen an on-and-off peace process, including a failed 2017 initiative in Switzerland under the auspices of guarantor countries Türkiye, Greece, and the UK.

The Greek Cypriot administration entered the EU in 2004, the same year that Greek Cypriots thwarted a UN plan to end the longstanding dispute.

Türkiye fully supports a two-state solution on the island of Cyprus based on sovereign equality and equal international status.​​​​​​​