Turkey to buy north Cyprus?

Greek Cypriots are starting to wake up and realise the impact of the ECHR’s decision to make the Immovable Property Commission the first stop for their property issues. The only other alternative is to await a solution. The expectation is that once a solution seems to be only a distant possiblity, GCs will start to flock to the IPC hoping that it will be a slightly more immediate. Even then, some observers believe, it will be 5-7 years before compensation or restitution is decided.

One reason that GCs may prefer the IPC to waiting for a solution is that their economy may start to melt down under their own requirement to pay TCs compensation. This, on top of the current economic uncertainty, could have a serious impact on individual GC finances. Cash strapped GCs might be pursuaded to take the cash and run, especially if the GC government can no longer prevent them from doing so.

Interestingly, even though the cost to Turkey may be anything from £2-20bn what they receive in return is a surprising bonus. If every GC were to use the IPC, OK I know that’s never going to happen, then what Turkey ends up with is ownership of much of the GC property in the north, to dispose of as they wish. Let’s face it, what they wish is for north Cyprus to become Turkish. In the end they could own well over 50% of property and the impact of this could be that very few GCs get to live and vote in the north. Thus  partition would not be needed.

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