Pay attention #cyprob geeks. I don’t know who writes these comments but although BB federation does make it into the UN Security Council resolution on #Cyprus there is a smidgen of doubt over its future. 1/

GC commentators had a lot of angst about the fact that the word federation was missing from the Secretary-General’s report to the Security Council. (I will be reading it carefully in next 36 hours days so I take their word for it.) 2/

The missing F word was taken as a sign that either a) Turkey + TC leader Tatar were getting traction in their demand for 2 states or b) SG was using their inability after >1 yrs of “talks about informal talks” to say “if you can’t talk, then a federal mandate is meaningless.” 3/

I’d like to think it was b) and that the UNSG had found the mettle that is normally lacking in that job for all kinds of lobbying-from-all-sides reasons. (Essentially he can’t move if he doesn’t have most of the permanent 5 with him). 4/

Whatever the reason, it seems to have panicked the GCs, whose politicians might fantasise about 2 states but who know in practice they cannot politically survive it. Talks going nowhere is their most comfortable position coz means no change. But not if it means UN walks away. 5/

Meanwhile after the EU Council in December, which was a soft slap but probably a lot of hard private stocks and carrots, plus Biden win, Turkey is suddenly on its best behaviour (relative to 2019-2020 at least). 6/

I need to check for sure but I could swear Tatar has also shifted very slightly from “two states” to “two states with sovereign equality”. This could be code for confederation (which solves nothing for reasons I won’t go into here). 7/

But if you’ve shifted to sovereign equality it doesn’t sound that different (to an untrained ear) to political equality. Which brings us right back to where they left off in Crans Montana in 2017: status of guarantees, troops, how political equality is expressed in practice. 8/

Ultimately (+unlike his predecessor Akinci), it doesn’t really matter what Tatar wants. He owes his seat to support from #Turkey. So if TR decides the fastest route to EU carrots is a federation, rather than a long argument about confederation/two states, TR will go for BBF. 9/

BBF =bizonal bicommunal federation with political equality as set out in the relevant Security Council Resolutions. Problem is, BBF has become a dirty word among GCs (thanks to brown-nosing hacks) despite a lot of polling that suggests the actual elements would be acceptable. 10/

So idea number 1: change the name. It will suit politicians in both sides. Problem 2: on the anecdotal evidence of Twitter p**s-takes, trust in the GC leadership is at an all-time low coz of the golden #passports fallout. How do you get voters to a referendum in this situ? 11/

Idea number 2: change the messenger. Cyprob has failed again and again because we keep using mid-20th century solutions (old fellas, booze + fags with the blinds down) to current problems. And then we expect a top-down “vote yes” campaign. It won’t work. 12/

We need to ensure the public is properly engaged. Which means we need to implement paras 4(e) + (f) of the draft Security Council resol’n. We should take advantage of @IrlEmbCyprus being on the UNSC right now: it has loads of civil engagement + peace building experience. 13/ https://twitter.com/apostolosz/status/1354641457563496455

I could go on for hours. But to bring me back to the beginning, we should take this “be open” thing as a warning. It’s not in Cypriots’ interests + it’s definitely not in the EU’s interests to have a new porous border with Turkey deal with on an island so close to (eg) Syria. 14/

So to everyone who has a role to play: let’s start thinking beyond our noses (next 5+1 meeting) + let’s start strategising how to get ALL the way to 2 referendum Yeses AND a peace that’s sustainable because someone actually got ordinary Cypriots involved in making it. 15/15 End

PS Link to the quote in Tweet number 1. https://twitter.com/apostolosz/status/1354920529405169668