Foreword to the English Edition
Over the course of almost half a century there have been many efforts to solve what has become known as the Cyprus problem through negotiations between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities of the island. Crime at Crans-Montana describes the course of negotiations that were held under the presidency of Nicos Anastasiades from 2013 to 2017, focusing on the negative role that Russia has played in reaching a deal. The unresolved Cyprus problem serves Russia’s interests in getting Turkey to turn away from the West. Either out of political naivety or because of corruption, the Cypriot political establishment has served Russian interests instead of those of their own country.
I first highlighted the negative role that Moscow played in the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus in my book The Invasion and the Great Powers, which I published in 2014. At the time, few in Cyprus were ready to question the long-term positive image that had been cultivated that Russia was a loyal and steadfast friend of Cyprus. Whether because people have had enough, or because Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has opened their eyes, Crime at Crans-Montana was received much more positively.
I wrote this book because I felt that the people of Cyprus, on both sides of the divide, as well as others interested in this part of the world, needed to know exactly what had led to the failure of the latest and best effort to solve the Cyprus problem, namely, that it had been undermined by foreign interests and corruption.
I believe that, if the Cyprus problem is ever to be solved, external powers will have to play a part. One of the main conclusions I have drawn over a lifetime studying the Cyprus problem, is that the West has failed to understand and address the problem of how Russia has managed to infiltrate and erode Cyprus’ political and economic system. The English edition of this book hopes to correct this for a foreign audience interested in Cyprus, Turkey, Greece, and relations between Turkey and the EU and Nato. It hopes to shed some light on how Russia is using Cyprus to lure Turkey away from the Western alliance with a heavy cost for the West’s security.
This book was first published in Greek towards the end of 2021 and was read widely in Cyprus. In February 2022 Russia invaded Ukraine and the Western world understood the hard way what Putin’s ambitions to reconstruct the Russian empire really were. Up until the moment when Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine, Moscow had been following a soft power strategy through which it undermined Western democratic institutions. Cyprus is perhaps the most classic example for understanding the soft power concept that Putin’s Russia employed.
The English edition of this book would never have been possible without the perseverance and voluntary work of Marina Christofides, who translated and edited it. I thank her warmly.
Makarios Drousiotis
Nicosia, July 2023
21/08/2023