Christodoulides’ visit to Turkey this week began with a circuitous route
Antalya is visible from Cyprus on a clear night. Stand in the hills above Kyrenia after sunset and the lights from Turkey’s fourth-largest city can clearly be made out. As the crow flies, it is the shortest possible overseas trip a Cypriot delegation can make, but given the tendency for politics to complicate things, what could, in an ideal world, have been a 20-minute hop over the Levantine Sea for President Nikos Christodoulides to attend a climate change summit became, for some, a point to prove.
This much was obvious months out from the main event, when it came to light in spring that the Republic of Cyprus had complained that Turkey had not invited its representatives to events held in preparation for Cop31, despite Cyprus holding the Council of the European Union’s rotating presidency at the time.
Turkey said at the time it has no obligation to invite states it does not recognise to buildup events, but the European Union, led by Environment Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra, had set out its stall early on in the year, saying if the Republic of Cyprus did not get an invite, the rest of its member states would not travel.
An invite was eventually sent to Christodoulides, and plans were made to execute a logistical pickle of a trip to a city which is closer to Cyprus than London is to Birmingham.
Flying direct from Larnaca to Antalya was out of the question due to Cyprus’ lack of recognition, as was using a Cypriot-flagged aircraft to make the journey.
Christodoulides phoned Guterres during Rhodes stopover
Instead, an aeroplane belonging to Greece’s Aegean Airlines was chartered, and the delegation flew westwards from Cyprus, past Antalya, to the Greek island of Rhodes, where it waited for a little over half an hour, before turning around and heading towards its final destination.
While in Rhodes, Christodoulides telephoned United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who was already in Antalya, to be informed about the content of the secretary-general’s meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan earlier that day.
The delegation was handed a set of warnings while in the sky, too, with those in charge telling those listening not to use Turkish WiFi and not to charge electronic devices at public charging stations, lest the Turks steal their personal data.
Among those travelling was Nikos Tornaritis, appointed in September as Christodoulides’ envoy for the Cyprus problem to countries in Asia and Africa. Clearly, in this sense, ‘Asia’ also includes Asia Minor, and Tornaritis had by the end of the summit won himself a reputation for shaking the hand of anyone who extended theirs and many who did not.
Touchdown in Antalya was not greeted with much fanfare, though Greece’s ambassador in Ankara, Theodoros Bizakis, was on hand to greet Christodoulides, who hared down the plane’s stairs at lightning speed.
A fleet of vehicles had been laid on to take the delegation to its rest stop for the night, with many impressed that “Cyprus” had been written on laminated cards placed in the vehicles’ windscreens.
Erhurman arrived in Antalya minutes after Christodoulides
It was alleged that these cards had initially read “South Cyprus”, and that a last-minute intervention from the EU’s ambassador in Ankara Aivo Orav had forced the change, though venue access badges posted to Nicosia days prior had read simply “Cyprus”.
As the delegation was driven in convoy towards the exit of Antalya airport, a much larger-looking train of vehicles was waiting off to the side, with some surmising that it may have been the welcoming party for Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman, personally invited to Cop31 by Erdogan.
Erhurman arrived in Antalya just minutes after Christodoulides, and was greeted on the tarmac by two deputy ministers of the host country and the governor of the host province.
Unfortunately for the plot, the two Cypriot leaders were not housed in the same hotel, with Christodoulides in a supersized out-of-town resort, shared with the Turkmen delegation.
Large television screens advertised Nordic beach walking, a five-hour “archery academy” session, and fly yoga, while the hotel’s extensive breakfast buffet included halloumi. Wry enquiries as to whether it was PDO were met with “what?”.
At the summit itself, the hoi polloi were not allowed to watch the welcome handshakes in person, with an array of televisions being placed in the media centre instead.
Cyprus’ leaders shared brief handshake, delegations met at baklava stand
Erhurman had already entered the venue and shaken hands with Erdogan, but not Guterres, before Christodoulides arrived, and, as is now known, Christodoulides was then greeted by Guterres, but not Erdogan.
Though Christodoulides’ stay in Antalya was brief, as he had planned to reach Dublin the night before the European Political Community summit, there was time for him to meet Erhurman, in a way, with the pair exchanging a brief handshake.
It was suggested that that handshake may have taken place on the way to use the venue’s facilities, with one journalist in Christodoulides’ delegation dubbing it “the meeting of the bog”, though this was never confirmed.
Both delegations’ hangers-on also met, with Erhurman’s staff and Greek Cypriot journalists coming together at a baklava stand shortly before Christodoulides’ delegation made its way to the exit to fly towards Dublin.
Road to Antalya airport looks like Pyla seafront
Away from the Cyprus problem, there was also a climate change summit going on in Antalya, with a large conference hall filled with pavilions belonging to various countries and international organisations holding panels and exhibiting what they do in relation to the climate.
The British plastered a photograph of Sir David Attenborough over their pavilion’s external wall, and their country’s Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband was in and around regular folk for some time at the summit.
Elsewhere, the Turks served tea, the Brazilians served coffee, the Russians exhibited their arctic prowess, and the Saudis were immaculately dressed.
The drive back to Antalya airport in broad daylight also allowed for a sense of the international, but also local spectre of the event, given that the road between the convention centre and the airport bears a strong resemblance to the Pyla seafront around the Cyprus Tourism Organisation beach.
In the airport itself, rows of aircraft belonging to heads of state, including the hosts Turkey, Iran, Tanzania and Armenia were all visible alongside the Aegean Airlines plane which whisked Christodoulides’ delegation off towards Dublin as the sun began to set.
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