Niyazi Kizilyurek

http://nhw.livejournal.com/1122036.html

Clerides was temporarily the acting Greek Cypriot president in Makarios' absence after the collapse of the 1974 coup, and was subsequently elected in his own right in 1993 and 1998, losing in 2003. He had also been the speaker of parliament and chief negotiator with the Turkish Cypriots at various times. His autobiography, My Deposition, has intimidated me with its size, so I was glad to acquire this book of interviews with Clerides by Turkish Cypriot show more academic Niyazi Kizilyurek, as a taster.

Again, I couldn't recommend the book to Cyprus novices; a great deal of background knowledge is assumed of the reader. Clerides' record is on the whole a good one - he got EU membership, he got closer to a solution than any previous leader, and he campaigned vigorously in favour of the Annan Plan in 1974. It is not completely positive: he excluded the Turkish Cypriot MPs when they tried to return to parliament in 1965, and he wasn't able to deliver a settlement despite having come so close more than once. He also ruthlessly disposed of his predecessor as President in the 1993 election by a tactical appeal to the right.

But the biographical detail is fascinating - the young Clerides, educated in London, an RAF prisoner of war, a lawyer for prisoners of the British in the 1950s, opposing his own father who stood against Makarios in the 1960 election, his memories of Makarios and Denktash who he worked with so closely (and the rather more lightweight Fazil Kuçuk who was Denktash's predecessor), and his involvement with ongoing peace efforts, hampered always by his eventual successor as president, Tassos Papadopoulos. The book ends on a pessimistic note, written as it was in 2005 and 2006 when prospects for a solution seemed more distant than ever before. show less