Letters

Fifth, with regard to the S-3 00 fracas, the authors describe it as a "humiliating retreat" for the Greek Cypriots. Surely the humiliated party was Turkey, not little Cyprus. It doesn't say much for Turkey's military machismo and its massive military machine if it can feel intimidated by Cyprus' purely defensive ground-to-air missile system that posed no serious threat to its mainland.

Sixth, curiously, there is no reference to the guiding principles of a settlement that both sides have for some time agreed to, namely a bizonal, bicommunal federation. Federation was a major concession on the part of the Greek Cypriots. Even the term "bizonal" was a difficult concession because of the implied separation of the two communities. For years now, Mr. Denktash has ridden that hobbyhorse to death.

Seventh, the so-called "Greek Cypriot-led embargo" has probably less to do with the appalling economic conditions in the occupied area than mismanagement and corruption of the regime there.

Eighth, another curious omission is any reference to the numerous UN Security Council resolutions calling for the withdrawal of Turkish occupation troops from Cyprus and the return of refugees, the tracing of missing persons (on both sides), and so forth. Instead Barkey and Gordon scold the Greek Cypriots for "using their EU relationships to pursue major new arms procurements [instead of using] their enhanced security status within the EU to reduce arms on the island." In actuality, President Clerides has put forward a comprehensive demilitarization proposal. It was endorsed by numerous members of Congress. The Secretary-General at the time supported it and recommended it to Turkey's then-prime minister, Tansu Ciller, who trashed it. Madeleine Albright, as Secretary of State, also tried to reduce the Turkish military presence and got nowhere.

Finally, there is much hand-wringing over Turkey's so-called security concerns and those of Turkish Cypriots who "still fear their Greek counterparts' intentions (often for good reason)." It bears repeating that it is the Greek Cypriot side that has been invaded, made to suffer massive human rights violations, had its cultural and religious monuments desecrated and looted, thousands of its citizens turned into refugees, suffering the indignity of having a 35,000-strong foreign army occupying 40 percent of its soil. To pass over the human tragedy is to write in a moral vacuum.

JAMES DEHILAS

Pound Ridge, NY

Barkey and Gordon reply:

One of the reasons the Cyprus problem has been so intractable--a word it does seem fair to apply to a situation that has been stalemated for 27 years--is the tendency of each side to focus exclusively on the injustices it feels it has suffered without so much as acknowledging the point of view, rights and interests of the other side. Mr. Dehilas is right that Greek and Turkish Cypriots can live in harmony on the island as they have done in the past, but not if they remain determined to see only the worst in the position of the other side. If he had spent less time scouring our piece for alleged bias, and more time considering our suggestions for how to get a unified Cyprus into the EU (or to limit the damage to all parties should that prove impossible), he probably would not have provided such a good example of the one-sidedness that makes reconciliation on the island so difficult.

Odom's Russia:

Because "Odom's Russia: A Forum" (Winter 2001/02) focuses primarily on Russia's political institutions, it ignores the question of the "commercial DNA" bequeathed to the economic enterprises of the post-Soviet successor states. This is of no minor import. Throughout the 1990s and into the present, the entrepreneurial drive to harness the enormous commercial potential in Russia and the other Newly Independent States has been largely absent, and its very absence ignored. Even as new laws and regulations were enacted, the brick wall of a stultified entrepreneurial ethos and a stagnant business culture have caused efforts to reform the former Soviet Union's s economy and related governance structures to flounder.

The Soviet Union was a hierarchical structure that provided enterprises with detailed organizational charts and procedures manuals for the production of all goods and services. Prices were set through command-and-control processes, not buyer-and-seller negotiation. In business terms, the Soviet Union might best be understood as an unprofitable firm, with Josef Stalin as a robber baron CEO and the Politburo an overly compliant board of directors.