Cyprus after elections: recapturing the Crans Montana momentum for peace negotiations

The beginning of 2018 coincided with elections on both sides of the "Green Line" in Cyprus. The 7 January 2018 parliamentary elections in the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC)" and the 28 January - 4 February 2018 presidential elections in the Republic of Cyprus reshuffled the Cypriot political landscape. The disillusionment and the fatigue of pro-conflict-resolution forces became clear, and the Cyprus question was relatively low on the agenda of electoral candidates. Nevertheless, the aftermath of the elections finds hardliners and opponents to a UN-brokered peace deal in a weaker position. This provides an opportunity for the resumption of peace negotiations from the point at which they stalled at Crans Montana last July. Both communities should move fast to restore trust and resolve the remaining issues, as international interest should not be taken for granted. Inertia or a new failure in peace negotiations is likely to lead to the end of UN operations in Cyprus, which would boost insecurity across the island. (author's abstract

Faraway, so close: approaching the endgame in the Cyprus negotiations

Substantial progress was achieved in the bicommunal negotiations that were ongoing for almost two years and led to the decision to continue the talks in Switzerland. The aim was to create conditions conducive to a final bargaining agreement between the Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots and the three guarantor states of the Republic of Cyprus: Greece, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. Although recent talks in Switzerland failed to deliver a breakthrough, negotiations continue, and hope survives. With the exception of negotiations on security and guarantees -a chapter whose negotiation inevitably also involves Cyprus' three guarantor states- convergence on negotiations in all other chapters, namely territory, property, governance and power sharing, as well as economic and EU matters, have resulted in agreement or have brought the positions of the parties within the radius of an agreement. (Autorenreferat

Cyprus negotiations thwarted by issues on security and guarantees: how can the peace process be revived?

The failure of the latest round of negotiations at Crans-Montana has disenchanted those who saw them as a historic opportunity for the resolution of the Cyprus problem. Issues regarding security and guarantees proved to be insurmountable obstacles to a solution. Although mutual recriminations, upcoming hydrocarbon drillings, and presi-dential elections in Cyprus will not help restore the negotiations in the immediate future, there is no better alternative to the continuation of the UN-led negotiations process, with the aim of achieving a federal solution. (author's abstract

B cell profiles, antibody repertoire and reactivity reveal dysregulated responses with autoimmune features in melanoma

B cells are known to contribute to the anti-tumor immune response, especially in immunogenic tumors such as melanoma, yet humoral immunity has not been characterized in these cancers to detail. Here we show comprehensive phenotyping in samples of circulating and tumor-resident B cells as well as serum antibodies in melanoma patients. Memory B cells are enriched in tumors compared to blood in paired samples and feature distinct antibody repertoires, linked to specific isotypes. Tumor-associated B cells undergo clonal expansion, class switch recombination, somatic hypermutation and receptor revision. Compared with blood, tumor-associated B cells produce antibodies with proportionally higher levels of unproductive sequences and distinct complementarity determining region 3 properties. The observed features are signs of affinity maturation and polyreactivity and suggest an active and aberrant autoimmune-like reaction in the tumor microenvironment. Consistent with this, tumor-derived antibodies are polyreactive and characterized by autoantigen recognition. Serum antibodies show reactivity to antigens attributed to autoimmune diseases and cancer, and their levels are higher in patients with active disease compared to post-resection state. Our findings thus reveal B cell lineage dysregulation with distinct antibody repertoire and specificity, alongside clonally-expanded tumor-infiltrating B cells with autoimmune-like features, shaping the humoral immune response in melanoma

On the Europeanization of minority rights protection

This chapter discusses the rational-choice and sociological institutionalism to shed light on the impact of Europeanization on minority rights in Turkey. It aims to explain the significant bifurcations that emerged in the field of minority rights as far as progress achieved since the slowdown of Turkey's European Union (EU) accession negotiations. The study of minority rights reform helps to suggest two points: the relevance of rational-choice institutionalism appears strong, as major legislative initiatives are normally linked with critical junctures in EU-Turkey relations and the establishment of conducive opportunity structures in Turkish politics; and reform can be also explained in terms of the prevalence of ideational frameworks that may or may not be linked with the European Union and Turkey's EU membership process. The case of minority protection provides an opportunity to think about the applicability of different theoretical tools in Turkey's Europeanization experience.Publisher's Versio

Foreign direct investment in Turkey: Historical constraints and the AKP success story

Economic development on an unambiguously national basis was one of the foundational principles of republican Turkey. Indeed, until very recently, foreign direct investment (FDI) was scant and had a marginal presence in the Turkish economy. Since Turkey's Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi-AKP) came into power in 2002, however, Turkey has generated more FDI than in the previous 20 years. Here, Grigoriadis and Kamaras examine closely this development.Publisher's Versio

Understanding Greece’s new foreign policy towards the Arab world: instrumentalisation, balancing, and emerging opportunities

No abstract available