Pragmatic Cooperation Under Constraint

At the InPeace Conference on Building Peace in Frozen Conflict Settings, held on 20 February 2026 at Ledra Palace, CPDC Founder Dr. Meltem Onurkan Samani reflected on the role of Technical Committees in Cyprus and their place within a prolonged status quo.

Drawing on her direct experience coordinating the bi-communal Technical Committees, Dr. Onurkan Samani underlined that Technical Committees have demonstrated that pragmatic cooperation is possible under the status quo. They have delivered tangible gains and helped mitigate some of the daily costs of division. However, she stressed that their greatest weakness is not inefficiency, but structural dependency.

“Technical Committees are neither a failure nor a solution,” she noted. “They are instruments operating under constraint. They can mitigate the costs of division, but they cannot resolve its causes.”

When framed as confidence-building mechanisms without a clear political horizon, Technical Committees risk normalising stagnation. Their real value emerges when they are understood as preparatory infrastructure — rehearsals for shared governance, rather than substitutes for a comprehensive settlement.

At a moment of renewed deadlock, Dr. Onurkan Samani emphasised the need to rethink peace process design. As long as the status quo remains open-ended and cost-free, cooperation will remain focused on managing symptoms rather than enabling transformation.

For this reason, CPDC’s current work focuses on independent but coordinated civic engagement, including civic inclusion, piloting Citizens’ Assemblies, and developing viable options for an updated, more inclusive and results-oriented methodology and roadmap for the peace process.

The InPeace Conference marked the closing of the EU-funded Inclusive Peacebuilding Project, implemented by ICLAIM and the Human Rights Platform. CPDC welcomes the continued commitment of all partners and supporters — particularly the European Union — to creating spaces for honest reflection and forward-looking dialogue on peacebuilding in Cyprus.