I The Federal Constitution
A. The common starting points of the constitutional solution A federal system of government for Cyprus is a solution which has been advocated by the Turkish Cypriot side from the very beginning of the inter-communal talks and has also been accepted by the Greek Cypriot side at the second summit meeting between President Denktas and Archbishop Makarios on the 12th February, 1977, in the presence of the United Nations SecretaryGeneral Dr. Kurt Waldheim.
The first point of the agreed instructions (guidelines) referred to in the communique issued at the end of this meeting states that the two sides were "seeking an independent, nonaligned, bi-communal Federal Republic."
The first point of the proposals of the Greek Cypriot side submitted at the 6th round of the Vienna talks (31st March — 7th April, 1977) on the "Basic Principles which should govern the Constitutional Structure of the Federal Republic of Cyprus" also referred to a "federal republic consisting of the Greek Cypriot Region and the Turkish Cypriot Region" and thus recognised the "bi-zonal" character of the Federation.
This means that the founding of an "independent, sovereign, bi-communal and bi-zonal federal state" in Cyprus is a common starting 1. Political Difficulties (a) This is not a simple exercise of devolution of powers from an existing central government to its component parts, as is the case, for instance, in the devolution bill for Scotland, administrative regionalism in France or "political decentralisation" of central powers to the Walloons and the Flemish in Belgium.
On the contrary, this is an effort to bring together two different Communities who lived through two decades of inter-communal violence and bloodshed (from 1955 when EOKA launched its terrorist campaign for Enosis until 1974 when
• Turkey intervened under the 1960 Treaty of
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