If Sunday’s dinner is focused on discussing confidence building measures (CBMs), then the effort to resume a fruitful dialogue is doomed, President Nicos Anastasiades said on Tuesday night.
The President was reacting to comments from the Turkish Cypriot leader, Mustafa Akinci, who said that CBMs should be discussed as a priority at the dinner bringing the leaders of the two communities together for the first time since last February.
Speaking at an event, in Nicosia, in the presence of Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias and Archbishop Chrysostomos II of Cyprus, the President noted that the effort is to overcome the crisis that erupted, after the Turkish Cypriot side walked out of the peace talks in February.
“Next Sunday we will have the opportunity to decide how to move forward during a social dinner, as it has been called,” he added.
Talks were interrupted in mid-February by the Turkish Cypriot side, which demands that a decision passed by the parliament in relation to a 1950 referendum on union with Greece is revoked, claiming that this indicates a shift in the Greek Cypriot position for a federal solution. The parliamentary amendment provides that there will be a very brief reference once a year to the referendum at schools.
Handling of the crisis
On Monday, the UN’s Good Offices Mission in Cyprus announced that Special Adviser on Cyprus Espen Barth Eide is set to host a dinner for President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci on Sunday, April 2, at Ledra Palace, in the Nicosia buffer zone.
“I want to make clear that if the goal or the aim is to discuss Confidence Building Measures, I think the effort of those who are trying to create the conditions to finally resume a fruitful dialogue is doomed,” President Anastasiades underlined.
He wondered whether the discussion at the dinner should focus on CBMs in relation to a series of Navigational Telex, or Navtex, Ankara is issuing for Turkish drills in the region or with regards to anniversaries, such as the 1974 Turkish invasion in Cyprus or the 1983 unilateral proclamation of the illegal regime in the Turkish-occupied part of the island, which no country except Turkey recognizes.
He went on to say that the Greek Cypriot side should evaluate the handling of the crisis dispassionately, with prudence and with understanding. At the same time, he went on, the Turkish Cypriot leader must realise that “those who, by his own admission, are the victims of Turkey`s invasion have similar, if not more pronounced sensitivities.”
Source: CNA
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