By George Koumoulli
No matter how lenient a judge may be of Nikos Christodoulides’ work so far, it is difficult to rate it “very good” or, even, “good”. I will not talk about the appointments of officials with monkey degrees and such. I will focus on the course of the Cyprus problem – to which Canaan Land the promises of the PD lead us.
First of all, Mr Christodoulides’ attempt to convince everyone that our aim is the IGC, when his supporters are fiery opponents of it, seems tragic.
We are not convincing either our European partners or the Turkish Cypriots.
He is like a metropolitan who has, “secretly” but widely known, a thousand and two chicks and at the same time preaches to the monks the virtues of abstinence from sex. Not only will it not be believed, But it will also cause ridicule.
Well, the Europeans, whom the President is begging to help us to get talks to restart, have both good knowledge and a good memory for our burdened record. They certainly do not taste any lotus or any other herb of forgetfulness and absurdity. They do not forget the speech in the European Parliament by the German EU Commissioner Günther Verheugen on 21/04/2004 when he raged against T. Papadopoulos.
“I feel,” Verheugen told MEPs, “cheated by the government of the Republic of Cyprus. For several months – I stress this – I have done my best, as has everyone, in good faith and with confidence in the promises of the Greek Cypriot Government to adopt parameters that would enable the Greek Cypriots to ratify the Annan Plan. Unfortunately, this development has not been achieved”
(see https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/CRE-5-2004-04-21-ITM-001_EL.html?redirect).
What guarantee is there that this time the RoC will behave consistently and will not deceive the EU again? Especially when you consider that the President himself supported our suspension and abandonment of the Crans-Montana talks? It should therefore come as no surprise that our European partners have not responded to our President’s persistent calls for mediation.
Bearing in mind the UN Secretary-General’s firm conviction that the responsibility for finding a solution lies primarily with the Cypriots themselves – and indeed it is – why does our President not turn to the Turkish Cypriots? As a first step, he could invite all Turkish Cypriot journalists to the Presidential Palace for lunch during which he could submit his version of the solution, namely the IGC. Apart from the fact that the event would in itself be an important confidence-building measure, it would instill in Turkish Cypriot society our anxiety for the future of our common homeland and the unwavering desire, at least of the majority of Greek Cypriots, to achieve a sustainable solution.
The second step would be the establishment of an office for Turkish Cypriot affairs that would bring the two communities closer together. Unfortunately, none of this happened and public pessimism about the future is pervasive. And how could it not be after we tumbled to the edge of the cliff?
The other day, the President declared with masterful bragging that he was willing to meet Tatar “tomorrow” if the latter wished. Suppose Tatar acquiesces and that, to everyone’s surprise, he accepts the IGC with political equality as clarified by the UN. The “extreme” patriots who support Christodoulides will start lamenting the “loss” of Cyprus again, perhaps some will cry on television, others will insist on the unitary state, while others will cite the theory that the political equality that allows Turkish Cypriots to participate effectively in all decisions of the central government constitutes … inequality.
But, even if we ignore these shouting, Nikos Christodoulides himself has made it clear that his tactic is to negotiate the Guterres framework – so he does not accept it in its original form. The Guterres framework may be a caricature of the original plan and therefore to be rejected by Turkish Cypriots.
But what makes moderate Turkish Cypriots abhor us are this year’s celebrations for the anniversary of April 1 at the “Eleftheria” stadium in the presence of the PD, who addressed a greeting under huge banners with the inscriptions “Greece-Cyprus-Enosis” and “Long live the Union”. Then we wonder why even moderate Turkish Cypriots are reluctant to consent to the abolition of guarantees.
Really, how would we feel if Akinci, who strongly supported the IGC, attended TMT celebrations? Wouldn’t we accuse him of duplicity and bilingualism?
A foreign political analyst will be at a loss with us. Our goal is supposed to be the IGC, but we celebrate with all pomp the struggle for union! Total inconsistency above all, bearing in mind that this struggle was the root cause of the 1974 disaster.
Perhaps, in order to ignore the connection between the union and the Cypriot tragedy, we christened EOKA’s struggle for union “liberating”.
Everyone talks about the looting of 1955, but no one tells us that this looting was marred to extinction by the gloom of the brutal murders of Greek Cypriots in 1958 and the paving the way in 1971-1974 for the criminal coup.
*Opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of CypriumNews.
