President Mustafa Akinci briefed all the political parties on the latest developments in the Cyprus negotiations. He also responded to the coalition government’s demand to have a representative at the Cyprus negotiations.
In statements after the meeting, Akinci said that it is not possible to hold a healthy dialogue with the government, which insists on having a representative at the negotiations. No such demand has ever been made before in previous negotiating processes.
“They are trying to confuse the people by creating fears which are not expressed inside [the meeting]”, noted Akinci adding that the government has “almost launched a ‘no’ campaign saying that if our representative is not there, we also are not there”. Pointing out that he has established that the government is ill-intentioned, Akinci described as “totally wrong” to try and confuse the people, in spite of the fact tha,t during his meetings with the parties he clarified “some inaccurate information reported by [Greek Cypriot] Politis newspaper”.
Pointing out that this was the second time within a week that he has briefed the parliamentary parties, Akinci said that soon he may brief the parties which are not represented by parliament, since “the process is heading towards an important stage”. He added:
“After the five meetings until 14 September are completed, the process might continue in New York somehow. The target is of course to be able to carry the process to a five party conference after the three party meeting we will hold in New York with the UNSG and lead the procedure to referendum by reaching a solution on the issue of security and guarantees there”.
Akinci reiterated that whether this will happen or not, depends on the developments during the forthcoming process and stated that “if the demands of the Greek Cypriot side remain within a realistic and logical framework, we will be able to reach to the point of establishing a bi-zonal, bi-communal federal structure, the parameters of which have been known for many years”.
The president said that he has not been making statements to date after he has briefed the political parties, but yesterday he felt the need to do so, because he does not want the people to be deceived.
He recalled that he had been elected, receiving 60% of the votes in 2015 because of the programme he had clearly explained to the people and added that his approach on the Cyprus problem was included in the first paragraph of this programme. He noted that in that programme, he had stated from the very first day that he would carry out the negotiations within the framework of the 1977-79 high level agreements signed by late Rauf Denktaş, the convergences between former Turkish Cypriot leader Talat and former President Christofias and the document of 11 February 2014 signed by former President Derviş Eroglu and approved by all the political parties of both the government and the opposition.
Akinci said he that cannot take along all the members of his negotiating team for every meeting, during the current stage of the negotiations, He said that during the last meeting, for example, an expert on law issues from each community accompanied the leaders and the negotiators.
Noting that there is still no document ready for referendum, Akinci said that he is trying to achieve this and if he does he will be able to say to the people: “Yes, now we will be able to be included in the international law, we will put an end to the uncertainty for future generations, we will get rid of the discrimination between title deeds of Turkish origin and title deeds of non-Turkish origin and you will take your position in the EU as an honourable member because this is not only a right for the Greek Cypriots”.
Havadis