Deep resentment about the government’s attempt to refute the negative impressions created by the President’s statement on EEZ issues
Statements by the General Secretary of the C.C. of AKEL A. Kyprianou
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 5th January 2018, Nicosia
I want to express my deep resentment regarding the government’s attempt to refute the negative impressions created by the President of the Republic’s recent statements on EEZ issues. The whole story would end had President said that he had made a mistake, had he apologized for the mistake he had committed and stated that that’s not what he wanted to say. Instead of admitting it so we can move on, he has begun a campaign defaming everyone on the excuse that we are in a pre-election campaign. Mr. Anastasiades and his team are very well aware that AKEL has, over the last five years, acted focused on how best the country’s interests and not how its pre-election or election considerations are served. It is Mr. Anastasiades and his associates who excel in this particular action, that’s why they would do well to stop accusing AKEL for these issues.
I repeat that the whole issue will end very simply if Mr. Anastasiades says he made a mistake and that that wasn’t what he wanted to say. We all heard him. The attempt to refute what he has said will fail constantly. That’s why he will have to find another way to handle this issue.
I want to comment on something else. I hear from DISY MP’s, the government spokesman and others an attempt underway to convey the message that AKEL has supposedly been asking all this time for Mr. Anastasiades to make further concessions. Nothing could be further from the truth. What AKEL is accusing Mr. Anastasiades of is that at the critical time he chose to put his personal ambitions above and above the interests of Cyprus and the future generations. At the same time, we accuse him because, while he had the possibility either to proceed to the abolition of the guarantee and intervention rights from the first moment of the achievement of an agreement, or to expose Turkey, in the end he didn’t succeed in achieving neither one nor the other.
I will end by saying that we don’t share the point of view on the basis of which the rest of the political parties criticize Mr. Anastasiades. We exert criticism because we must all understand that unsolved the Cyprus problem will perpetuate on our island a situation that will continually cause enormous dangers for the future and prospect of both our homeland and people. With this, of course, I want to make it absolutely clear that I am not implying that we should accept any solution of the Cyprus problem. The solution must be based on the long-standing decisions of the National Council and the agreed principles of the solution.
