Interview with AKEL MEP Giorgos Georgiou on the wiretapping/surveillance scandal and Cyprus

 

• The government’s reluctance to investigate the wiretapping/surveillance issue is glaring
• Anastasiades’ efforts to resume negotiations two months before he leaves office simply serve communication expediencies

 

Sunday 16 October 2022, “Haravgi” newspaper

QUESTION: On 1 November, an EU delegation/team is coming to Cyprus to look into the surveillance/wiretapping scandal. Is Cyprus in danger of being exposed once again after the black spy van case was closed and the leaks about the involvement of the ruling DISY party’s involvement in the surveillance scandal?

GG: Cyprus is already exposed on the issue of surveillance/wiretapping. Hence the descent of the European Parliament’s Committee of Inquiry to Cyprus. There is a torrent of evidence regarding Cyprus’ connection to the wiretapping scandal. As an indication, a year before the murder of the Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the Israel-based NSO Group was “advertising” its software to Saudi officials in Limassol. In 2019 the black spy van was seized in Larnaca collecting information and the personal data of thousands of people.

This obvious scandal was covered up by the Attorney General’s Office in a mockery of a trial. We never heard and were never informed of the findings included in the Elias Stefanou report. It is also admitted that the owning company is linked to the company behind the scandal of the surveillance of Greek socialist MEP Nikos Androulakis.

The issue is simple and substantive. All states, including Cyprus, have binding obligations under international law to protect human rights from abuse by any third parties. In the case of Cyprus, these “third parties” are specific. They are the well-known Israeli agents Dillian and Avni who, as it has recently been revealed, were seeking the mediation of the ruling DISY party to serve their business plans for which they have been criticised at a European level too…

The government’s unwillingness to proceed with investigations when evidence of wrongdoing is glaring, does not close the matter, as the government ruling forces consider and wish. On the contrary, it opens it wide open.

QUESTION: President Anastasiades has recently been making a desperate effort to demonstrate that he wants the talks [on the Cyprus problem] to resume. Is there any scope for a resumption of the negotiations between now and the February presidential elections?

GG: The effort is not only frivolous, it is a sham. It is simply being done to enhance Nicos Anastasiades’ profile to serve communication purposes and expediencies. One wonders whether it is indeed possible, two months before you leave office, to seek in the middle of a corridor [reference to a Anastasiades-Erdogan meeting] the need for talks to resume for a solution to the Cyprus problem…

Nicos Anastasiades had the opportunity to solve the Cyprus problem at Crans Montana, if he really wanted to. The UN Secretary General, unfortunately, has recorded Turkey’s willingness to cooperate at Crans Montana, accusing the two leaders of demonstrating a lack of willingness to cooperate. There were other opportunities after 2017, but the President of the Republic avoided them.

Since then, the Pandoras box has opened: Nicos Anastasiades has undone/nullified all the convergences that have been agreed, undermined the body of work of the talks, “disengaged” Turkey and the new Turkish Cypriot leadership from any commitments they had made – for example, delivering the Map on territory in Geneva – and gave Turkey the possibility to set in motion a negative roadmap for the solution of the Cyprus problem.

The fait accompli are escalating in a dangerous way: the demand for “sovereign equality”, a two state solution and the colonalisation of Famagusta. It was erroneous that DISY President Mr. Averof Neophytou was “not worried” and it was equally erroneous that fellow presidential candidate Mr. Nicos Christodoulides considered Turkey’s threats and ongoing attempts for the recognition of the pseudo-state [in the occupied areas] as “communication tricks”.

Therefore, in view of the upcoming elections in Cyprus and Turkey, and in this climate, how can the negotiations resume?

QUESTION: Both at the UN General Assembly and at the annual march organised by the refugees from [occupied] Morfou, the President of Cyprus attacked both the UN and the EU head-on for their stance on the Cyprus problem. Do you think this is helping the efforts to resume the negotiations?

GG: The attacks launched against both the UN Secretary General and his representatives, as well as the EU, for their stance on the Cyprus problem, sound nice and pleasing to the rejectionist audience and satisfy the communication needs of the President of the Republic and the ruling DISY party. Indeed, in the latest Reports submitted by the Secretary General of the United Nations, there is a regression in the references to the type of solution, namely the reference to “bilateral” instead of bicommunal cooperation, a timid reaction to the Famagusta fait accompli, but also the reference to low expectations with regards the resumption of a dialogue.

A sincere, meaningful and hopeful dialogue cannot be implemented by the DISY duo of Averof Neophytou and Nikos Christodoulides. With their actions or silence they are complicit in the current situation surrounding the Cyprus problem.

Andreas Mavroyiannis, committed to the need to find a viable and workable solution, guarantees a halt to the permanent partition of Cyprus and the exhaustion of the last chances for mobility on the Cyprus problem.