AKEL General Secretary on the “elections” in the occupied areas
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 8th January 2018, Nicosia
AK: The result as such represents a setback. A strong effort must be made on our part, on the one hand, so as to keep the hope of the solution of the Cyprus problem alive and, on the other hand, to create the preconditions that will enable us to reach an agreement on the Cyprus problem.
It is therefore of paramount importance to elect a President in the upcoming election, someone who will have the possibility of exerting pressure on the Turkish Cypriot community so as to support Mr. Akinci and of course to put pressure on Turkey as well in an effort to create those preconditions that will permit us to reach an agreement on the basis of the agreed framework. We say that the person who has the consistency and principled positions that will enable the resumption of the dialogue and have chances of success is Stavros Malas. Perish the thought if we continue with regressions or “novel” approaches such as the so-called “new strategy”, not only because we will not have the resumption of the negotiations, but I am very afraid that a situation will be perpetuated which will cause many problems to our island and people in the future. We will unfortunately slide down the path of extremely negative developments, which for us is detrimental.
Replying to a journalist’s statement that yesterday’s result has strengthened political forces that are not in line to Mr. Akinci’s political views, the General Secretary of AKEL replied:
AK: Mr. Akinci will continue to be the leader of the Turkish Cypriot community for the next year and a few months. Those forces who will form the so-called “government” I have no doubt whatsoever will cause him problems. It is for this reason that we say that our own stand, namely the stand of the next President of the Republic of Cyprus, will be extremely important if the hope of promoting and resolving the Cyprus problem is to be kept alive.
