AKEL GS on AKEL-CTP delegation meeting
Statements by the General Secretary of the C.C. of AKEL A.Kyprianou
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 27 October 2018, Nicosia
An AKEL Delegation headed by the General Secretary of the C.C. of AKEL Andros Kyprianou held a meeting today with a delegation of the Turkish Republican Party (CTP) headed by CTP President Tufan Erhürman. The AKEL delegation included, the member of the Political Bureau of AKEL and Head of the Cyprus Problem Bureau of AKEL Toumazos Tsielepis, the member of the Cyprus Problem Office of AKEL Stavri Kalopsidiotou, the director of the General Secretary’s office Marina Savva and the coordinator of the Rapprochement Bureau of AKEL Elias Demetriou.
After the meeting, which took place at the CTP offices in occupied Nicosia, Andros Kyprianou made the following statement:
“I want to thank our friend Tufan Erhürman for the very productive and meaningful discussion we had. We had a very frank, and I would say an in-depth exchange of views, surrounding the current phase of the Cyprus problem.
We consider it positive that two more crossings will be opened on 12 November. We hope that there will also be an agreement on the mobile telephone issue as soon as possible.
At the same time of course, as AKEL, we express our concern that it still has not been possible to resume substantive negotiations with a view to reaching an agreement as soon as possible. We consider that UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy Mrs. Lutte’s visit to Cyprus provides a unique opportunity for both leaders to send the appropriate messages so that the Secretary-General of the UN resumes negotiations from where they had remained at Cran Montana.
It is our belief that numerous dangers lie ahead from a possible prolonged stalemate on the Cyprus problem, both for Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. It is therefore imperative that the negotiations are resumed as soon as possible with the goal, I repeat, of arriving as soon as possible at an agreement.
Our appeal to both leaders, therefore, is that they show the necessary will, prioritize the reunification of our common homeland and focus their attention precisely there. Cyprus belongs to the Greek Cypriots, Turkish Cypriots, Maronites, Armenians and the Latins. We must therefore co-manage Cyprus on the basis of political equality as defined by the United Nations.
I would once again like to thank Tufan and the Republican Turkish Party delegation for the very substantive discussion we had and for the fact that we shall work together to organize events in both the Greek Cypriot and the Turkish Cypriot communities so as to promote our messages in both communities.
On decentralized Federation
It is evident that Mr. Anastasiades has not explained neither to Mr. Akinci as well exactly what he means by the term decentralized federation. It is our own demand also that Mr. Anastasiades should clarify what powers and competences he wants to transfer from the central government to the constituent entities. If indeed he does have some ideas in this direction, he must submit them to be discussed here and now, and not allow time to go by without them being discussed. This, however, must not under any circumstances distract us from the discussion of the substantive issues that remain pending. And these are the issues that are defined in the Guterres framework. “
