AKEL on Erdogan’s illegal visit to the occupied areas

 

Statement of Andros Kyprianou, General Secretary of the C.C. of AKEL

AKEL C.C. Press Office, 2nd September 2014, Nicosia

 

During his illegal visit to the occupied territories, Tayyip Erdoğan claimed that Turkey supports a fair, comprehensive and viable solution to the Cyprus problem and reiterated his favourite catchphrase that Turkey will always be one step ahead. However, referring to the content of the solution of the Cyprus problem, he made no reference to a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation and repeated the well-known unacceptable Turkish positions with vague, selective, fragmented and distortive references to the agreed negotiation framework.

The Turkish President was careful to stress the growing dependence of the occupied areas on Turkey, which objectively reduces the Turkish Cypriot community’s incentives for a solution and serves the goal of separate living.

The only effective way to combat Erdogan’s communication games is to prove Turkey’s discrepancy between words and deeds at the negotiating table. In view of the critical developments ahead it is imperative that lessons be drawn from President Anastasiades’ handling so far, which resulted in a joint declaration inferior to the Christofias-Talat joint communiqués and to the widening of the gap in positions and allowing the Turkish Cypriot leader Eroglu to indulge in demagogy that he himself supposedly accepts the convergences but the Greek Cypriot side rejects them.

At some stage substantive negotiations will begin and President Anastasiades must realize that negotiations from scratch lead with mathematical certainty to a deadlock in conjunction with the blame being apportioned on our side as well.