AKEL on the Tsipras-Erdogan meeting
Statement by the General Secretary of AKEL A. Kyprianou
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 6 February 2019, Nicosia
The meeting between the Greek Prime Minister and the Turkish President is in itself a positive fact. We believe that through such type of meetings and contacts channels of communication are maintained which is the only way to create preconditions for the solution of problems.
As far as the Cyprus problem is concerned, we consider the statements that were made by the Greek Prime Minister at the press conference as positive. We welcome the meetings announced between the two countries to discuss security issues with regards the Cyprus problem. We agree with the Greek government’s declared position that the guarantors have a role to play in solving the issues of the international aspect of the Cyprus problem and their position that the internal aspect is an issue that must be resolved between the two communities in Cyprus. We hope that the meetings that have been announced and which we hope will take place, will help substantially the effort to achieve a solution to the Cyprus problem.
At the same time, we want to stress that the principal task of this period is the achievement of an agreement on the terms of reference so as to make the resumption of the negotiations possible from the point where they had remained and to safeguard the convergences that have been recorded. Besides, as the Greek Prime Minister underlined too, at Crans Montana we were very close to reaching an agreement on security issues. That is precisely where President Anastasiades too must focus all his efforts on.
Finally, because there is a lot of discussion about Mr. Erdogan’s reference to political equality, let me just say the following. Political equality is something that has been included in the relevant UN resolutions since 1992. All the political parties in the Greek Cypriot community have accepted it: political equality, not numerical equality. We should not, therefore, be surprised by the demand either of Mr. Erdogan or by Mr. Akinci. What does matter, and where we must focus our efforts on, is what content they attach to this political equality. And that’s precisely where we have to negotiate on to give the correct content to it.
