By opening up an issue of NATO guarantees the President is hindering the prospects for a resumption of negotiations and reaching a solution that liberates and reunites our country and people
Statement by AKEL C.C. Spokesperson Stefanos Stefanou
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 20 November 2018, Nicosia
The President of the Republic continues to open up issues and in doing so hindering the prospects for a resumption of negotiations and reaching a solution that liberates and reunites our country and people.
After opening the issue on decentralized federation, Mr. Anastasiades is now opening up an issue about NATO guarantees when no one has raised such an issue at the essential time. That is, when the issue of security and guarantees was discussed at the Crans Montana Conference. The Secretary General of the UN has supported the logic of the abolition of the anachronistic system of guarantees and replacing it with a mechanism for the implementation of the solution. The issue of NATO wasn’t anywhere and no one mentioned it. Nor was anyone back then arguing that a precondition for the abolition of the Turkish guarantees is their replacement with NATO guarantees.
Now, only Mr. Anastasiades himself knows why he is opening the matter. What is certain is that by raising this issue, the President is provoking new debates and disagreements on the domestic front and by doing so leading to new deadlocks.
The President must make use of the position of Secretary General Guterres for the abolition of the guarantees and intervention rights from day one of the solution of the Cyprus problem, for the withdrawal of the occupying troops, as well as for the mechanism to implement the solution that excludes guarantors. This is the best reply to the statements made by the Turkish side on guarantees and the occupation troops.
At the risk of becoming tiresome, we shall repeat it once again: the crucial issue is the agreement of the terms of reference for the resumption of the negotiations. This is precisely what the President of the Republic must focus on, and not on provoking problems and opening up new issues.
