Pressing need for Anastasiades to go and for a successor with the same mentality to be excluded

The opposition should forge cooperation to save Cyprus

Statements by Toumazos Tsielepis, AKEL Political Bureau member

9 February 2022

It is imperative that AKEL, in cooperation with other political forces of the opposition, win the 2023 presidential elections, making an effort to prevent the permanent partition of our country and to achieve the much longed-for solution of the Cyprus problem.

This is what the member of the Central Secretariat of AKEL Toumazos Tsielepis stressed last night speaking at a political rally in Limassol, pointing out that at all costs, Nicos Anastasiades, who was the first President in the history of the Republic of Cyprus to propose the solution of partition to Turkey, must be removed from the Presidency and that “a possible successor with the same mentality must be excluded”.

These elections, Toumazos Tsielepis noted, are now the most important for the country and the people and will take place at a very critical juncture, given the situation surrounding the Cyprus problem, which since the collapse of the 2017 Crans Montana conference has been in its worst ever situation.  This is not a figure of speech, he underlined, but a harsh reality for the simple reason that in 2017 at Crans Montana erroneous handlings were made by the President of the Republic, resulting for the first time in the history of the Cyprus problem. In the Secretary General of the UN relieving Turkey of any responsibility and assigning responsibility on the Greek Cypriot side too for the deadlock.

“And the government ruling forces may attempt to prove that they don’t have any responsibility, but the very documents they cite prove beyond any shadow of a doubt their grave responsibility,” said Toumazos Tsielepis, noting that “we are on the brink of the permanent partition and the waging of a very big struggle will be required to prevent it and we cant expect any developments leading up the presidential elections.”

The artificial mobility on the Cyprus problem that they are trying to create today by proposing confidence-building measures will not lead anywhere, as Toumazos Tsielepis pointed out, stressing that “as long as this situation exists with the President of the Republic, with his specific policies, with his unwillingness to take any substantive initiatives, we are a very easy opponent for Turkey”.