Speech by the General Secretary of AKEL A.Kyprianou at the cultural event “Dreaming on the Walls of Famagusta”

Martinego Bastion in occupied Famagusta

AKEL C.C. Press Office, 21 September 2018

“Yes, the sea is everywhere in our country, but on Sundays, we like to take a walk on the walls of Famagusta, with our little Marina with us, with her friends and beach shovel”…writes Theodosis Pierides in his poetry collection “Daydreaming on the walls of Famagusta”. A dream come true made up of the simplest, but also valuable materials. The sea of Famagusta with ​​people and stories coming and going, the walls that recall all that has taken place and little Marina connecting with her small shovel the present with the future

“Back then we were just kids, we just lived our lives”, wrote the poet.  Coming back here today, with the barbed wire still separating us, we can conclude that. Back then we were simply going on with our lives when our country and people were one.

In the childhoods and adolescence of the generations who lived in Cyprus before the invasion of 1974, lives another Cyprus: The cohabitation of Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriots lives on, The Cyprus of common political, social and workers struggles that the Cypriot people waged united live on. The Cyprus where Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots struggled to build their common future together, sharing common anxieties and visions, living together – and not side by side – lives on.

Today, on the eve of the International Day of Peace, all we want to wish is that these days we recall cease being a distant memory; that they become a living reality and future for our homeland; that they should be the present and future of our people.

It is true that we did not all love the independence that was granted in the 1960’s.

Nationalism in the Greek Cypriot community viewed Cyprus independence as a stepping stone towards achieving Enosis (Note: union of Cyprus with Greece).

Nationalism in the Turkish Cypriot community viewed independence as a stepping stone to partition.

In one of the darkest periods of Cypriot history, nationalism and chauvinism did what they could to dissolve the Republic of Cyprus. Fanaticism and intolerance took up arms to ravage our people, while the illegal partitionist imperialist plans were being hatched one after the other. AKEL and the mass organizations of the Left, who were always struggling for the independence of our country and for the unity and friendship of our people, always represented the bastion and force of resistance to these evil anti-Cypriot plans. Our people paid with its blood the price of the resistance to the local and foreign conspiracies. In the years after independence and during the pre-1974 war period, imperialism aimed to partition Cyprus. But it would not have succeeded in dividing Cyprus and our people had it not found Cypriots to open the back door to it.

Let’s not repeat history. Just as back then certain forces and circles in the Greek Cypriot community knew that if a coup d’état would be executed, Turkey would find the back door open for it to invade, so do they know today that if the Cyprus problem remains unresolved, Turkey will consolidate its presence in Cyprus and wipe out the whole of the Cypriot people.

There isn’t any room left. Now is the time to tell the whole truth, nothing but the truth. Let us speak sincerely and consistently having the future of Cyprus, not any petty-party interests at heart.

We will either negotiate with the will to solve the Cyprus problem through an honorable compromise that will reunite our homeland and people, or we will open the door to the nightmare of partition.

We will either vindicate the common struggles that we, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, have waged to become the masters of our own fate, or we will cripple our homeland and deliver the other half to foreign interests.

In recent years, as AKEL, we have come under ferocious attacks on many fronts which sought to discredit the substance of our positions on the Cyprus problem, aiming at ripping to pieces the positions that AKEL supported and the convergences achieved by D. Christofias and M.A. Talat. We managed to withstand the political cost of this fierce attack. We didn’t retreat from our positions, not out of any stubbornness, or any “obsession”, but because as AKEL we have a vision for Cyprus’ future. We have a political proposal on how a reunited Cyprus can and should operate; a Cyprus belonging to its people, living together in a common state.

We have always recognized the political equality of the Turkish Cypriots and its historical depth. This is what we promoted through our positions and proposals in a practical manner, precisely because we understand the Turkish Cypriot community’s need for political equality; a need that stems from the very history of Cyprus. At the same time, we have at the centre of our attention all that truly threatens the future of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots in Cyprus.

The situation our country has lived through over the past forty-four years is expressed in the verse of Theodosis Pierides, “time stopped, a petrified people out of time”. Ankara’s policies promoting integration and assimilation against the Turkish Cypriot community are threatening its identity, character and very entity. The scenario of the non-solution of the Cyprus problem directly threatens the survival of both Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots on the land that gave birth to them.

This time Mr. Anastasiades must – even at this hour – realize the weight of his responsibility. He should do what needs to be done, so that he does not go down in history as the President of partition. It is clear that Turkey bears long-standing responsibilities for the non-solution of the Cyprus problem, by projecting unacceptable positions. We need to prove in practice that we are ready to make a constructive contribution and highlight that Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots want and can reach a just, functional and therefore viable solution to the Cyprus problem. We must, with our stand and positions, remove any argument from Turkey. Through our stand we must contribute towards the resumption of the negotiation procedure with a view to reaching a solution based on the agreed framework.

The UN Secretary-General in his Report to the Security Council last September shows the way to achieve a resumption of the negotiations aiming at the solution of the Cyprus problem. He asks the two leaders to decide together that they will proceed with the necessary political will to a procedure that will be meaningful and go all the way to the very end. He does not stick to expressing this general position, but also sets out what a meaningful procedure means, that is to say to continue the effort from where it had remained at Crans Montana.

In its substantive part, his proposal states that the convergences that had been achieved so far all these years, the Guterres framework and the mechanism for implementing the solution should be reaffirmed.

As far as the procedural part is concerned, he states that there should be a packaged negotiation of the six main pending issues, which the UN Secretary-General indeed sets out: the issues regarding Security and guarantees should be discussed (at the conference table), territory, property, the effective participation in the bodies and decisions at a federal level, while the equal treatment of Greeks and Turks should be discussed at the second table in the negotiation between the leaders of the two communities. As AKEL, we fully agree with the above approach. At the point where we have reached, this is the correct course to reach a positive conclusion, and indeed in a short period of time.

Both Mr. Anastasiades and Mr. Akinci will meet Mr. Guterres in New York soon. These meetings will determine the next steps to be taken.

It is our wish that Mr. Anastasiades demonstrate consistency to positions, abandon regressions and contradictions and rise to the occasion. We hope Mr. Akinci will do the same as well. We wish Turkey ends its intransigent position.

Today’s event is a reminder of the long struggle of the People’s Movement of the Left, of all that unites us, of the bonds between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots.

It is the beauty of our homeland that we want to share.

It’s the bitter days we want to leave behind us forever.

It is the days of peace that Thedosis Pierides sung about so lyrically with his poems.

It is our anxiety, the agony of our people for life.

It is all that we are fighting for together with the progressive section of the Turkish Cypriot community.

We have said it many times and we will repeat it. For us, the progressive Turkish Cypriot movement is our natural ally in the struggle to build our common future, for the vindication of our country and peace. That is why we insist – and will continue to insist – that the Turkish Cypriot, together with the Greek Cypriot community, will neutralize forever any threats to their survival only when they manage to live together within the framework of a federation. For us the solution of federation means the creative cooperation of equal partners and compatriots. Within the framework of a reunified state with a single sovereignty, a single citizenship and a single international personality, that will ensure that the two communities coexist and work together in a united and independent homeland.

Let certain forces and circles not rush yet again to say that we want to erase what defines each community. The historical ties of the two communities with Greece and Turkey are indisputable. However, for us it is equally indisputable that Cypriots themselves can manage their affairs without any guardians and that Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots can build their common life in their common Homeland.

We envision one Cyprus, a common homeland of Greek Cypriots, Turkish Cypriots, Maronites, Armenians and Latins, as a result of a solution based on the agreed framework.

A solution of a bicommunal, bizonal federation that will relieve and rid us of the occupation and any interventions in our internal affairs.

A solution that will isolate any fascist and chauvinist elements, not allowing them to undermine it.

The evolution of the Republic of Cyprus must lead to a united state based on bicommunal, bizonal federation: one state with a single and indivisible sovereignty, a single citizenship and a single international personality with political equality, without guarantees and intervention rights, with human rights and fundamental freedoms for all safeguarded.

“One by one the waves of History came and left, they came and left, but we remained, we the common people masters of the land, we who will stay – even though they’ll come, let the waves of history go away, let them charge and seethe, let the waves of history fade one by one ..”, wrote Theodosis Pierides.

We, the reigning masters, the people of this country will be the ones who will have the final say.

We who have painted the struggle for peace and democracy with our own blood.

We who have built on the ruins of 1974.

We who insist on grasping our hands over the barbed wire of division.

We who insist on uniting our voice and raising it so that the following is heard everywhere: nothing can stop peace in Cyprus.

We, the common people when the waves will recede one by one, will write history from the beginning in large letters: Cyprus, one homeland, one people.