Statement by Yiorgos Loucaides, member of the Political Bureau of AKEL, on the President’s proposal and the Presidential elections
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 24th May 2017, Nicosia
The Cyprus problem
We hope and wish that the UN Secretary-General Special Representative on Cyprus Mr. Eide’s mediation effort, about which some circles are talking about, will yield results and the apparent deadlock or breakdown in the negotiations will be avoided, because we have on many occasions warned as AKEL that such a development would create very serious additional difficulties to the effort to achieve a solution and the liberation and reunification of our homeland and people.
I want to wish that the proposal made by the President of the Republic will be accepted by both the international community and the United Nations and by the other side too. That is, the discussion of the issue of security, guarantees and territory should not only start, but be successfully concluded, and only then should the rest of the issues be discussed.
However, we consider that this “protaxis” (Note: the policy of setting “preconditions” that predetermine the results of negotiations) by the President of the Republic for the opening and completion of the discussion on these issues may create problems to the procedure, it may be rejected and at the same time might not be understood – and this is the most important – by those who tomorrow will apportion responsibilities after a possible deadlock, which will come as a result of a procedural proposal that has been submitted.
This, as you understand, will provoke even greater negative side-effects in our efforts, not only in achieving the liberation of our homeland, but also in our efforts to prevent Turkey’s plans and objectives to create fait accompli, either on the Cyprus problem or in the negotiation procedure, either in the occupied areas or in the Exclusive Economic Zone of the Republic of Cyprus.
We therefore would like to urge the President of the Republic to act in a way that will not allow such type of negative developments to take place.
Presidential elections
First of all, I don’t want to confirm, nor deny the references to names that have been reported in public.
What I would like to say, however, is that the Political Bureau continued its reflection on the Presidential elections and the political priorities and scenarios that we will be called upon to take decisions. Of course, the political priorities are associated with names as well and a discussion has been conducted surrounding names in the Political Bureau.
We shall convey this reflection to the Central Committee this coming Saturday. We will hear the Central Committee, the thoughts and opinions of its members, and then we will return to the Political Bureau to go to the Party Base Organizations where the members of the party will freely and democratically express their own views. Following that, we will return to the Central Committee to arrive at a conclusion at a Congress that is scheduled to convene in early July, which will take the final decisions.
