The General Secretary of AKEL replies to President Anastasiades: In 1991 only AKEL accepted political equality
23rd March 2021, DIALOGOS
The General Secretary of AKEL A.Kyprianou recalled that President Anastasiades after Crans Montana questioned the convergence achieved between Christofias and Talat with regards the Council of Ministers and the one positive vote, as well as the existence of a mechanism to overcome deadlocks.
Either the memory of Nikos Anastasiades is short or he thinks that he can mislead everyone stated the General Secretary of AKEL, stressing that in 1991 the only political party that accepted political equality was AKEL.
Speaking to the morning program of ‘Astra’ radio station, A.Kyprianou pointed out that only many years later, after 2000, did other parties accept political equality.
Furthermore, the General Secretary of AKEL added that President Anastasiades publicly stated that he did not accept that the Turkish Cypriots had the one positive vote in the Council of Ministers except on matters that concerned them. The President had also said that he considers that hydrocarbon issues are not among the issues that concern the Turkish Cypriots. The General Secretary of AKEL underlined that it is meaningless for the President to come out and say what he is saying without apologizing.
“The government is spreading false information about the refugee issue”
Regarding the barbed wire installed in the area of Astromeritis, the General Secretary of AKEL pointed out that the solution for dealing with migratory flows is not through the installation of barbed wire, noting that the barbed wires should have belonged to the dustbin of history. A.Kyprianou added that the barbed wire was erected by the Turkish army and we want to tear down the barbed wires of division so that we can achieve the reunification of our homeland, while the government has proceeded to install it now. The General Secretary of AKEL stressed that they cannot solve the problem of migratory flows as one can go easily over the barbed wire without difficulty. He also noted that the government is spreading false information with regards asylum seekers in order to generate fear throughout society. A.Kyprianou also pointed out that there are other modern means of monitoring areas to deal with migratory flows.
“The government ruling forces must stop cultivating illusions”
The government ruling forces must stop cultivating illusions among the people, that there is a possibility of the Republic of Cyprus pursuing a policy that will cause political costs to Turkey, said the General Secretary of AKEL, commenting on the report into EU-Turkey relations by Josep Borrell, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.
The General Secretary of AKEL recalled that since August 2019 the Anastasiades government, and the Foreign Minister in particular, had launched a campaign to convince that they would be following a hard line towards Turkey to make it suffer a political cost and force it to return to the negotiating table on the basis of the Greek Cypriot side’s positions. He added that 18 months later after concluding that the EU is not discussing the imposition of any strict sanctions on Turkey to revise its unacceptable demands on the Cyprus problem, but instead what is being discussed is what positive steps the Union will take to ensure that Turkey will cooperate with the EU.
The General Secretary of AKEL pointed out that no regressions should be made on the issues of the Cyprus problem so as to facilitate the resumption of negotiations, noting that the Greek Cypriot side has justice on its side.
