The way in which the President opened the issue of decentralized federation is irresponsible

Statements by AKEL General Secretary A.Kyprianou to “OMEGA” TV

29 October 2018, “Dialogos” web portal

The General Secretary of AKEL Andros Kyprianou is in contact to arrange a meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, according to an interview he gave to the television channel “OMEGA”.

Regarding the issue of decentralized federation, A. Kyprianou stated that the President of the Republic did not present any proposal whatsoever at the session of the National Council and he didn’t say anything of substance.

“The powers and competences of the central government have been agreed upon. They are not disputed by Turkey or by the Turkish Cypriot leadership. They aren’t considered by the UN Secretary-General to be open for discussion. Mr. Anastasiades is trying to open the matter in a very incompetent and very superficial way which permits me to say that he is indeed irresponsible,” the General Secretary of AKEL stressed characteristically.

He added that despite the pressing questions he has put, the President of the Republic hasn’t reply to them.

More specifically, the General Secretary of AKEL noted that “We have 6 important issues. Security – guarantees, property – territory, executive power, equal treatment of Greek and Turkish citizens, which have been recorded by the UN Secretary-General. The UN Secretary-General is saying to us, ‘discuss these issues and if you agree on them, the way for the solution to the Cyprus problem is open’. The President says to him “No, we will not discuss these issues,” says Anastasiades’ proposal, ‘we will discuss an issue that is closed.’

In effect, A. Kyprianou noted that “at Mont Peleran we had arrived at an agreement on this matter, something very different to what Mr. Anastasiades is saying today.” He went on to add that, “There was a debate on these issues, and from what I understood at Mont Peleran 1 we reached a conclusion and when all these problems surfaced with the return of Mr. Anastasiades, not to characterize it otherwise, he told lies that I supposedly called him to return (to Cyprus) when we went to Mont Peleran 2 and we had the breakdown in the way we had it, then I realized that both sides, both the Greek Cypriot and Turkish side, have retreated and went back on what had been agreed at Mont Peleran I. “

In addition, the General Secretary of AKEL pointed out that all the newspapers in one way or another wrote essentially the same thing regarding Mr. Anastasiades’ intentions, which neither he himself nor the government denied, which is the reason why he has characterized them as very worrying.