The way President handles the Cyprus problem is damaging the Greek Cypriot side’s credibility and in effect facilitating Turkey to promote its policy

Reply by AKEL C.C. Spokesperson Stefanos Stefanou to the Government Spokesman

AKEL C.C. Press Office, 11 April 2019, Nicosia

The government spokesman, in the absence of serious arguments, has yet again followed the familiar tactic of accusing AKEL selectively for supposedly opposing the Greek Cypriot side’s positions. Furthermore, he claims that AKEL pretends not to understand that the Turkish side is systematically trying to destroy the Guterres Framework.

Government spokesman Mr. Prodromou does not give a reply on the very substance:

Since the Presidential Palace wants, as it is declaring, to protect the Guterres Framework, why is every new idea it is tabling outside this Framework?

Was the issue of federal competencies agreed or not? Is Mr. Anastasiades opening the issue or not with his proposal for decentralized federation, which he has never even clarified?

Was a positive vote in the Council of Ministers agreed or not, which Mr. Anastasiades is now demonizing?

Does the UN Secretary General note or not in his report after Crans Montana that the general issue of effective participation was solved?

Was the presidential system agreed or not and why has the President now remembered the system of parliamentary democracy?

AKEL isn’t clashing with the positions of the Greek Cypriot side because it is telling the truth. Mr. Anastasiades himself is contradicting them for the simple reason that in trying to neutralize the Guterres Framework he, among other things, is neutralizing the clear position of the UN Secretary General, the EU and even of Britain for the immediate abolition of the Treaty of Guarantee and intervention rights and the speedy withdrawal of the occupying troops.

The way President handles the Cyprus problem is damaging the Greek Cypriot side’s credibility and in effect facilitating Turkey to promote its policy.