THE CONTROVERSY surrounding the capture by Turkey of Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan is making it difficult for Nicosia and Athens to launch any new initiatives on the Cyprus problem, the government said yesterday.
Since the capture of Ocalan in Kenya last month, Turkey has accused Cyprus of harbouring Kurdish training camps and of having a hand in helping Ocalan by giving him a Cyprus passport.
“We consider that there is a deliberate bid on the part of the Turkish side to create a climate of tension with the sole aim of deflecting international opinion from the Ocalan issue, which reflects badly on Turkey, ” said government spokesman Christos Stylianides.
“This verbal effort to create tension will not meet with a response from us, from either Greece or Cyprus. We will not in any way contribute to this creation of tension.”
Stylianides said both diplomatic and military steps had been taken in the face of these developments, but did not elaborate.
Greece placed its forces on alert last week amid rising tension with Ankara.
On Sunday, Foreign Minister Yiannakis Cassoulides, returning from the United States, said Cyprus had nothing to do with the Cyprus passport allegedly found on Ocalan.
He said Turkey’s comments were a disguise in order to draw attention away from its own negative stance on the Cyprus problem.
“Turkey knows very well that Cyprus was not involved at all in the case of the Kurdish people to claim their rights,” Cassoulides said.
“I believe it would be wrong if we were to try and fall victim to Turkey’s propaganda, which wants to justify its negative stand by putting forward false claims and various things…”
Cassoulides is due to being a new round of talks with his European Union counterparts from March 15, Stylianides announced yesterday.
He said the aim of the week-long European tour was to inform Foreign Ministers on Cyprus’s EU accession course.
During his two-week visit to the US, Cassoulides said he asked for more American moves towards Ankara to break the current deadlock, but noted that any diplomatic activity would not be seen until after April’s elections in Turkey.
