Government dismay at Rantzau comments

THE GOVERNMENT has expressed its dismay at comments by German EU envoy Detlav Grav zu Rantzau blaming both sides for their inflexibility on the Cyprus problem.

A Foreign Ministry statement issued yesterday said: “The government of Cyprus does not understand how both sides are considered inflexible when Denktash rejects UN resolutions and sets out terms, while our side declares its readiness to negotiate on the basis of resolutions which the international community itself has adopted without preconditions.”

Leaving Cyprus on Thursday, Rantzau had said: “I have not been able to detect on either side a new flexibility or the readiness to enter into a compromise,” adding, “I leave Cyprus not optimistic at all.”

The government’s view had been echoed earlier in the day by Eurodemocratic Renewal party leader Alexis Galanos, who also questioned the views expressed by the German envoy.

Galanos told a news conference that the government should take a tougher stand on foreign envoys to Cyprus.

“I think that as a government we have to take a much stronger stand towards the various representatives, even those from the European Union, which is now being chaired by Germany. Rantzau brought us realism in the sense of ‘don’t expect and don’t promote a solution in the framework of the UN summit or resolutions but, essentially, accept the so called reality as Denktash and Turkey see it.’

“We have to make it clear from the beginning, we have to say that we won’t accept this because it would not make for a correct solution to the Cyprus problem and would only lead us to new problems.”

He said that, if the government continued to allow foreign diplomats to “come and create a certain climate or think they are creating a certain climate, then I think we are going down.”

Galanos added that a message had to be given “to these retiree representatives, counts and such like,” that, for Cyprus, realism would not be accepting a division.

He continued that Cyprus could not be compared to “Kosovo, Yugoslavia or Iraq,” which were divided for the sake of “human rights and basic liberties and, if you like, the withdrawal of foreign troops.”

Galanos concluded that Turkey had no political motivation to solve the Cyprus Problem, “even under the solution they now seem to be promoting.”

He repeated that government efforts should put emphasis on informing the international community on the Cyprus Problem, “not only on a political level, meeting with their government counterparts, but on the level of regular people.”

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.