RAUF Denktash yesterday accused the Greek Cypriot side of playing games with the Turkish Cypriots, the UN and the EU.
Commenting in Geneva on the National Guard’s participation this month in a joint European military exercise, Denktash said the Greek Cypriots` ultimate aim was not a settlement but EU accession.
Four Greek Cypriot military officers left for Austria yesterday to take part for the first time in the European exercise, held within the framework of the ‘Partnership for Peace’.
The exercise, under a simulated state of war and involving 13 countries (including several non-EU members), will be held on November 9 and 10. Speaking before his meeting with UN envoy Alvaro de Soto yesterday, Denktash repeated his view that Cyprus should not join the EU before a settlement to the Cyprus problem.
Referring to Cyprus` discussions with the EU on a future European army, Denktash questioned who Defence Minister Socrates Hasikos was. “Either he doesn’t know what is happening here, or he is deceiving the talks, or he is deceiving the EU,” Denktash said. “Both sides have agreed that the National Guard will be disbanded: this is where we are heading, but instead you promised the EU the Cypriot army.
Are the Greek Cypriots playing with us, the EU or the UN?” he said. Hasikos hit back at Denktash’s quip on his status saying: “This gentleman is the Defence Minister of the Cyprus Republic who is acting with the remit of legality and democracy under the instructions of his government.”
President Glafcos Clerides had made a proposal for the demilitarisation of the island under which National Guard should be disbanded and the Turkish occupation army should be withdrawn and an international force formed to monitor peace on the island.
“The EU should not be given priority,” Denktash added. “The priority should be settling the Cyprus problem, to establish the status of the Turkish Cypriots. Then one Cyprus can enter the EU,” Denktash told the press, claiming that “Mr Clerides gives priority to accession.”
He said that with the Republic’s EU talks, the Greek Cypriots were denying the fact that Cyprus should be united before it enters the EU. “You cannot put into that Union a divided country,” he said.
As the Turkish Cypriot leader was criticising the Greek Cypriot participation in the EU exercise, the north was preparing to join Turkey’s ‘Barbaros’ exercise, which is running from November 3 to 13.
The exercise is being held in the northern Mediterranean off Cyprus, with the participation of Turkish Naval and Air Forces. Four frigates, two submarines and one fuel-oil supply ship are expected to dock today in the occupied port of Famagusta to take part in the exercise.
