DISY leader Nicos Anastassiades said yesterday his party will not abandon the Cyprus problem and would be visiting EU capitals and meeting with the European Parliament in the hope of lessening the negative consequences of the resounding no in last month’s referendum on the Annan plan.
He said he felt the government had no vision or strategic plan and that those who had pushed the people to vote ‘no’ should have had an alternative option for another solution.
Anastassiades, who urged a ‘yes’ at the referendum, said DISY had a strategy on how to move forward and were ready to work with all those who shared the same goal to reunite the island. However, he stressed this would only be possible if there were improvements made to security provisions.
Those who promised they could make changes to the plan and achieve a better solution than the one offered by the UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan were misleading the people, according to Anastassiades.
“We are anxious about what will happen next for Cyprus and fear that the people will pay the consequences of rejecting the plan,” said Anastassiades.
He went on to attack President Tassos Papadopoulos for saying that Cyprus would not be isolated from other EU countries because the people rejected the plan. “Despite our efforts to show the government what has been happening since the referendum, they continue to think we will get a better solution than the one offered to us,” the DISY leader said.
Anastassiades said he would do all he could to help reduce the negative consequences for the Cypriot people, adding they had been misled into believing a ‘no’ vote would pave the way towards a better solution.
Asked what his suggestions were, since he felt the president had none, Anastassiades said it was more important for those who rejected the Annan plan to have other suggestions as he had voted ‘yes’ in the referendum. “Our leader gave the people false hope, which led them to vote no. Simply because he is the president he behaved this way and influenced the people,” he said.
He added that AKEL were the only ones who talked about another referendum, despite there being no mention of it from the National Council.
Responding, the president’s spokesman Marios Karayan said the government would begin negotiations when the time was right and that Papadopoulos was not running or hiding from anyone.
“What I want to make clear is that foreign powers have not asked to meet with the president. It is not true that the president is only looking at expatriates and organisations in the UK. He has also met with British Prime Minister Tony Blair to discuss the Cyprus problem,” he said.
Karayan added that he did not see what the problem was and insisted the government always took strategic measures.
