“We should all be careful not to give the impression that parallel negotiations are taking place, because in that way we’ll all become negotiators and make a complete mess of things,” AKEL general secretary Demetris Christofias said a few days ago, with the signs of jealousy clearly evident on his face for the contacts DISY is having with the Turkish Cypriot leadership.
Unfortunately, Nicos Anastassiades did not dare give Christofias the reply he deserved: that he was the one who had made a mess of things in April when he dragged the AKEL leadership into a schizophrenic decision with which he cemented the ‘no’ vote and partition. The mess had already been cooked up and the sorcerer’s apprentice would do well to face up to his responsibilities and stop saying that Anastassiades will make a mess of things.
Christofias has not clarified to what negotiation DISY’s is running in parallel. Who else in Cyprus is negotiating for there to be a danger of making a mess? The president himself has categorically said that he did not see any reason to meet with Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat. And Tassos Papadopoulos is right. Why meet with Talat? What do the two of them have to say? Is there a point to such a meeting? Talat wants to solve the Cyprus problem. Papadopoulos does not want a solution because he would lose the presidency. That is why he deviously fought and killed it last April.
These are simple things that kindergarten children can understand. Christofias pretends he does not understand them, thinking that in this way he goes on fooling the AKEL voters as he did when he dragged them to the ballots to elect Papadopoulos. He assured them then that “the man has changed”. But there is no excuse for the DISY leadership to humiliate itself by suggesting to Papadopoulos to meet Talat as if it does not know this simple truth.
Thousands of Famagusta residents, who were unable to return to their properties this past Wednesday due to the rejection of the Annan plan, got the chance last week to get a taste of the mess that Christofias has made.
It should be noted that few in Cyprus thought it worth a mention to this important day. It was remembered by the Athens daily, Vima, however. “We would have taken it, if Tassos Papadopoulos, with tears in his eyes, had not refused to deliver a community instead of the state he had received,” Vima said.
And after making a mess and losing Famagusta, Christofias and Papadopoulos have now remembered to ask for the return of the city as a confidence building measure (CBM). They think the Turkish Cypriots are thick. On July 11 last year, Rauf Denktash had proposed to Papadopoulos the same package of CBMs the president suggested 15 days ago. Again, the main provision was the return of Famagusta. Of course, back then there was no EU decision for direct trade with the Turkish Cypriot community and our president rejected the proposal with no second thought: “Denktash has abandoned the bi-communal talks since March 10 (2003) in The Hague after rejecting the Annan plan.
Instead of talks on the comprehensive solution of the Cyprus problem, Denktash has since introduced, in full co-operation with Ankara, a new strategy to maintain the occupying regime and neighbourly relations.”
If there were a Nobel Prize for political hypocrisy, Papadopoulos would have won without breaking a sweat.
Now that our president has remembered the CBMs, I suggest to Talat that instead of any other reply, he should replace the name Denktash with Papadopulos and the date with April 25 and send the same statement to Papadopoulos.
