POLITICIANS yesterday traded blows over who was to blame for the standstill in the Cyprus problem, with both President Tassos Papadopoulos and House Speaker Demetris Christofias turning fire on DISY boss Nicos Anastassiades over his recent trip to Turkey.
Speaking at a DIKO congress over the weekend, Papadopoulos criticised the DISY delegation for not “reacting” when Turkish leader Erdogan said the Cyprus issue concerned the two communities alone.
Anastassiades retorted by advising the President to look at the minutes of the meeting with Erdogan to find out what was actually said there.
“It is wrong to misrepresent written statements,” he added.
But the outspoken politician went on the counterattack, revealing that the government – and Papadopoulos personally – tried to sabotage his Ankara visit. Had it not been for these efforts, the meeting with Erdogan’s AKP party could have been arranged months earlier, argued Anastassiades.
He next levelled a scathing attack on the President, saying Papadopoulos’ words did not match his deeds.
Anastassiades wondered why Papadopoulos, given his insistence that the Cyprus problem was one of invasion and occupation, acquiesced to the conclusions of the December 17 EU summit, where Turkey received a date for the start of accession negotiations without recognising the Republic of Cyprus.
“He can say whatever he wants to DIKO delegates, he can tell them off… but what he cannot do is give lessons to the Greek Cypriot people,” commented Anastassiades, hinting that the President’s speech was nothing more than posturing.
DISY had come under fire from everyone in the coalition government over its talks with the AKP and Turkish officials; the criticism ranged from doubts about the usefulness of the visit to outright accusations that DISY was undermining the President. In fact, on Saturday Papadopoulos indirectly charged Anastassiades of doing just that, but without naming names.
While professing that it wants to have talks with the Turkish leadership and Erdogan, the government has so far not taken any steps in that direction. This has led some commentators to speculate that the administration reacted in this way because it felt one-upped by Anastassiades.
More indictments on Anastassiades’ undermining tactics came from AKEL’s Demetris Christofias. The communist party leader was commenting on unconfirmed media reports that Anastassiades was set to meet with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
On the apparent lack of progress and lack of contacts between the two sides on the island, Christofias said that his party had been trying to arrange a meeting with Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat. But he claimed that Talat was stonewalling such rapprochement efforts.
The government’s line is that, at this time, there is no point in official negotiations with the Turkish Cypriot side because of Talat’s negative and hostile attitude to the President. However, the administration says it encourages contacts between parties on the two sides.
