THE TURKS’ communications games, which only we in Cyprus can spot, are becoming more sophisticated and ambitious all the time. The latest communications game involved the visit of Prime Minister Erdogan, accompanied by 10 ministers and more than 100 businessmen to Athens, where some 21 co-operation agreements were signed.
No expense is spared by the Erdogan government in its devious scheme to make the world think that it supports a settlement of the Cyprob, while remaining totally intransigent and uncooperative. We were deeply hurt that the government of mother Greece agreed to become an accessory to the Ottoman scheming, helping Erdogan to present himself as a man of peace and conciliation, while his occupying troops remain on our island.
But the mask of the peacemaker fell in Athens when he was asked why his troops were still in Cyprus and he brought up the hated Annan plan, set a suffocating time-frame for a settlement (end of the year), called for a five-party conference on Cyprus in which the Turkish Cypriot leader would be allowed to participate and insisted on keeping guarantees.
The smiling Erdogan may have fooled a lot of people, but he did not fool Kyproulla’s leading turtle lover, Yiorkatsos Perdikis. The Turkish prime minister’s “provocative statements in Athens destroyed the fake image of ‘Erdogan the peacemaker’ that some people wanted to create,” declared Kyproulla’s tree-hugger, who is a bit of an expert himself in the communications game.
Congratulations to Phil, for not being fooled by the latest Turkish publicity stunt. Yesterday’s edition of the paper refused to make Erdogan’s, pseudo-historic, Athens visit its main front-page story, preferring to lead with a report about the trade in Ukrainian eggs. It put a picture of the visit on its front page but the story was on page 6.
COMRADE presidente could not have been a happy bunny watching the Athens fanfare and hearing Erdogan talk about the five-party conference, which he opposes and setting a deadline for a deal, which he also opposes.
The comrade knows that the end of the Turks’ communications game is nigh and does not know what to do. It is a well-known secret that the UN is working to an unofficial time-frame for the conclusion of the talks, which is the same as the one mentioned by Erdogan in Athens.
If there is not sufficient progress by the end of the year, the ghastly Al Downer will fulfil the wishes of Antenna TV and the bash-patriotic camp and go home. The only snag is that the UN Secretary-General will not send a replacement, but is likely to order the pulling out UNFICYP as well. This would be the final instalment of Turkey’s well-plotted communications game.
A CYPRIOT who was staying at the Athens Hilton at the same time as Erdogan and his entourage, informed us yesterday of an unspeakably unpatriotic decision by the hotel’s management, aimed at pandering to the Turks. The hotel normally offers the CyBC’s satellite station PIK SAT in the guests’ rooms. During the visit of the Turkish PM, PIK SAT was taken off the Hilton TV sets and replaced by a Turkish satellite station.
Why did the hotel not take off one of the Italian stations it offers on its TV service?
OUR DONKEYS are renowned for one thing – their obstinacy. So much so, that people displaying this quality are often likened to a Cyprus donkey.
However, to say that Archbishop Chrys 2 is as obstinate as a Cyprus donkey would be unfair to donkeys because the leader of our Church is a true world champ in the pig-headedness stakes. His Paphitic origins in combination with a life-time in the Orthodox Church shaped his character.
Compromise is a dirty word for Chrys as he showed us all in the last week when the issue of Church tax arrears came up at a House committee meeting.
The Church owes the state €169 million, half of which is the interest and fines for delaying payment on the taxes. Chrys said that he would not pay anything and urged the state to take the Church to court. This would be a bit pointless, as he made it clear that even if the court decided the Church had to pay up, “we will not do so.”
In defending his intransigence, Chrys cites an agreement made in 1971 between Archbishop Makarios on behalf of the Church and President Makarios on behalf of the State. This surrealistic agreement was a bit one-sided but nobody ever mentioned it, because this would be disrespectful to Makarios who was infallible.
Being a Paphite man of the cloth he was also more obstinate than the Cyprus donkey but we won’t go into that.
APART from being uncompromising and stubborn, Chrys is also very cunning (another quality cultivated in our monasteries). He could have taken his provocatively, intransigent position calculatingly, to frighten off the comrade president who is terrified of public confrontations.
After this week’s hard-nut performance by Chrys, the government will probably forget about the Church tax arrears, to avoid a stand-off and public criticism. He knows that all the bash-patriots are behind Chrys, because of his Cyprob views, and would come to his defence if the state tried to collect the taxes owed. Phil and Simerini have already defended the Church’s right not to pay its tax debts because of the Makarios-Makarios deal.
The comrade may be as obstinate as a Cypriot donkey but he knows that he would lose any contest against a Paphite priest’s pig-headedness, further strengthened by the backing of all our bash-patriots.
STAYING on Church money matters, the fabulously wealthy Bishop of Kykkos and Tylliria, Nikiforos, this week unveiled his plans for the biggest urban development ever undertaken in our concrete jungle of a capital.
The development, which will be similar to the Qatari complex but on a larger scale, would be built on Church-owned land in Engomi and feature apartments, houses, offices shops (another mall perhaps?), play-parks for kids, green areas, swimming pool, conference centre and the obligatory seven-star hotel.
The Qataris were supposed to have a seven-star hotel in their complex but when the fake scale model of the project was unveiled, the two stars went missing. We were informed the hotel would be five-star. Incidentally there are only three seven-star hotels in the world and it would quite a coup for Nikiforos if the fourth was built in Engomi.
Why any person with money would come to Cyprus to stay in a seven-star hotel in the middle of charmless Engomi, surrounded by empty fields, only Nikiforos and his highly-paid consultants could say.
THE COST of the project according to the moneybags Bishop would be in the region of half a billion euro and it would be put up by foreign investors. What foreign businessman would invest in seven-star hotel and luxury housing project in Engomi? From whichever way you look at it, it does not look like a very wise investment.
A skettos drinking customer speculated that the Qataris would be investing in Nikiforos’ white elephant, which makes some sense. Perhaps he has also found a couple of mafia barons who want a money laundering operation. I am inclined to go with the former theory, even though his investors could be from Abu-Dhabi or Saudi Arabia instead of Qatar.
I was very disappointed not to see a big cathedral anywhere in the scale model of Nikiforos’ luxury housing project. It is a bit paradoxical that the Archbishop is ruining the character of one neighbourhood after another by erecting huge churches, but the neighbourhood that would be built by Nikiforos will not feature even a small church.
This would add substance to suggestion that the foreign investors the bishop has found are Muslim. There was no mosque in the scale model, but if the investors ask for one the businessman bishop may have to oblige.
NEWSPAPERS made a big fuss when they found out that the scale model displayed during the signing ceremony with the Qataris, a few weeks ago, was not a scale model of the complex to be built opposite the Hilton Hotel. There was general outrage and a flood of disparaging comments. But anyone who saw the fake scale model should have been mightily relieved that the complex would not look like a wealthy neighbourhood in Riyadh.
WHEN OUR lawyers are not defending the right of bash-patriots to abuse people they disagree with, and to call them arse-wipes, whores and rent-boys of the Turks, they come up with ingenious ideas that would help keep the Cyprob alive for a few more decades.
Seven legal eagles combined their brain-power recently and came up with a quite brilliant idea to keep our problem going. Studying the ECHR decision, which recognised the pseudo-property commission as a local remedy to property claims, they made an important discovery – in its arguments to the court, Turkey assumed responsibility for what was happening in the occupied area.
This meant that any negotiations for a settlement would have to be between Christofias and Turkey, they announced, claiming this to be a ‘unique opportunity’ for us. Would direct talks with Turkey lead to a fair, just and workable settlement this decade? I suspect not, so why were the lawyers behaving like they had discovered a cure for cancer?
I DETECTED a positive comment about Big Al in last Sunday’s Phil of all places and it was written, believe it or not by Michalis Ignatiou. The great hack, admitted to taking a liking to Downer, whom he had been pillorying for the previous 18 months.
“Now that he has managed to distinguish between the serious people and the jerks, he is making fewer mistakes,” announced Ignatiou who was in very charitable mood. “Of course in the five to six months he has left, how many things would he be able to do? I eagerly await the book he will write…”
This may help Ignatiou understand how we have been feeling the last five years, eagerly awaiting his promised book.
WEDDING of the Year was how one newspaper described the wedding of the personality of the previous year Marios Garoyian and his Moldovan fiancée Rodica Dinisiuc that would be held at Ayia Napa Church in Limassol on May 30. Everyone is invited to the church ceremony and reception at the Amathus Hotel, according to the press report, which informed us that there had been a change of plan. The couple would not leave the church in a horse-drawn carriage (white horses) covered with flowers as had been originally planned. Shame; I would have made the trip to Limassol for that.
One bit of information not mentioned by reports was whether Miss Dinisiuc would become the second or third Mrs Garoyian.
WHO WOULD have thought that an illegality was taking place right under the noses of our judges and lawyers? A few days ago, cops from the immigration department raided the coffee-shop of the Nicosia law courts and found that the Chinese girls were working there illegally – they had no work permits. They were not taken away, but none of them returned to work the next day. Eastern European girls had replaced them.
