IT WAS inevitable that political meaning would have been read into the dinner at Dervis Eroglu’s house in Nicosia. It was also inevitable that the meaning extracted from the dinner would be negative.
Before President Christofias had even crossed to the north of Nicosia for his social engagement, EDEK issued an announcement expressing “disagreement with the President’s acceptance of Dervis Eroglu’s invitation to dinner in occupied Nicosia.” It was “inconceivable for the President of the Republic to go to the occupied territories and have contacts under the bayonets of the occupier,” the party said.
From the pictures shown on television we did not see any soldiers holding guns with bayonets outside Eroglu’s house when Mr and Mrs Christofias arrived for the dinner. Perhaps we did not see any soldiers because they were in the dining room, pointing their bayoneted guns at the guests, thus making sure they ate all their vegetables. Even if this were the case, how did EDEK know about it, the morning before the dinner?
We apologise for being facetious, but when a party uses poetic language there is always the danger that it will be taken literally. At least the EUROKO general secretary, Rikkos Erotokritou, avoided resorting to metaphors when castigating Christofias for attending the dinner. His presence in the north “gave the Turkish side the ability to create arguments to secure tiny openings for recognition of the pseudostate.”
The refugee organisation Adouloti Kerynia, identified even bigger dangers. The dinner was “a staged political act for the further de-recognition of the Cyprus Republic, which the president was dragged into.” In effect, the organisers of the dinner were trying to achieve the objectives of the Annan plan – “the dissolution of the Republic of Cyprus and the creation of the new Cyprus of two states.”
Another danger was identified by Phileleftheros chief columnist. “The significance attached to these spectacular events by the international factor should make us more careful.” And the ‘international factor’ must have noticed, like the columnist, that “the flag of the Republic had disappeared from the car of the president for the visit to the north.” Was the absence of “our symbols” without significance, he asked.
Even the Secretary-General’s special envoy Alexander Downer appears to have acquired the knack of reading political meaning into everything. At least his interpretation of the event was not negative. His dinner experience gave him hope for the future of Cyprus, he said. He called on all Cypriots to “take some heart from the positive atmosphere” as it was “a reminder that in Cyprus you have a tragic past, but an encouraging future.”
We will refrain from reading any significance into Wednesday night’s dinner, because we do not think there was any.
