THE COUNCIL of Europe’s parliamentary president yesterday hit back at criticism over his decision to meet with Turkish Cypriot politicians, saying he was “surprised” by the suggestion that he had misled Cypriot officials.
In a letter addressed to his main detractor, House President Marios Garoyian, the Council’s Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) President, Mevlut Cavusoglu, called on politicians to show more responsibility and “resist the temptation” to make populist statements.
The PACE president and Turkish MP wrote expressing surprise at Garoyian’s suggestion that he was “misled” over the planned visit north.
“As you, and the members of the Cypriot delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly, are well aware, my visit to the north was planned from the very outset, and was announced […] before I left for Cyprus. Indeed, we personally spoke about it during our meetings on Sunday and Monday before I went there,” Cavusoglu wrote to Garoyian.
The Turkish parliamentarian highlighted that previous PACE presidents have visited the northern part of the island during official visits, adding: “In the search for peaceful solutions, the Assembly has always believed in hearing from all parties.”
Earlier this week, Cavusoglu caused a small storm when he chose to spend a night in the north during an official three-day visit to Cyprus, meeting with Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu at his offices and other community representatives.
The visit started amiably enough, with plenty of diplomatic niceties, in stark contrast to the recent, more bullish comments from Turkey’s EU Minister Egemen Bagis.
However, the visit to Eroglu’s ‘presidential palace’ and Cavusoglu’s call for the EU to end the embargo on Turkish Cypriots proved too much for some Greek Cypriot officials.
Garoyian accused Cavusoglu of misleading officials, going against his word and choosing “to act as a Turkish official rather than as president of PACE”. He pledged to report the incident to PACE.
Cavusoglu responded to the accusations in the letter sent to Garoyian: “As you are well aware, I strictly kept to and promoted the positions of the Parliamentary Assembly, as set out in resolutions from 2004 and 2008, in all my meetings during my visit, including when in the northern part of the island.”
Garoyian’s suggestion that he stayed in a hotel built on Greek Cypriot land while in the north was also “completely unfounded”, he said.
Cavusoglu highlighted that “a great deal of political courage” would be needed to solve the Cyprus issue.
“In my opinion, it is our duty as politicians to show responsibility and not to mislead our citizens on such important issues and, in particular, to resist the temptation to use and abuse such topics during election campaigns,” said the Turkish official.
Turkish Cypriot ‘house speaker’ Hasan Bozer called on the Greek Cypriot side not to poison the spirit of reconciliation, referring to Garoyian’s comments as “unacceptable” and “incomprehensible”.
During Cavusoglu’s visit, Bozer was quoted in the Turkish Cypriot press saying his visit both sides of the dividing line showed that there were two separate authorities, peoples and states in Cyprus.
