‘The president must make Cyprus problem position clear’

By George Psyllides

President Nicos Anastasiades is not clear on what he wants for the Cyprus problem, main opposition leader Andros Kyprianou said on Tuesday, accusing him of widening the gap between the two sides.

Kyprianou said the positions of all political parties were well known.

“It’s the president who must make clear what he wants in the Cyprus problem,” the AKEL leader said. “So far, I haven’t understood what the president wants.”
Kyprianou said his party had submitted many proposals to the president who did not listen.

One of them was to continue talks from the point former president Demetris Christofias left them “warning that if he hadn’t it would provide Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu with the opportunity to get out of the pledges he made.”

Anastasiades wanted to start over.

“We told him the only thing he would achieve was to widen the gap. Unfortunately this is what happened,” Kyprianou said.

Reunification talks were suspended in October last year after Anastasiades pulled out in reaction to Turkey’s decision to dispatch a research vessel to carry out seismic surveys inside the island’s exclusive economic zone.

Turkey claimed it was protecting the rights of the island’s Turkish Cypriot community, which should also have a say in its natural resources.

The government said Turkish Cypriots can share the potential benefits after a solution of the Cyprus problem.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.