Political party leaders on Thursday called for collective action on the settlement talks and blamed Turkey for the deadlock reached on territory between President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot Mustafa Akinci at the Swiss resort of Mont Pelerin.
Despite the president’s call to refrain from the blame game, the majority of political leaders, following the National Council meeting said the result was due to Turkey’s involvement.
The head of main opposition party Akel, Andros Kyprianou, said that the situation was extremely difficult but that negotiations must continue.
Kyprianou adopted the president’s position that the negotiations must resume from where they were left off, but that this doesn’t mean that “we will accept anything put on the negotiation table so that negotiations should continue”.
He added that the Greek Cypriot side must act collectively to achieve the goals it has set.
Edek head Marinos Sizopoulos too argued that collective action is necessary, “to enhance our negotiating position”.
All opposition parties, except Akel, said that the blame lay with Turkey as it tried to use the territory issue as leverage to lead the Greek Cypriot side to a multi-party conference on security and guarantees where it could put pressure on a number of other unresolved issues.
The Greens’ Giorgos Perdikis said that the government should take advantage of this break from the talks to engage large powers in the procedure, including all members of the permanent members of United Nations Security Council, especially Russia, “which has shown strong interest on participating in the international conference”.
According to the head of the Solidarity Movement, Eleni Theocharous, Turkey and its president Recep Tayyip Erdogan should be pressured through the EU. She added that the positive thing is that “everyone finally figured Akinci out and that he basically tricked the Cypriot people as to his intent”.
Diko’s head Nicolas Papadopoulos said Anastasiades should not be blamed for the stalling of the talks, nor Greece, but rather Turkey, Erdogan and Akinci.
To be able to overcome the obstacles set by Erdogan, the Greek Cypriot side must take advantage of the international state of affairs “and the differentiated attitude of the European Union and other actors” towards Turkey at the moment, said the head of the Citizens’ Alliance Giorgos Lillikas.
