President Nicos Anastasiades censured a Greek professor who said annexation of the north by Turkey would not necessarily be a bad thing, telling him that it was not his home that was under occupation.
Anastasiades also challenged naysayers to table their proposals and strategies on how to resolve the island’s division.
Speaking on a talk show on private Sigma TV on Monday night, the president wondered what would have happened if anyone else had uttered such a statement.
“I cannot hear … from visiting patriots that annexation would supposedly bring us into direct negotiations with Turkey,” Anastasiades said. “I want to make an appeal, those visiting Cyprus from Greece – not the government — should realise that it is not their village, their township, their area that is under occupation.”
The suggestion was made by Greek academic Angelos Syrigos on Sunday, speaking at the eighth memorial service of former president Tassos Papadopoulos.
“Let us assume that Turkey decides to go ahead with annexation,” Syrigos said. “It will undoubtedly be a sad development, which will simply rubberstamp the reality we have lived on the island since 1974. Do we fool ourselves that we are talking with the Turkish Cypriots? Do the Turkish Cypriots occupy Cyprus? It is Turkey that is occupying it, and she is the real interlocutor of the Greek Cypriot side. An annexation would force us to face this reality dead on.”
In 2014, in an interview with Phileleftheros, Syrigos said he preferred a two-state solution over the one the two sides were currently working on.
“I prefer a two-state solution in which the rights of all Cypriots, as European citizens, would be really exercised as regards movement, settlement, and properties,” he said.
The president said condescending patriotism was not something Cyprus needed.
“We have lived through, and paid for this kind of patriotism,” he said, adding that slogans sounded nice but the cost was always paid by Cypriots.
“They should stop thinking they possess the truth,” Anastasiades said.
He challenged those who criticized him and the reunification procedure to table their own proposals on how to change things.
“Tell us what this strategy is? The military option? Dialogue? Based on what? How can you change the state of affairs entrenched over 42 years without the use of violence? Do we have the capability?”
