By Peter Stevenson
OPPOSITION party AKEL’s secretary general Andros Kyprianou launched a scathing attack on Archbishop Chrysostomos II on Monday by questioning the primate’s sudden support for the start of negotiations of the Cyprus problem.
Speaking to the public broadcaster CyBC, Kyprianou said that the archbishop’s stance was hypocritical.
“Until the other day the archbishop was of a different opinion but today he has changed his stance and then he announced a deal for the solar park to be built on church land,” Kyprianou said, implying that the archbishop had been bought off.
On Sunday the Chrysostomos announced that the first licence to build a solar park had been obtained and that it would be built on church land.
The park, he said, which will be built by investors, will be situated on an area 2,000 donums (one donum is equal to 1,338 square metres) in size that will be given by the church.
Kyprianou questioned whether deals of that nature were what determined the archbishop’s political position.
He nevertheless hailed the church leader’s U-turn on the Cyprus problem and hoped that his positive stance remained permanent.
Commenting on Kyprianou’s comments on the solar park, the archbishop said that Kyprianou was being unfair.
“AKEL’s secretary general is being grossly unfair if he believes we would negotiate the terms of the Cyprus problem for a handful of pennies,” he said. “I don’t know if he would do it but we wouldn’t.”
The archbishop also rejected Kyprianou’s claims that he had changed his position on the Cyprus problem.
He said he decided to support the president’s efforts after being informed of the contents of the joint communiqué signed by both leaders last week by constitutional experts.
Chrysostomos II called on the political parties to also stand behind the president to strengthen his hand during negotiations.
“If he goes to negotiations weakened then damage will surely be done to our national problem,” he said.
The archbishop said that he believed that Turkey’s goal was to create a two-state confederation adding that the Greek Cypriot side had made many compromises but was insisting on a correct federation.
