A Turkish Cypriot columnist, Levent Kutay at Kibris Postasi, who is said to be close to ‘foreign minister’ Kudret Ozersay, on Wednesday penned an article describing what he said the reasons were that Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci was sidelined when it came to this month’s ‘secret dinner’ with President Nicos Anastasiades.
“We all know that there are other reasons… his resentment of Anastasiades, ‘his friend from Limassol’, his last generation [that can reach a settlement], his former solution partner…he felt helpless…”
Kutay said he would repeat something he had written on June 3 titled ‘Behind the scenes of the two-state solution under the framework of the EU’, which he said has not yet been refuted by anyone.
He wrote that the day after the collapse of the talks in Crans-Montana, July 7, 2017, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was preparing to leave and there came a knock on the door with a message that Anastasiades wanted to talk privately with him.
During the conversation the article alleges that Anastasiades told Cavusoglu that it was understood at that point there was no way to establish a federation because Greek Cypriots feared Turkey, and Ankara did not trust Nicosia.
He then reportedly referred to the presidential elections in February 2018, which he expected to win, and if he did, he would negotiate a two-state solution “under the umbrella of the EU”.
Cavusoglu has alluded a number of times over the past two years to a conversation he had with Anastasiades along these lines that were vehemently denied by the president who only began talking about a “decentralised” federation late last year, while Akinci has continued to say he would only negotiate for a federation.
Kutay goes on to say that when Cavusoglu raised this with Akinci on April 20, 2018, he received a surprise when Akinci insisted he would only negotiate a federation as previously understood and agreed between the two sides in negotiations.
The author argued that the future of the Turkish Cypriot people was more important than the political future of one man, referring to Akinci’s stance.
“Whether we like it or not, whether we want it or not, a new era begins in Cyprus…you cannot create a new life with old methods…,” he wrote.
