IN THE END the intensive, January, Cyprob meetings will not be taking place at the respective dachas of the two comrade leaders in Kellaki and Kyrenia, which is unfair and inconsiderate.
Now, Omirou, Garoyian, Syllouris, Perdikis and the rest of the bash-patriotic, crazy gang will have nothing definite to feel outraged about during the Christmas holidays. There is a danger that no smoke would come out of their ears when they wake up on Christmas Day, something you would not wish on your worst enemy.
Hopes the duplicitous British government would come to the rescue, with a back-stabbing action that would fuel their righteous rage over the festive season, proved unfounded, despite Antenna’s nightly reports from Brussels about the imminent release of the vile British counter-statement, which Loukis P got his familiar cast of politicians to condemn.
A couple of days ago, it was reported that the Brits would not be issuing the eagerly-awaited unilateral statement at the EU, expressing objections to the conclusions of the Foreign Ministers’ Council and our unilateral statement regarding Turkey’s evaluation.
Antenna’s politicos were frothing at the mouth and issuing big threats on the TV news, about a statement that did not exist, but it seems they would do anything to please their benefactor Loukis P, including making fools of themselves.
THE COUNTER-STATEMENT would have been a sure-fire method of re-kindling their breast-beating, sense of injustice, but it is just like the Brits to let you down when you most need them.
Was it the comrade’s close friendship with Gordon Brown that caused the disappointment? Perhaps the Foreign Office had every intention of issuing the counter-statement, but shied away from doing so after hearing of Omirou and Perdikis’ stern warnings on Antenna’s news. There is also the possibility that the issuing of a back-stabbing statement was a figment of the imagination of the station’s Brussels correspondent, who uncovers a dastardly British plot against Cyprus almost every week.
This is no consolation to our bash-patriotic breast-beaters who now face the prospect of a Xmas weekend with nothing to feed their moaning addiction. They can only hope Antenna’s resourceful reporters will uncover a new plot to make their blood boil. It would be the best Xmas present the station could give them.
NEWSPAPERS reported that the change of plan, regarding the venues of the intensive talks was brought about by the pressure put on the comrade by DIKO and EDEK. Apart from the parties, comrade Tof’s ‘retreat’, according to Simerini was forced by the ‘general outcry by the popular strata’.
‘Popular strata’, is a polite way of referring to the plebs and peasants. Had there been a general outcry by them, because if there was, how come nobody apart from Simerini’s reporter heard it? Did she conduct a survey among the popular strata? She did not, but she spoke to someone who expresses the views of the popular strata – Giorgos Perdikis.
“He (the president) would do well to have second thoughts, to listen to the voice of the Cypriot people,” warned the eco-evangelist who has had his ears fitted with a special electronic device that enables him to hear the single voice of the Cypriot people wherever he is and in all weather conditions.
I stand corrected, because I was under the mistaken impression that the popular strata did not give a damn where the talks would take place and how frequently, but then again I cannot hear the voice of the Cypriot people like Perdikis can.
THE COMRADE’S retreat was not a good sign for the future of the talks, opined members of the higher social strata. If he gave in to Omirou, Perdikis and Garoyian over such a minor issue, what chance was there of him signing an agreement knowing that their reaction would be a thousand times more hysterical?
A legitimate point, but there were extenuating circumstances, the two comrades and the UN head-honchos not thinking about the logistics of having the talks in Kyrenia and Kellaki. We do not know how palatial Talat’s abode is, but the Kellaki dacha could not house talks that may involve some 30 to 40 people or more, who would need several rooms in which to confer, study papers and eat.
Even going to the toilet would pose a logistics headache. Tomorrow, a different venue will be announced, and it is likely to be Taye-Brook Zerihoun’s house at Nicosia International Airport. I hope the popular strata and Perdikis will approve of it.
DESPITE the helpful tip-off by chief inspector Lillikas, about the identity of the culprits, the cops have still not found the sickos who stole the remains of the Ethnarch.
His former right-hand man Tasos Tzionis also tried to help the investigators with a poetic article in Monday’s Phil. He was convinced that, “the sacrilegious act, in the thick darkness of last Thursday is, in reality, a terrorist attack of massive proportions that hit the centre of our souls.”
Meanwhile Lillikas toned down his rhetoric after the memorial service. Someone must have whispered to him that his crude political exploitation of the theft was in bad taste and would not do his stalled career much good. So on Saturday he publicly urged the culprits to return the remains to Tassos’ family as soon as possible.
He was too busy spouting out political platitudes to bother making such a plea on the previous day when the news broke. This was an omission from the statement released by the Papadopoulos family, which had failed to demand the immediate return of the remains – the first thing you would expect them to say in a statement.
From what I hear, Lillikas, who is a great communications guru as well as a renowned criminal investigator, had written the family’s statement, and was so determined to politicise the crime, he forgot to mention the most obvious thing.
SPEAKING of communications gurus, I would like to know who is helping the government forge its pitifully timid campaign to reverse the anti-settlement sentiment among the popular strata. Two weeks ago it announced the crazy idea of publishing a brochure, explaining to people how a federal system of government worked.
This provoked the predictable, knee-jerk reaction by the professional moaners (see above), their righteous rage blinding them to the stupidity of the idea. A brochure explaining federation has as much chance of being read as DIKO election manifesto, because it is not the sexiest topic.
Unless the government illustrated the cover with scantily-clad Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot babes, the brochure would not even be opened before going in the bin. As for the assumption that the few saddos who read the brochure about federation would suddenly crave a settlement, the less said the better.
POOR foreign minister Marcos Kyp was so hurt by the harsh criticism directed at him for allowing Turkey to emerge from its EU evaluation unscathed he called a news conference to put the record straight. He had a go at his own party DIKO, the spokesman of which also had a dig at his failure to punish the Turks.
You had to feel a bit of sympathy for him as he was in a lose-lose situation. There was no way his EU colleagues would have agreed to sanctions against Turkey as anyone with half a brain knew. Aware of this, his comrade boss made Marcos the fall guy, by instructing him to reach a decision at the foreign ministers’ meeting. If there was no agreement and the issue went to the leaders’ meeting for a decision comrade Tof would have been blamed for the failure.
At the foreign ministers’ meeting, Marcos was reportedly given hell by his colleagues, in particular Carl Bildt, who is a renowned political bruiser. Britain’s baby-faced David Miliband also attacked Marcos as did several other foreign ministers.
How ironic that in the end it was Marcos instead of Turkey who did not get through the December evaluation unscathed.
THE TALAT lunch for ambassadors saga was given a new lease of life on Wednesday when the representatives of three Turkish Cypriot parties walked out of the bi-communal monthly meeting organised by the Slovak ambassador. They were protesting against the ambassador’s snub of the lunch given by Talat last month.
Several ambassadors had decided to turn down Talat’s invitation after receiving a letter from the Cyprus foreign ministry urging them not to go, as the lunch was at the pseudo presidential palace and their attendance would be tantamount to recognition. Some ambassadors chose to snub our government instead, and attended.
Talat was outraged and called his comrade to complain about the letter. Comrade Tof, apparently claimed he knew nothing about the letter, embarrassingly, implying it was the personal initiative of high-ranking foreign ministry official. Meanwhile Talat, to give added dramatic effect his sense of betrayal, claimed that not even during the Ethnarch’s reign did our government resort to such tactics.
He was wrong as one ambassador informed us that he found an almost identical letter from 2006, in his files.
THIS WAS not the end of the saga, as after the lunch, the foreign ministry permanent secretary, the ultra-hard-line Nicos Emiliou summoned the Danish and Polish ambassadors to his office to complain about their decision to accept Talat’s invitation.
He had called them because Poland and Denmark would have the 2012 EU presidency jointly with Cyprus. Emiliou assured them that he was not making a demarche or an official protest, but he wanted to register the foreign ministry’s displeasure at their decision to attend the lunch, it was not helpful to the co-operation for the EU presidency.
Interestingly, Emiliou did not express the displeasure of the government or the president at the meeting, but of the ministry, which he seems to be treating as an autonomous entity, with or without the comrade’s approval.
I LOVED Friday’s editorial in Phil, in which it castigated the decision of the three Turkish Cypriot parties to walk out of the bi-communal meeting and censured them for criticising the Slovak ambassador. It accused Talat’s CTP for leading the attacks against the ambassador, which the paper strongly defended. It seems a bit rich for a paper which attacks ambassadors as a matter of routine to want to deprive the Turkish Cypriots from the right to do so as well. Unless, we have the exclusive rights on pillorying foreign ambassadors as they are accredited to the Republic.
THE PAPER’S Washington correspondent, the sermonising, conspiracy theorist Michalis Ignatiou, has developed a rather unhealthy Alexander Downer fixation. In last Sunday’s issue of Phil he had four items about the Aussie.
Ig, in his last column, boasted that he had cracked the case of the Downer team’s stolen documents. “I have said it before and will repeat it. I believe that Mr Downer’s documents, a total of 8.662 pages plus some 2,000 pages of UNOPS/UNDP were leaked by a member of his team, on the instructions of Downer.”
It was part of a conspiracy according to the news-hound. “He aimed to start fires on our domestic political front, exposing politicians, diplomats, mayors, journalists, in order to bind them when the big hour for the referendum arrived.” There is not a shred of evidence to support his grand theories, but when your name is Ignatiou your word is the truth. Substantiation is unnecessary.
“MR DOWNER must kneel, every night, in front of the icon of Apostolos Andreas and thank him for the fact that the two journalists who have the whole package of documents behaved with an exceptional sense of responsibility,” concluded Ignatiou.
He got it wrong. Downer, in fact, kneels in front of an icon of Michalis Ignatiou every night thanking him for his exceptional sense of responsibility.
THE PERSONAL Christmas card being sent out by the comrade president is a perfect example of the commie government’s kitsch aesthetic. It features a picture with lit barbed wire at the front and red sunset in the background, with a solitary windmill on the horizon. Inside there are a couple of lines from some poem, in Greek, Turkish and English saying ‘let’s tear down this old scrap with the thorns of iron which…”
The prez did not wish the recipient Happy Kitschmas, but he should have done.
