MAIN opposition party DISY traded more barbs with the government camp yesterday, suggesting that Demetris Christofias is living in a bubble and calling the government spokesman a “busybody.”
DISY spokesman Harris Georgiades said the Foreign Ministry and the diplomatic service were kept in the dark about the President’s three-point proposal. He said Christofias did not consult any of the two before his office drafted a letter which was sent to foreign leaders.
Christofias made the proposal in a speech on July 15, including in it an offer for the return of the fenced off suburb of Varosha in exchange for allowing the north direct trade with the EU.
Georgiades said the President’s apparent failure to keep his Foreign Ministry in the loop was yet another indication that Christofias was not a team player.
“Had there been some consultation [with the political parties] beforehand, perhaps some of the wording in the proposal, which is potentially dangerous, could have been left out.
“We heard about the package of proposals on television. Is this how one builds unity?” Georgiades said, taking a dig at the presidential camp’s calls for unity on the domestic front.
“It is the President and a couple of others near him who call the shots and the rest of us are obliged, whether we agree or not, to applaud,” said Georgiades.
DISY’s claims were debunked later in the day by Foreign Minister Marcos Kyprianou.
“It is not the Foreign Ministry’s job to prepare letters for the Presidential Office. For that, there is a diplomatic bureau at the Presidential Palace comprised of Foreign Ministry staff.”
In any case, the Foreign Ministry had been aware of the content of the President’s proposal, since a “political discussion” had taken place before the letter was sent abroad, Kyprianou said.
Meanwhile DISY boss Nikos Anastassiades slugged it out with the government spokesman, following remarks over the weekend that there was an effort to portray Christofias as a “Messiah” who can do no wrong.
Anastassiades also said that Christofias was surrounded by “flatterers.”
“This is a new term in Mr. Anastassiades’ vocabulary,” responded Stefanos Stefanou, the government spokesman.
“Now we have the flatterers. What am I supposed to say to that? That there aren’t any flatterers? Is that what the people want to hear about?”
Stefanou said he would not dignify the comment with an answer, and accused the DISY leader of debasing political dialogue.
“I did not expect to hear from the young, busybody government spokesman that I am debasing political dialogue,” Anastassiades said yesterday, after being informed by reporters of Stefanou’s reaction.
“They had the nerve to call the leader of the largest party…the peddler of the views of [Turkish Foreign Minister] Davutoglu. I don’t think one can go lower than that,” he added.
