TASOS TZIONIS, the head of the President’s diplomatic office and his closest associate, was refreshingly honest in an interview published in Sunday’s Phileleftheros about the Annan plan and the possible resumption of the talks. We have not been accustomed to such candour from this government, which, from the President down, has never spoken openly about the type of settlement it would pursue. In fact, the government has always responded to questions about its interest in a settlement based on the Annan plan with subterfuge, wordplay, platitudes and legalistic ambiguity.
It was only last month that the government publicly told the President of the European Parliament, Josep Borrell, who had asked it to submit a document with the changes it wanted made to the Annan plan, that it had already given these proposals to the UN. It now transpires that no such a document was given to the UN. According to Tzionis, the government presented to the UN the “concerns of the Greek Cypriots” and “put emphasis on the description of the desired result of a negotiation”. In short, the government never told the UN what changes it wanted made to the Annan plan, but outlined the type of settlement plan it considered acceptable.
In contrast to his boss, Tzionis did not mince his words. The Annan plan was emphatically rejected by the Greek Cypriots and could not even form a basis for new negotiations. It could not even be accepted as a basis for negotiation he said, because this would involve sitting at talks with the other side to agree changes “and it would be impossible for us not to be trapped”. In conclusion, he said bringing back the plan would show “disrespect to the will and judgment of the people” and would be “a doomed procedure from the start”.
There is no doubt that these are also the views of the president, even though he has avoided speaking so openly about them; he still talks about changes to the existing plan. No matter how many times Tzionis told the interviewer that he was expressing his personal opinions, nobody will believe him. The president’s closest and most trusted associate does not express personal views which are different from his boss on what is regarded the island’s most important political issue. For someone in such a position there are no personal views, as we well know. Tzionis had rubbished the Annan plan in a television interview before the Burgenstock talks and again he misleadingly claimed he was expressing his personal views. Even those who believed this nonsense realised in retrospect that his personal views about the plan were identical to the president’s.
The personal views expressed on Sunday were also identical to the president’s. Tzionis was merely given the go-ahead to express the real positions of the government on the Annan plan, which the president had been hiding from the public for a year and a half. We welcome the government’s decision to speak honestly about the plan for a change.
