NOTHING has exposed the unbearable lightness of Prezniktwo and his government more than the handling of the Cyprob. His desire for a resumption of the talks – even today, as he repeats as nauseam – is the biggest bluff yet of his PR presidency, for which the message is all that matters.
There has been limitless positive messaging since the appointment of the UNSG’s personal envoy Maria Angela Holguin that was marketed as a personal success of the Prez and proof of his alleged commitment to a settlement, which consists of a lot of talk and zero action.
Holguin has been on the job for almost three months without getting anywhere and while it is easy to blame Ersin Tatar and Ankara for this, our Prez has not exactly gone out of his way to make anything happen. It is, after all, he who says that the status quo is unsustainable.
For the Turks, with an occupation army to preserve it, it is not only perfectly sustainable but also the closest thing to the two-state solution they are seeking. There may be no sovereignty for their entity, but it will eventually become a province of Turkey, making the status quo even more unsustainable for the Greek Cypriots, who will not have the UN to police the dividing line forever.
WHAT IS all this Cyprob theatre staged by the Prez in aid of? Quite simply he wants to show he has done his utmost, which is next to nothing, to secure a resumption of the talks but has failed through no fault of his own despite his readiness to resume talks today. Turkey’s intransigence and maximalist aims will be exclusively to blame.
This will be the final act of the play he is staging that will free him to carry on globe-hopping on his private jet – which I hear is being upgraded, at a cost of a couple of squillion, so it can make transatlantic flights – in his effort to gain entry to the world statesmen club, to which he feels he belongs.
His rejectionist backers will be happy with this while any criticism for formalising the surrender of north Kyproulla to Turkey will get the response that “it is not my fault as I did everything I could.”
While Holguin’s mission continues, he is doing everything he can to ensure the Turks do not call his bluff, setting his own conditions for a resumption in his speeches and engaging in a little misinformation.
LAST MONTH he said that UNSG Guterres had presented him with certain proposals which he accepted and hoped the Turkish Cypriot side would accept. But had he? And why would Guterres get involved in the Cyprob when he had sent his personal envoy to deal with it?
After his meeting with Guterres last weekend, Tatar said there were no proposals, and the Greek Cypriots were misleading people by saying there were. They were also misleading by claiming Guterres was applying pressure for talks to resume from where they left off in Crans Montana, said Tatar.
I know we always have to assume that Turks are liars but our guy, despite being a devoted churchgoer, has not exactly distinguished himself for his truth-telling during his career.
FOREIGN Minister Constantinos Kombos used his academic gravitas on Thursday to explain why there could be no move by our side to secure the much-desired resumption of talks.
“The logic of ending the deadlock cannot be the logic meeting halfway. This is a dangerous and casual line because it ignores the starting points. Because we know very well where we are starting from and where the other side is starting from,” he said.
Without anyone moving, how will there be resumption of talks? Will it just happen one day like a miracle at Osiou Avakoum monastery?
THE ACADEMIC gravitas of the minister was also evident when he explained his opposition to the artificial timeframe the other side was insisting on with regard to Holguin’s mission.
If someone thinks that when the date for the end of the timeframe – six months or whatever – is reached and there are prospects, Holguin’s mission would be stopped because “the stopwatch has been zeroed, he does not have a good understanding of how things work.”
At least the minister has a good understanding of how things work and knows that Holguin’s mission is not like a goalless football match that will end when the ref whistles for the end, just when a side is about to score.
Holguin should stay here watching the time-wasting tactics of both sides for a few years just in case a prospect of a goal appears before we all die of boredom. The Prezniktwo show must go on.
MEANWHILE, Phil’s political correspondent has identified another dastardly plot by the Turks. Writing about Tatar’s meeting with Guterres, in New York, Andreas Bimbishis said the Turkish Cypriot leader was now trying to realise his next target – “the de-recognition of the Cyprus Republic.”
And how will this happen? According to Bimbishis, Tatar had said the cause of the deadlock was the existence of Security Council resolution 186 of 1964, which recognises the Cy Republic as the government of the whole island. Turkey was unsuccessfully trying “to overturn this decision” he said.
Now we do not only have to worry about the downgrading of the republic or the upgrading of the pseudo-state because there is a much bigger danger – the de-recognition of our republic. If we are de-recognised as a republic will we become a monarchy?
I pray the ref will whistle for full-time before the Turks score such a goal, even if I am accused of supporting artificial timeframes because I have no understanding of how things work.
MIGRATION paranoia hit red after several boats carrying hundreds of Syrians arrived at the shores of our Kyproulla. Everyone was expressing grave concerns about the situation so the prez had to be seen to be doing something.
On Monday he took his private jet and flew to Beirut for an impromptu meeting with Lebanese prime minister Najib Mikati. It is the sort of thing the US Secretary of State does when there is an international crisis but the Prez of Kyproulla is not in that league – flying to countries at short notice to pressure their government – at least not yet.
Why did the Prez not just call him on the phone to tell him what he wanted to say, or send his foreign minister? It is not as if his presence would have frightened Mikati into submission.
It was just a show as he was acting as a messenger of the European Commission (he had met Ursula von der Leyen two days earlier to receive instructions) in telling Mikati that if he did not stop the flow of migrants the size of the EU aid package could be affected.
EVERYONE was in a party mood at the Central Bank on Monday when it was finally announced that the universally disliked governor Constantinos Herodotou would not be given a second term. This despite Herodotou telling everyone that he had a very close relationship with ECB president Christine Lagarde.
In the end, the Prez persuaded Junior to put aside his strong objections (there is gossip about his sis becoming our next EU commissioner) and appointed his friend and advisor Christodoulos Patsalides, who follows in the footsteps of his father, Andreas, who had been governor during the Makarios years.
The appointment upset the commies of Akel, who pilloried Patsalides for being an executive at the BoC before and after the haircut of deposits. There could be no higher recommendation for Patsalides than Akel’s disapproval of his appointment.
FINANCE Minister Makis Keravnos was asked by Phil whether he was suitable to represent the executive in discussions about the multiple pensions of state officials considering he was also a beneficiary of this lawful scam, having served as a minister in the Papadopoulos government.
Keravnos said that even though he was collecting a state pension of a grand each month for having served as minister, it did not mean he approved of this. In fact, he told the paper, when he became minister in 2023 “the first issue I put to the treasury was this: I shouldn’t be collecting a pension and a minister’s salary.”
Their response was that he would have undermined the existing regime as there was a court decision and an opinion of the state legal service on the matter. “The state legal service is the legal advisor of the state and I am obliged to listen to it,” he said.
Of course, the state legal service could not have stopped him from donating the pension to charity as some minsters of the previous government had done. He chose instead to follow the public-spirited example of the prez, who still pockets the pension he is receiving as a former foreign ministry employee.
SORRY I have to stop here, just when prospects of a breakthrough have appeared, but non-artificial timeframes are part of this wretched job.
