President Nikos Christodoulides and his spokesmen made a big deal about the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ alleged assertion that negotiations should resume from where they stopped in Crans Montana in 2017. Speaking after Saturday’s meeting in New York with Guterres and Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar, Christodoulides said: “Our aim is – the UNSG said so today – for talks to resume from the point they stopped in Crans Montana.”

And while Tatar, on his return to Cyprus, denied there had been such an assertion, claiming it was Christodoulides’ line, the government continued its dubious narrative. On Monday, deputy government spokesman Yiannis Antoniou spoke about a “commitment” of the UNSG for talks to start from the point they stopped eight years ago; something that “pleased” the government because this was an answer to the Turkish side’s demand for a two-state solution, he added.

Later the same day, government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis, in an interview with the Cyprus News Agency, waxed lyrical about Guterres’ reference to Crans Montana, saying this was the most important takeaway from Saturday’s meeting. On Tuesday, Letymbiotis expressed his disappointment that “some were adopting the Tatar narrative,” while the “importance of what was said by the president and the UNSG was downgraded.”

The government’s campaign to persuade everyone that Guterres had reportedly supported the resumption of talks from the point they were ended eight years ago adds weight to the view that Christodoulides’ handling of the Cyprus problems is exclusively about communication and optics. Presenting Guterres’ alleged support for the resumption of talks from where they left off in 2017 as some kind of victory for our side is just PR.

If the government’s real objective was the resumption of talks, it would not be celebrating a remark allegedly made by the UNSG that will ensure there is no resumption, because the Turkish side has ruled out a return to what was agreed at Crans Montana. The irony is that Christodoulides is not a fan either – he supported the Greek Cypriot side’s walkout in 2017 and refused to accept the Guterres framework as is (he wants it re-negotiated) – which suggest that the main reason he wants a return to the Crans Montana talks is because he knows the Turkish side would not agree to this and there would be no resumption of talks.

The communication game dictates that the president keeps presenting supposed positives about the Cyprus problem even if this means attributing words to the UNSG out of context. On Tuesday, during a meeting with the speaker of the Greek parliament, Christodoulides said it was important there was “movement” on the Cyprus problem “after many years,” as if this were an end in itself. The reality is that the government is only interested in the optics and is perfectly happy with movement that leads nowhere, because it will always blame the Turkish stance for the lack of progress.