PREZNIKTWO was in a sulk on Monday when asked by hacks to comment on Ersin Tatar’s claim that during the meeting at the UN two days earlier, the UNSG had not said that talks would resume from the point they were interrupted at Crans-Montana, eight years ago.

After the meeting, our prez claimed that Antonio Guterres said talks would resume from where they left off in 2017, even though there was no such mention in the brief UN statement about the meeting in New York.

A deeply hurt Prez told hacks: “I heard the statements by Mr Tatar and of all those on the Greek Cypriot side who consciously choose to believe Mr Tatar and not the President of Cyprus Republic.” Fortunately, he added, he was not on his own – he was accompanied by the negotiator and the UN permanent representative at the meeting and they would presumably back his version.

His argument is compelling. Tatar is a pseudo-prez and a Turk which means he always lies, whereas the Prez of the recognised Rep always tells the truth and it is xekatharo who we should always believe. That Nik II learned his politics for 10 years at the side of Nik I who was never renowned for his truth-telling, is not part of the same argument.

WHAT Nik II does not seem to understand, or does not want to understand, is that the reason many Greek Cypriots consciously choose not to believe him is because it is difficult to take what he says seriously, given that everything he utters is geared for his glorification.

Even if Guterres said talks would resume from where they were interrupted, it is completely worthless if the other side does not agree to it. It is just not going to happen, so why boast about it and present it as some kind of achievement, which quite emphatically it is not? Not to mention the fact that he urged Nik I to leave the talks in Crans-Montana because he disapproved of what had been agreed.

The narrative we have been served is that Nik II’s standing as a leader and his influence on the world stage is massively out of proportion to the size of the country. It is the Makarios myth recycled for modern times. During his visit to Copenhagen, his spokesman Viktoras issued an announcement about the Prez’s meeting with the secretary general of Nato Mark Rutte.

Only it was not a proper meeting as it took place on the “sidelines of dinner for heads of state hosted by the Danish royal family”. They may have had a fag together outside the palace or bumped into each other in the toilets.

THE MEETING must have been rather one-sided, because Viktoras’ statement made no mention of what Rutte said. Was this because it was not a proper meeting even if it was presented as such by Viktoras?

In this non-meeting and after briefing Rutte about the Cyprob, the Prez “stressed that the fields of security and defence would be a priority of the Cyprus presidency with an emphasis on the strengthening of the strategic autonomy of the EU”. Kyproulla will be organising the defence and security of the EU – something nobody has been able to do – come January 1.

The Prez also warned Rutte that EU-Nato relations and cooperation in the framework of the Readiness 2030 initiative means ‘non-exclusions’ and ‘equal treatment of all EU member-states’. This was the diplomatic way of saying that if Turkey tries to exclude Kyproulla, as it always does, we will block EU-Nato cooperation.

THIS WARNING was included in the three basic points made during consultations at the informal European Council, according to Tass news agency. First, countries that violate the sovereignty and territorial integrity of member-states of the EU (could he have been referring to Turkey?) cannot participate in the Safe instrument for defence funding.

The second was the Nato-EU bit while the third – my favourite – illustrated his determination to dictate EU policy. According to Tass “he insisted on the need for a comprehensive strategy of 360 degrees, in which the EU will not focus only on Ukraine, but will act as the protagonist in other critical areas, like the Middle East, while it would strengthen Cyprus’ defence infrastructure such as the bases of Mari and Paphos.”

And then he wonders why there are Greek Cypriots who choose not to believe the Prez of the Rep.

THE FUNNY thing is that when his words are taken seriously a mess-up is guaranteed. It was his proposal of ‘CoLA for all’ that led talks between employers and unions to deadlock, as the bosses said this was out of the question.

And now he has informed the employers’ organisations, Oev and Keve, that he will undertake the initiative to resolve the CoLA dispute. How he will do that, considering he promised Sek in exchange for its electoral support, full restoration of CoLA which he is now refusing to grant.

The guy has pissed off both sides with his utterances, pushed them further apart, but now thinks he is such an expert on industrial relations he will sort everything out.

WOMEN in the army was another example of what happens when the Prez opens his mouth in search of public praise. Some time last year, completely out of the blue, he said that women would be able to join the National Guard.

They would join only voluntarily and serve as male conscripts do but only for six months, we were subsequently told, when the defence ministry had put the Prez’s words into practice. Last Monday the defence ministry website started accepting applications, but by the end of the week not a single one had been submitted, reported Alpha News, although some telephone enquiries had been made.

The taxpayer’s money was wasted arranging facilities and setting up programmes for the arrival of women volunteers. Some could be curious or stupid enough to join, but anyone with half a brain (who used it before opening his mouth) would have known that the idea of volunteer national guardswomen would be a non-starter, no matter how fervently Cypriot women crave equality.

THE COPS are such an easy target that you cannot help feeling sorry for them. They were pilloried by parties and media after using excessive force to get the Gaza flotilla demonstrators off the road outside the presidential palace, where they were demonstrating on Thursday night.

Videos suggest they were a bit rougher than usual, but nobody was seriously injured apart from getting a bruised bottom after being pushed to the ground by the shields the cops used as their offensive weapons. The cops said they had ordered the Greta Thunberg supporters – between 150 and 200 – off the road which they were blocking but they did not budge.

Therefore, the cop commander called in the riot squad to deal with the unthreatening peaceniks who were gently pushed to the ground. Hence the obligatory, “excessive force” accusations. Never have the cops used force without it being described as “excessive” and lambasted as repressive and authoritarian.

LAST WEEK we mentioned that Nik the First had paid a news photographer to find every picture he had taken of the great man from his archive and print them off. He is planning to publish a book featuring photos of himself throughout his political career, a vanity publication, but a guaranteed bestseller nevertheless.

When he published O Sykophantis, Nik had said that he would donate all net revenue to a charity. We have not heard of any donation from him. Is this because the revenue has not covered the editing, printing and paper costs of the book? Perhaps he should arrange a fund-raising campaign to cover the cost, because nobody deserves to pay out of his own pocket in order to answer the nasty things said about him.