The position of the Greek Cypriot side on the solution of the Cyprus problem hasn’t changed, President Nicos Anastasiades said on Sunday.

He commented on an interview by Archbishop Chrysostomos to the Sunday edition of Politis, who said that the President spoke of a two-state solution, during a meeting they had, but he has then, changed his mind.
 
In a written statement the President says that after the Crans Montana Conference, in July 2017, he had a series of meetings with many people, among them, the Archbishop. He adds that during those meetings he explained to him the reason of the failure of the Conference which was due to Turkey’s insistence on issues related to Greek Cypriots’ security as well as the viability of the solution which would, at the end, topple the political equality to the favor of Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots.
 
The President points out in his statement that during the talks with the Head of the Cyprus Church, he analyzed Turkey’s aims and they both agreed that the two-state solution could not have been accepted as this would jeopardize Greek Cypriots’ security and would not have been accepted by the UN and the EU.
 
President Anastasiades expresses his sadness if the Archbishop understood otherwise and misunderstood his positions. He adds that in a number of meetings that followed that one, he could realize that he did not support such positions.
 
The President also points out that he remains persistent in the positions he forwarded to the UN Secretary General in September 2017 that the UN talks for a solution should resume from where they left in Crans Montana and on the basis of the joint statement issued in November 2019, after a meeting he had with the UN Secretary-General and the former Turkish leader Mustafa Akinci.
 
Cyprus has been divided since the 1974 Turkish invasion. The latest round of UN-backed talks in Crans Montana the summer of 2017 failed to yield results.