The President must convince that he wants a solution of bizonal, bicommunal federation
We must go to the conference well-prepared
15th January 2021, ‘Astra’ radio station
There are two scenarios on the issue of the five-party conference, said the General Secretary of AKEL, commenting on the positions of political parties on whether or not the Republic of Cyprus should attend the talks.
Speaking to the morning edition of ‘Astra’, he explained that if we do not go to the five-party conference, the negotiations will not start and if negotiations do not begin, we will be heading towards partition. The other option, A.Kyprianou added, is to go to the five-party meeting, we should worry about what might happen, but we must be very well prepared in order to achieve our goal.
The goal, the General Secretary of AKEL explained, is to prevent Turkey from promoting a two-state solution and to remove the pretext it puts forward that the Greek Cypriots are not going to negotiations, do not want political equality and do not want to share the revenues from the natural gas.
A. Kyprianou also said that the President of the Republic must convince that he wants a solution on the basis of the bizonal, bicommunal federation and recalled that AKEL from March 2018 had criticized the President that behind closed doors he was talking about a two-state solution, but because we could not substantiate AKEL was attacked and criticized, while now the Archbishop said it, the Solidarity party said it, the journalist Andreas Paraschos has said it. Will they also say about the Archbishop that he serves Turkish interests as they say about AKEL? The General Secretary of AKEL wondered.
Unfortunately, he added, the President did say it, he did think about it, he did reflect on a two state solution and unfortunately he said it outside of Cyprus as well.
A.Kyprianou also recalled that AKEL has been asking the President for three years to explain what are the powers and competences that he wants to be transferred to the constituent entities in a decentralized federation that he had proposed, but he never did.
With these proposals, you lose your credibility, valuable time is lost and new fait accompli will emerge – Famagusta for example – and you bring the Cyprus problem to the brink, A.Kyprianou stressed.