Anastasiades’ speech a provocation not just for the people of Famagusta

Statement by AKEL C.C. Spokesperson Koukoumas on President Anastasiades’ speech at the Famagusta Municipality event
Anastasiades’ speech a provocation not just for the people of Famagusta
8 August 2021, AKEL C.C. Press Office, Nicosia
President Anastasiades’ speech yesterday is a provocation, not just for the people of Famagusta. Mr. Anastasiades engaged in a convenient for him narrative of the course of the Cyprus problem to conclude that everyone is to blame but himself. Neither the people of Varosha, nor the Municipality of Famagusta, nor citizens who are worried about the future, nor the international community is listening to Mr. Anastasiades about his own share of responsibilities. He refuses to admit where developments have been led to during his administration. That is to say, we are losing Varosha and that the definitive division of our country is more visible than ever before.
Mr. Anastasiades does not understand that no one is asking him to give in to Turkish aggression, quite the opposite. We are calling on him not to facilitate the Turkish partitionist plans with his regressions and untrustworthiness. An unreliability that even his own chief negotiator admits. An untrustworthiness that is reinforced by his own broken pledges and annulment of the convergences recorded on the Cyprus problem. He even claimed that he has not heard any proposal put forward by anyone. Yet for months now he has had a written and comprehensive proposal submitted by AKEL in his hands about how we suggest the Greek Cypriot side should act. A proposal that is based on principles and that corresponds to what the Secretary General of the United Nations is proposing, but a proposal which the President refuses to make use of, without himself having a credible alternative.
AKEL reiterates that the Cyprus problem and Cyprus itself are at a crucial juncture and point. If developments are allowed to reach the final partition, dangerous times lie ahead for our country and people.