On the position of the DIKO President and the apparent change in the position of candidate Nikos Christodoulides for a change in strategy and the abandonment of the Guterres Framework

Statements by independent presidential candidate Andreas Mavroyiannis

Pursuing changes to the Guterres Framework reinforces our unreliability

We must not abandon the body of work of the negotiating procedure go to waste and thus once again appear as unreliable

Sunday 3 July 2022, “Haravgi’ newspaper

Independent candidate for the Presidency of the Republic Andreas Mavroyiannis expressed his disagreement with the position of the President of DIKO and with the apparent change in the position of presidential candidate Nikos Christodoulides for a change in strategy on the Cyprus problem and the abandonment of the Guterres Framework.

Commenting on DIKO President Nikos Papadopoulos’ remark to “Haravgi” newspaper, independent presidential candidate Andreas Mavroyiannis said that it is precisely for the reasons invoked by Mr. Nicolas Papadopoulos that we must remain consistent to the need to continue the negotiations from where we had remained at Crans-Montana. More than ever before, he pointed out, we must win back our credibility and declare that we are not going to change a single letter from the agreed basis of the solution. We must continue from where we left off at the Crans Montana conference, given that we believe that at that point we were closer than ever to a solution to the Cyprus problem and we must not let this acquis of the negotiating procedure go to waste, he underlined.

Acknowledging that Turkey does not accept neither the body of work of the negotiating procedure, nor the basis for a solution and therefore the effort is difficult, Andreas Mavroyiannis stressed that “it is primarily7 through our credibility and our own persistence, together with the support of the international community, that we hope to see movement surrounding the Cyprus problem and not by abandoning the effort”.

What we need to do, A. Mavroyiannis stressed, is to create the organic conditions for peace by doing more than diplomatic handlings. If we question the Guterres Framework now, he underlined, it means that we do not accept that it was the best opportunity for reaching a strategic agreement. For that reason, he concluded, we must constantly insist on the Guterres Framework and the proposals we have had submitted on the basis of the Framework.

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