Toumazos Tsielepis: Both leaders have deviated from what has been agreed
The British exploited the absence of negotiations to promote ideas concerning succession of states…
The big picture being created in the international community by the submission of President Anastasiades’ proposal for a return to the 1960 Constitution at a time when the Turkish Cypriot side has proposed a two states solution is that “both leaders have strayed from the agreed framework for a solution of Bizonal, Bicommunal Federation”.
This was the assessment made yesterday to “Haravgi’ newspaper by Toumazos Tsielepis, Head of the Cyprus Problem Office of the C.C. of AKEL, noting that the “proposal” for a return to the 1960 Constitution has already caused great damage to Cyprus’ cause. This proposal provides for a unitary state constitution with numerous negative elements, while the Resolutions of the UN and High-Level Agreements speak of a bizonal, bicommunal federation.
As far as the British “ideas” are concerned, they are none other than those that were discussed in Nicosia before the summer and in the presence of the Deputy Political Director of the UK Foreign Office Ajay Sharma, and which were immediately and categorically rejected by AKEL. T. Tsielepis explained again that the British ideas “lead nowhere”.
The British “ideas” were tabled as they found an absence of negotiations and with the excuse of the British that they would help in narrowing the gulf between the two sides. As Toumazos Tsielepis pointed out, these ideas adopt Denktash’s positions that there are pre-existing entities that are in talks to find a solution, that is to say there will be a succession of states something that was categorically rejected by two former UN Secretary Generals, Perez de Cuellar and Boutros Ghali. “The best reply to the British,” he said, “is to continue negotiations from where they left off at Crans Montana, without reopening convergences.” It should be recalled that there was an attempt to embellish the British stance by UN Secretary General’s special envoy on Cyprus Mrs. Lute during her last visit to Cyprus.