Turkish Cypriot daily Havadis newspaper (11.06.14) reports that the former Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat has said that the Turkish Cypriot leader, Dervis Eroglu had rejected the cross voting from the very beginning and caused the Greek Cypriot side’s back stepping from the rotating presidency.
In statements to Havadis’ journalist Esra Aygin, Talat noted: “In spite of the fact that after his election Eroglu promised that he would continue the negotiations from the point they had been left by Talat and [Translator’s note: former President of the Republic] Christofias, his first job was to reject the cross voting. And the Greek Cypriot side, which took advantage of it, took off the agenda the issue of the rotating presidency”.
Talat underlined that the Turkish Cypriot side, which continuously complains of the Greek Cypriot side’s not respecting the convergences’ papers, did not remain committed to these convergences’ papers.
Talat noted that the cross voting or the weighted voting system is advantageous for a federal agreement in Cyprus and secures that marginal candidates with extremist views remain “outside the system” as it eliminates the chances of any Greek Cypriot candidate to be elected without taking Turkish Cypriot votes and of any Turkish Cypriot candidate to be elected without taking Greek Cypriot votes.
The paper writes that the “rotating presidency which is described as the ‘most important convergence” at the negotiating table was shelved by the Greek Cypriot side after the Turkish Cypriot side rejected the cross voting. Citing a “source close to the Turkish Cypriot negotiating team”, the paper writes that the Turkish Cypriot side is ready to discuss the cross voting under certain conditions. The same source told Havadis that the cross voting is not ‘an equivalent proposal” of the rotating presidency, as the latter had been accepted since late President Clerides’ period, while the former was proposed by former President Christofias with the aim of allegedly torpedoing the rotating presidency when he understood that he could not convince the Greek Cypriot community to accept this principle.
Havadis asked a Greek Cypriot diplomatic source whether the Greek Cypriot side would accept the rotating presidency in case the Turkish Cypriot side accepted the cross voting. The source has reportedly replied that it is very soon to answer such a question, that all issues will be discussed in relation with each other and that accepting the rotating presidency depends on the stance of the Turkish Cypriot side on some other issues