Akel leader Stefanos Stefanou on Wednesday warned against allowing the Cyprus problem to fall into a state of deadlock, after he attended the day’s National Council meeting.
“The situation is not good, the climate is pessimistic, taking into account that we have not had any developments, nor an agreement on confidence-building measures, but we do not have the right, nor is it in the interests of a prospective solution to the Cyprus problem … to let things fall into a state of deadlock,” he said.
He then stressed that the Cyprus problem must remain “our first priority”, and said that the Greek Cypriot side should “try to control matters by taking specific initiatives”, because “we should not let the process die down”.
“Even if the United Nations secretary-general fails to implement his goal of convening an enlarged meeting, let him at least leave the next secretary-general as a legacy the convergences which have been created. This should also be our concern through the policy we follow,” he said.
He added that incumbent UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has “put in a lot of work”, and said that “thanks to his own actions, we had many developments, culminating in the Crans-Montana conference, at which, according to Guterres himself, we had come very close to achieving a solution to the Cyprus problem”.
“Unfortunately, since then, we have not had negotiations, and the issue is to find a way to resume negotiations from the point at which they were interrupted, ensuring that the achievements and convergences reached after many years of hard work are preserved,” he said.
Asked about the issue of President Nikos Christodoulides’ 19 new points for discussion, which Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman described as “throwing a spanner in the works”, he said he had been informed of the 19 points, but that he had agreed not to disclose them publicly.
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