Anastasiades criticises UN

The Cyprus Mail says that relations between the Greek Cypriot side and the UN took a nosedive yesterday as President Nicos Anastasiades swapped his recent veiled criticisms for an all-out dig at the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser Alexander Downer.

Anastasiades was commenting on the concern expressed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that a new round of Cyprus talks slated to begin last month had not yet materialised, and that a proposed joint statement clearing the way, had not yet been formulated.

Ban’s message came after a meeting in New York with Downer on Friday night. In a note issued after the meeting, the Secretary-General pointed to the “limited window of opportunity” to achieve a comprehensive settlement.

The paper says that although Anastasiades has until now refrained from openly having a go at Downer, yesterday he didn’t hesitate.

“We do not live in Australia, we live in Cyprus,” the President said, referring to Downer’s country of origin.

“It should be understood that trust towards some people is given or taken away if they prove they are not worthy of our trust through specific actions. This should be seriously borne in mind. Let no one live under the delusion they will gain the laurels of success if they think they can lead us to talks for the sake of talks through blackmail.”

On Thursday night, addressing an event to mark UN Day, Anastasiades engaged in more veiled criticism,  saying the inability of the international community to oblige Turkey to respect the rules and principles of international law and the UN Charter, contributed to the continuation of the gross violation of the rights and laws of Cyprus and its people as a whole.

He continued with this theme in yesterday’s comments but more overtly, saying: “Let those who are under obligation to implement resolutions to consider that they need to make them a priority.”

At the same time Anastasiades reiterated “most categorically” his wish and determination to secure a Cyprus solution as soon possible.

But he added: “I want to make one thing clear once and for all. We will not accept blackmail or fixed timetables from wherever they may come just because they will supposedly satisfy the expectations from some quarters. We will not relinquish basic principles irrespective of who says it and how they say it.”

“We are two communities cohabiting this country, this tiny paradise turned to hell as a result of mistakes – from wherever they may have originated. What matters – if we are to meet the goal – is for some people to look at the essence rather than just looking at when negotiations will restart,” he said.

The political parties wasted no time in jumping on the anti-UN bandwagon yesterday. AKEL leader Andros Kyprianou rejected the ‘four days’ given by Ban for the formulation of joint statement. DIKO chief Marios Garoyian referred to the “evil machinations of Alexander Downer” who has “lost every trace of objectivity impartiality and reliability”. He too rejected any notion of a timetable as did EDEK leader Yiannakis Omirou who said he was surprised as the UN should know better than to impose timetables.

Anastasiades said he would call a meeting of the National Council in the coming week.

Is anyone convinced Anastasiades is committed to a settlement?

In an editorial the Cyprus Mail refers to a speech Anastasiades made on Thursday night to mark World UN Day, in which he said that he was “determined to work decisively to secure a viable and lasting settlement so that all communities of Cyprus could live and prosper in a modern European state that fully respects the principles of the UN.”

The paper says this is the standard rhetoric of all our presidents, including those who were not at all keen on a settlement. The most hard-line, anti-solution, president, the late Tassos Papadopoulos had expressed the exact same views on countless occasions.

It is very surprising that a pragmatic politician like Anastasiades, who had persuaded everyone of his real commitment to a solution by taking a clear stand in favour of the Annan plan regardless of the political cost, repeats this tired and meaningless rhetoric that has been served for 40 years. What does he hope to achieve by uttering these platitudes at half the public engagements he speaks at?

Nobody outside Cyprus would be convinced that the president was genuinely committed to a settlement because of his speeches. What is more worrying is that the president’s actions do not suggest that he is “determined to work decisively to secure a settlement.” His policy of setting conditions has been counter-productive and could be construed as a tactic designed to prevent the start of talks, even if this was not his intention.

Was it realistic to expect the Turks to return the fenced off part of Famagusta as a show of goodwill that would facilitate the start of talks proper? Knowing how the Turkish side works, was there a one in a million chance that it would return territory before any negotiations? Yet despite the Turks’ flat rejection of the proposal, Anastasiades kept raising public expectations on the matter.

His other condition, that the two sides had to reach agreement on the outline/basis of the settlement, before negotiations began, may have seemed a good idea but led nowhere. The negotiators of the two sides have had many meetings, but have still not agreed on the desired joint communiqué that Anastasiades made a pre-requisite for the start of talks. There were similar fruitless negotiations – they were referred to as preparation of the ground for talks – during the Papadopoulos presidency that became a diplomatic farce.

The UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon, not prepared to wait any longer – proper talks were scheduled to start in October – has now intervened. His no-nonsense announcement caused some embarrassment to the president, as his oft-expressed opposition to the resumption of talks without adequate preparation, has been unceremoniously dismissed by Ban. There is now an unofficial deadline for the two sides to agree on a communiqué and the UN is unlikely to accept the continuation of the deadlock. It would pressure the two sides to agree to the communiqué that would pave the way for the meeting of the two leaders and resumption of talks.

While Anastasiades would be able to put a positive spin on the turning of the screw by Ban, claiming it was directed at the Turkish side, he would have more difficulty dealing with the Secretary-General’s expression of “full confidence” in Downer. This was the week that the presidential palace had instigated a concerted attack on Downer by leaking information that the Special Advisor had supposedly written to the European Commission expressing opposition to the more active involvement of the EU in the peace process.

Anastasiades wants a senior judge from the EU directly involved in the talks. The idea, allegedly, did not have the support of Downer, who wanted to stay in control of the procedure even though a UN announcement, earlier in the week, said no letter had been sent; it added that EU involvement would be welcome.

It appears that the period of prevarication and setting of conditions has been officially closed by the UN Secretary-General. Anastasiades will now have to move on from words, the easy part of the Cyprus problem that all politicians love, to the difficult part that everyone hates – decision and actions. As Ban’s spokesman said, we only have a “limited window of opportunity.”

Coffeeshop

The Cyprus Mail’s satirical column Coffeeshop says that one of the most hysterical acts of our political circus is its quarterly attack on Big Bad Al, the UN envoy who is supposed to help solve the Cyprob. Heaping abuse on the thick-skinned Aussie politician has become a national sport, our politicians’ way of showing voters how tough and tenacious they are when defending our national interests. It helps that Al cannot answer back or impose his terms on us like the other hated foreigners, the terrible Troikans, have done. The problem with Downer-bashing is that it also exposes our politicians as ineffective weaklings – for years now, they have been bravely shouting for his sacking and for the UN to send a replacement, but nobody pays them any attention. Big Bad Al is still here, shafting our side, encouraging Turkish intransigence, interfering in our affairs and – the latest stab in the back – preventing the more active involvement of the EU in the peace process.

The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon rubbed salt into the wound on Friday night, when he responded to the latest bout of Downer-bashing, sparked by Prez Nik, with an expression of unqualified support for the Aussie. Ban must have not been informed about the hysterical rants against Al, by Lillikas, Omirou, Perdikis, Garoyian and the rest of Kyproulla’s armchair, freedom-fighters calling for his immediate sacking. If he had, I am sure, Al would have boarded the red-eye to Sydney yesterday instead of returning to Kyproulla with a brief to make the two sides reach an agreement on the joint communiqué by Friday.

Prez Nik had done his best this week to land the egocentric Aussie in trouble. His minions had leaked to the press that Al had sent a letter , as Nik had been demanding. Nik refused to deny the report, responding to hacks’ questions, with ‘no comment’. The mischievous look on his face when uttering this suggested that he wanted to put Al in the merde, if not in New York, at least in Nicosia. The issuing of a statement by the UN denying the existence of a letter did not stop the political hysteria.

Alithia came up with a brilliant explanation for the misunderstanding over whether or not Al had sent a letter to the European Commission expressing opposition to the active involvement of an EU representative in the talks. It was true that Al had not sent a letter to the Commission, but the paper revealed he had sent an e-mail, which according to the Concise Cyprob Dictionary, is a non-letter. The next time the UN issues a similar denial it would have to make it clear that “NO letter, e-mail, Skype mail, SMS, text message, telegram, instagram or smoke signal, containing such information was sent.”

Despite yesterday’s fighting talk with which he responded to Ban’s demand that the joint communiqué was finalised by the coming Friday, I fear that Nik will end up, once again as a tragic hero unable to resist the outside pressure for a settlement. He said he would not accept deadlines or blackmail, but there is a sneaking suspicion he may come under the same kind of pressure he experienced at the Eurogroup meetings last March, with regard to the Cyprob sol. Would he be so unlucky, being left holding the ticking time-bomb that is set to explode in his hands, for the second time in a few months?

Downer letter farce is depressingly predictable

Columnist Loucas Charalambous says a day rarely goes by without another display of the vileness and ridiculousness of our political establishment.
The comical story about the letter UN Special Advisor Alexander Downer supposedly sent to the European Commission was not just a gaffe but a logical extension of these people’s general behaviour.
It would have been a surprise had they behaved differently. The reaction we witnessed was, logically speaking, what the average citizen would have expected. From these politicians you can only expect silliness; for them prudence and seriousness are alien forms of behaviour.


The only conclusion any sensible person can reach, is that with these apprentice political wizards running the sho, catastrophe is inevitable. Any other fate is impossible.
Of course we did not expect responsible or rational behaviour from people like Omirou, Lillikas, Antigoni or Perdikis’ spokesmen, but we did from the president. He appears to have been the source of this farce, having admitted that he had started the rumour, which he based on “some papers” that Barroso had during their meeting in Brussels.
Anastasiades, now that he has become head of state, cannot behave less responsibly than he did when he was a party leader. He cannot be touring the Sunday memorial circuit and political fiestas, engaging in demagoguery about “liberation” and “resistance to pressure” and repeating all the other rhetorical nonsense we have been hearing for 40 years.
He is committing a grave error if he thinks he is fooling everyone at the same time – Garoyian and Vassiliou, Omirou and Papapetrou, the ‘yes’-voters and the hard-line rejectionists, the UN and the EU as well as the Americans and the Russians. If he carries on like this he will end up as a second, and worse, Christofias.