Sunday, 8 March 2015

Ban plan needed, says Davutoglu


Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has urged the United Nations Secretary-General to come up with a plan to solve the Cyprus problem before his term ends in 2016, the Cyprus Mail reports.

Speaking after a meeting with Ban Ki-moon in New York on Thursday, Davutoglu said he had reminded the UNSG that the Turkish side had supported the Annan plan in 2004, which was rejected by the Greek Cypriot side.

“In 2004 we supported the Annan plan and I suggested to Mr Ban Ki-moon that we now need a Ban Ki-moon plan before the end of his term to end this long-standing crisis,” he said.

The Turkish PM also called on the Greek Cypriot side to return to the negotiating table, and for an international conference to be held as soon as possible.

“Instead of one-sided actions and provocations about natural resources in Cyprus, negotiation at the table will be more beneficial. We will do everything possible for a sustainable comprehensive peace,” he said.

The UN said Ban’s special adviser Espen Barth Eide continued his consultations.
“When he is ready to unveil something, it will be unveiled, but obviously Cyprus remains very high on the agenda for the Secretary-General” the UNSG’s spokesperson said.


The spirit of Makarios in Anastasiades

Loucas Charalambous writing in the Cyprus Mail says he is amused by the foolish arguments used by our politicians and journalists when they accuse the British, the Americans, EU and UN officials, of double standards when they don’t support our side, which is always in the right, and sit Turkey, which is always in the wrong, in the dock.

The nonsensical comments made by President Anastasiades on his Moscow trip combined with the US and British reaction gave this bunch the excuse to bombard us with their anti-American and anti-West sloganeering, he says.
This attitude explains how and why we are in the current mess. It is a sick mentality that is based on our political mythology of the last 50-plus years which maintains that for everything that has happened to this country the Turks and the West are to blame, never us. We are completely blameless, the only ones without sin, while the whole world has been constantly conspiring to destroy us.
He says we can accept all this rubbish when it comes from AKEL, DIKO and EDEK and the rest of our political scoundrels who remain stuck in the Makarios political culture, but when we hear it from the mouths of Anastasiades and Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides, two men from DISY, the party set up some 40 years ago with the aim of fighting this sick political culture, destroying the myths, speaking honestly to people, modernising our primitive political attitudes, we can only despair.
Both told us that the behaviour of the Western countries was hypocritical and Pharisaic because they did not condemn Turkey for its ‘invasion’ of the Cypriot EEZ whereas they wanted to crush President Putin over the Ukraine. Both are outraged when they are told that the two cases are very different. But they are.
Our politicians, including Anastasiades and Kasoulides, pretend they do not know the Cyprus problem. Turkey does not recognise the Republic and that is the problem. Turkey’s position – much as we do not like it – is generally accepted by foreign countries and is along the following lines: The Greek Cypriots destroyed the partnership state of 1960, Turkish Cypriots have not been participating in it since 1964, they have set up on their own and therefore the Greek Cypriots represent only half of Cyprus; Greek Cypriots were not committed to a settlement that would lead to the establishment of a new partnership state, in contrast to the Turkish Cypriot who proved they were. For as long as this situation continues we will look after the rights of the Turkish Cypriots and will not allow the Greek Cypriots to usurp them.
This is the argument Turkey uses to justify its incursions into the Cypriot EEZ from which we want the Americans and the British to kick her out. It is also the reason we are told that the two cases are not the same. It is understandable that Turkey’s actions infuriate the Greek Cypriots who have been inculcated with the mythology about the “Turkish Cypriot rebellion”, the evil US, back-stabbing Britain, nasty NATO, the hypocritical EU and virtuous, principled Russia by our political demagogues.
Anastasiades and Kasoulides, after all these years, are emulating Makarios who thought he could play games in the ring in which the two world superpowers were sparring, with result that they crushed us. After all these years and with the benefit of hindsight, we have learnt nothing from these criminal mistakes.
Neither Anastasiades nor Kasoulides – not to mention the other political dwarfs – have understood what our problem is. They continue the demagoguery and the frivolous political games instead of concentrating on finding a solution to the problem and explaining to people why it is necessary and the risks of leaving it unsolved, he concludes.

Coffeeshop

The Cyprus Mail’s satirical column Coffeeshop says that the Mayor of Kyrenia Glafcos Kariolou, who was recently visiting Brussels, went out to dinner with a group of Cypriot and Greek MEPs.
Kariolou, formerly a bash patriot, lost membership to this exclusive club after suggesting that Greek Cypriots should return to their homes in Kyrenia under Turkish Cypriot administration.
While the group were chatting about his suggestion over dinner, Sigmalive’s bash-patriotic columnist and MEP aide, the colossally self-regarding Yiannos Charalambides entered the restaurant with a companion and sat down at a table nearby. When Charalambides saw that Kariolou was among the company, he banged his hands on the table and said: “Traitors, your are eating with this traitor,” and pointed to the Kyrenia mayor.
The MEPs ignored him and a couple of minutes later, he banged his hands on the table again and loudly announced, “My family does not forgive such traitors,” before getting up and leaving the restaurant. Interestingly, among the traitors having dinner with Kariolou was our freedom-fighter MEP Dr Eleni Theocharous, whose parliamentary aide, Dr Charalambides happens to be.

Dr Charalambides was not drunk at the time. We were informed that his outburst was perfectly normal behaviour for him, Coffeeshop concludes.

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