North Cyprus TRNC News Today

7th January 2013

EROĞLU:‘THE GREEK CYPRIOT SIDE IS NOT WILLING FOR A SOLUTION’

President Dervis Eroğlu said that proposals of the Turkish Cypriot side prepared devotedly regarding the joint statement were refused by the Greek Cypriot side. President Eroğlu also expressed that negotiations should start as soon as possible and should come to an end.

In his speech during a reception, Eroğlu mentioned the Cyprus problem and stressed that proposals of the Turkish Cypriot side regarding the joint statement were refused by the Greek Cypriot side.

Moreover, Eroğlu added ‘If the Greek Cypriot side becomes willing for a solution, we will solve the Cyprus problem within 3-5 months. The Greek Cypriot side should be willing for a solution but we cannot see their willingness’.

 ÖZDİL NAMİ: “THERE ARE SERIOUS CONVERGENCES BETWEEN THE OPINION OF THE TWO SIDES”

Foreign Minister Özdil Nami has expressed that the ‘joint statement’ which is blocking the solving process of the Cyprus issue is limited with the difference of three or four words and added: “There are serious convergences; the issue can be overcome easily by the two sides’ will.”

Speaking during the visit of United Media Group, Foreign Minister Özdil Nami gave information regarding the latest stage reached in the Cyprus issue and explained the blocking points of the process.

Stating that the deadlock on the joint statement has been experienced due to the differences on the points; ‘None of the founding states can demand authority over the other state’ and ‘None of the founding states can demand sovereignty’,  Nami continued: This problem can be overcome’.

Repeating:“The principles of single sovereignty, single international identity and single citizenship have been approved by the two sides undisputedly, and problems over internal citizenship and additional powers have also been overcome, Nami added: ”After having been reached that point, it would not be right to go back”.

Expressing that the UN Secretary General’s Special Advisor on the Cyprus issue – Alexander Downer who is coming to the island on 12^th January, would have meetings to overcome this deadlock, Nami recorded that if the sides came closer with a good will, a positive point could be reached.

Adding that if the deadlock on the ‘joint statement’ which the Greek and Turkish sides seek for a consensus continues before the solution negotiations, the UN could put forward an interim formula, Nami continued: “the UN may want the process to start without the joint statement by sending an invitation letter to both sides and this is possible. In this invitation letter the consensus points may be expressed by the Secretary General and the sides may be invited to the negotiation table.”

Drawing attention that the negotiations on the joint statement would continue, Nami said that the direct negotiations which would launch if a consensus on the joint statement was reached, will  progress easily. Pointing out that even on the present joint statement an agreement was reached on many important main issues, Nami stated: “If the negotiations start, these main agreed issues will be defined and this will be easier.”

ERTUĞ: “THAT TRAIN WAS MISSED A LONG TIME AGO”

TRNC President Dr. Derviş Eroğlu’s Special Representative –  Osman Ertuğ said “that train was missed a long time ago” in response to the claim of the Greek Cypriot press which stated that “UN is in preparation of a short statement”.

Replying to the questions of the Turkish Cypriot daily ‘KIBRIS’, Ertuğ stated that he did not think that the United Nations could bring a tested and unsuccessful formula to the negotiation table. He pointed out that at the beginning of the process, he forwarded a short statement on a  joint statement to the Greek Cypriot side with the contributions of  TRNC Foreign Affairs Minister Özdil Nami, and however the text, which was started at the beginning with a few lines, was nearly two pages in the end. Ertuğ said “The process will be prolonged again. This is the reluctance policy of the Greek Cypriots. If such a formula is presented, I know what we will be experiencing. They will add the unsolved issues in the joint statement again, however the relevant decisions of the Security Council state that negotiations should be without a precondition. Ertuğ added that the Turkish Cypriot side has made the final proposal, the proposal is still on the negotiation table, and the most effective option for them is to sit at the negotiation table without precondition. (Kıbrıs)

GREEK CYPRIOTS CELEBRATE ‘THEOFANIA FEAST’ IN YENI ERENKOY AFTER 39 YEARS

Greek Cypriots celebrated “Theofania Feast” in Yeni Erenköy after 39 years. The first rite was performed in Agia Triada Church in Sipahi. The rite was officiated by the Bishop of Karpaz region Cristoforos.

DISI Member of Parliament – Yorgos Yorgiu also attended the rite where 500 Greek Cypriots were present. Some Greek Cypriots expressed their pleasure for praying in Yeni Erenköy after 39 years and added that the permission for praying is an important step taken for the convergence of the two communities.

FIfty years later, we stIll don’t accept what we dId In 1963

By Loucas Charalambous

Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the blackest day in the modern history of Cyprus.

If we Greek Cypriots realised the role the events of December 21, 1963, played in our history, every year on this day we should go to the moat that surrounds the Venetian wall in Nicosia (which we should have re-named ‘wall of tears’) and hit our head on it, just like the members of the Jewish faith do at the ruins of the temple of Solomon.

There is no similar event in the history of any other country. On that day, the head of state, using an irregular and illegal army he set up and armed, launched an attack on his own state and destroyed it. In the space of a few hours he had split it into two parts.

The saddest thing is that not only did we learn nothing from that stupid blunder – we have not even realised the lasting harm we did to our country – but we still view the story as a heroic fight instead of feeling some shame.

It requires an incredible level of nerve, for the state broadcaster to present the events of 1963 as supposed resistance against the Turkish ‘rebellion’, a rebellion that exists only in the imagination of the journalists of the CyBC and of some of the surviving protagonists of this unforgivable, blood-stained story.

In reality it was a Makarios rebellion, but nobody dares say such a thing. There is nothing more infuriating than the idiotic shows, usually broadcast during these days by CyBC’s radio and television stations, in which some of the protagonists of the events, such as Nicos Koshis, Christodoulos Christodoulou, Vassos Lyssarides and others give their triumphant version of what happened.

I do not blame them for their actions. Most, apart from Lyssarides, were immature and irresponsible youths in their twenties who had been led on by a callow, 50-year-old monk – Archbishop Makarios. They did not know what they were doing, unaware of their actions. But what is less forgivable is that even today, half a century later, they carry on pretending that they are still unaware of the irreparable damage their actions had caused the country.

In a way this is to be expected. What I find very difficult to accept is the irresponsibility of CyBC’s big-wigs who continue to perpetuate the myths, massacring historical truth.

This column has mentioned the events of December 1963 many times in the past. The Akritas organisation (with Makarios as its invisible leader, as Christodoulou revealed a few years ago) embarked on armed attacks against Turkish Cypriots, having first stepped up the tension between the two communities by placing a bomb at the monument to EOKA hero, Marcos Drakos at Paphos Gate and setting fire to the Ayios Kasianos primary school.

Plans to set up the Akritas organisation had been set in motion just six months after the establishment of the Cyprus Republic, and among its policy objectives, drafted by Tassos Papadopoulos (according to the late Glafcos Clerides’ testimony) was the overturning of the Zurich-London agreements which established the Cyprus Republic – in other words the dismantling of the state.

These are the facts which have been conclusively supported by documents and testimonies by members of the organisation. One of the members, former officer Takis Chrysafis, had the guts to tell the truth about the Akritas organisation, revealing that he had personally heard then government minister Polycarpos Yiorkadjis giving instructions for the bomb to be placed at the Marcos Drakos monument on December 3, 1963.

Only the CyBC bosses and the self-styled chieftains of 1963, who have not grown up yet, are still repeating the myth about the Turkish rebellion, when they should be at Nicosia’s Venetian wall, every year on this day, banging their heads against it seeking to absolve their sins.

22 December 2013

Cyprus Mail

Source: TRNC Public Information Office