Our View: Continuing the all-words-no-action strategy

Ever since his election, President Nikos Christodoulides has followed an unchanging strategy on the Cyprus problem. It is a strategy that is all words and no action, a strategy that has led nowhere – most certainly not to the resumption of talks that is supposedly his main objective. For as long as the hardline, uncooperative Ersin Tatar was Turkish Cypriot leader, fully supported by Ankara, nobody questioned the president’s ‘words’ strategy, as he skillfully played the communications game. But the situation has changed since the election of Tufan Erhurman, who has adopted a more positive approach to the idea of a new process. This was the reason UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres sent his personal envoy Maria Angela Holguin back to Cyprus at the start of the year, and he decided to pay a visit last month presumably in the hope of getting things moving. His visit achieved no tangible progress, and he told the two leaders they had to work on confidence-building measures, before his initiative could move to the next stage which would be the calling of a five-plus-one conference. Even after the departure of Guterres, Christodoulides is persisting with his ‘words’ strategy. He and his spokesmen continue with the same rhetoric about the talks within the framework of UN resolutions, a settlement based on EU values and ideals, the resumption of talks from the point at which they stopped nine years ago and the recording of convergences; there is even talk about the Guterres framework which no longer exists. In terms of action, we have seen nothing. Erhurman proposed a weekly meeting of the two leaders in August so that they could do the preparatory work – he referred to it as ‘homework’ – that Guterres asked for as a requirement for holding a five-plus-one meeting. On Monday the director of president’s press office, Viktoras Papadopoulos, said Christodoulides was “ready” to hold weekly meetings with Erhurman. The president was ready to do “anything that can lead us to the goal of resuming talks and solving the Cyprus problem”, said Papadopoulos. Again, the words were not supported by any action. Although the president was ready to do anything that would lead to the goal of resuming talks, he was not prepared to meet every week. On Wednesday, it was announced that the leaders would meet once on August 26. So despite being keen on attending a five-plus-one meeting, that he believes will lead to a resumption of talks, he is not prepared to meet Erhurman more regularly in order to pave the way. It is the same with the opening of crossing points, which Guterres has been asking for the two sides to agree on since last year. Is it exclusively the fault of the Turkish Cypriot side that there has been no agreement, or has Christodoulides fear of venturing from words to action played a part? Why has he turned to discussion about opening crossing points into a zero-sum game that will never end, instead of displaying a little goodwill, which will help him achieve his big objective of the five-plus-one meeting? In a rational world, a politician, who saw that his strategy is not heading anywhere close to his ultimate goal – assuming that the resumption of talks is Christodoulides’ goal – would have asked what he may have been doing wrong. He may even have concluded that he had chosen the wrong strategy, given that it consistently produced no result. Does the president seriously believe that Gutteres will call a five-plus-one meeting without any practical indication that the two sides would be committed to a new process? Unless Christodoulides replaces talk with action, nothing will happen. Then again, this may actually be his real objective, despite the rhetoric about a resumption of talks.