Tales from the Coffeshop: Proof our Nik has no interest in a Cyprus settlement

WARNING: If you are bored of the Cyprob, stop reading now. PREZNIKTWO was in defiant mood at the presidential place on Monday evening in his speech to mark the 52nd anniversary of the Turkish invasion. The continuation of the Cyprus Republic constituted an “inviolable red line”, he said and ruled out discussion of a two-state solution or a veiled confederation. He also asserted that he would never be “the president of partition,” nor would he sign a settlement that was not workable, viable and lasting. This sounded a bit like the rhetoric of Ethnarch Tassos, whose footsteps our Nik has been secretly following, but with a less arrogance. His national security advisor, Tasos Tzionis, the most devoted disciple of the tearful Ethnarch and his most trusted lieutenant, has been guiding our Nik, helping him maintain the pretense that he is sincere about his desire for a settlement, while plotting his exit strategy at the same time. When the prez asserts that he will never be the “president of partition,” what he is really saying is that he would never take personal responsibility for partition, which like Tassos and his mentor Nik I, he is quite happy with as it rules out power-sharing with the uppity Turkish Cypriots. THIS is the reason he has been staging this Cyprob super-production in which he stars as the great champion of a settlement – the resumption of the talks to be more precise – because he allegedly feels the status quo is unsustainable. As soon as he was elected, he pursued his election promise to seek the appointment of an EU envoy for the Cyprob, as if this would make the slightest bit of difference to anything. A former commissioner was eventually given this job, but he walked away as soon as a better offer came along, having contributed nothing. He then persuaded the EU leaders to link EU-Turkey relations to progress in the Cyprob and this was included in one of the conclusions of the European Council. This was presented as a big triumph for Kyproulla, which had a say in EU-Turkey relations, although nobody defined what constituted progress in the Cyprob. It was considered a big success as, in theory, it gave the Prez the power to turn the screw on Ankara. MEANWHILE, he also started pestering the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, urging him to undertake a Cyprob initiative and appoint an envoy to revive the process. His efforts, eventually, were successful. Maria Angela Holguin was appointed as the personal envoy of the UNSG for six months, during which Prez Nik had the added security of the hardline Ersin Tatar being the leader of the Turkish Cypriot community and fully in line with Ankara’s two-state position. There was no danger of Holguin having an impact. There had even been informal five-party conferences under Guterres that achieved nothing as well as fruitless meetings of the two leaders with the UNSG in New York. Guterres had advised the two leaders to agree to some confidence-building measures, particularly the opening of a few more crossing points, but the Prez turned this into a big negotiation. This move had Tzionis written all over it as it ensured not a single crossing point was opened. THE ROLE of Tzionis cannot be underestimated. His appointment as national security advisor is conclusive proof that our Nik has no interest in a settlement. A retired ambassador and head of the secret service Kyp, Tzionis is an anti-settlement ideologue, who, rightly or wrongly, believes the two communities can never work together and that reunification is a chimera. Would a prez with even a 10 per cent commitment to a settlement have as his national security advisor a man who is fanatically opposed to a settlement? During the Ethnarch’s presidency, Tzionis was made negotiator after the referendum and he had about 100 meetings with his Turkish Cypriot counterpart Rasit Pertev without agreeing anything. He was following the Ethnarch negotiating formula of endlessly talking with the objective of never arriving anywhere. This is the government plan if it secures agreement for a resumption of talks without suffocating timeframes. THE POLITICAL record of our Prez does not indicate in any way that he would be happy to negotiate a bizonal, bicommunal federation. At Crans Montana, he was urging Nik I to leave and he was in cahoots with Greece’s foreign minister Nikos Kodzias, a close friend of Moscow, who had taken his own wrecking ball to the conference. Our negotiator at the time, Andreas Mavroyiannis, said that Nik II told him he wanted to leave Switzerland because he did not want to destroy the “political capital” he had built. The weird thing is that now he wants talks to resume from where they left off at Crans Montana even though at the time he wanted the prez to walk out to preserve his political capital. And in 2023 he was elected Prez with the votes of the rejectionist parties – Diko, Edek and Dipa. Diko has opposed every settlement drive so far, while Edek was against a federal settlement. Had he won their support by telling them that he would work for a BBF or by presenting his hard-line credentials? THINGS have become a bit trickier for the Prez since the election of Tufan Erhurman, who is much more flexible than Tatar and supports BBF. So long as the Turkish government was singing its two-state tune, he felt secure, but then Guterres ruined everything. In March he decided to undertake a new initiative and sent Holguin to try and get things moving. Guterres had met Turkish president Erdogan a couple of times, and, reportedly, was told that Ankara would support a new process on certain conditions. It is entirely possible that pressure applied by linking Turkey-EU relations to progress in the Cyprob had worked. Meanwhile, the EU also took an interest and even appointed a new envoy giving another excuse for our Prez to be happy with himself. He succeeded in everything he attempted, something that would help the statesman image he has cultivated and boost his drive for re-election. The only problem is that his bluff about wanting a settlement has been called and he now has to deal with this. THE MILLION dollar question is why did he pester the EU and the UN to such an extent that the UNSG has decided to visit Kyproulla this week, presumably, to get another initiative going? Why did he not just leave things as they were? Nobody would recognise the pseudo-state, Kyproulla would be untouchable as an EU member-state and the electorate would be perfectly happy with the status quo so long as they could still cross north for their petrol and cheap cigarettes. It is not as if there is any public pressure on him to seek a settlement. The pro-settlement camp is a minority. Is he so impetuous and so keen to show off his political skills that he now has to deal with a new process that he does not really want? THE SUSPICION is that he went to all these lengths so as not to end up being labeled the “president of partition.” He can now argue that he did everything humanly possible to secure a settlement and re-unify the country, but Turkish intransigence, maximalism and arrogance prevented him from achieving his noble objective. He could not possibly surrender to Turkey to avert partition, for which he could not be blamed after everything he had done. To be on the safe side, Nik and his entourage have been raising the bar with regard to the settlement they could accept. It has to be based on the UN Security Council resolutions, on everything that has been agreed so far at the negotiating table (with some exceptions he does not approve) and the principles, values and law of the EU. And if these basic conditions are not met, the president will have every reason to walk away from the Cyprob talks and he will be known as the president who tried everything in his power to prevent partition, but failed, through no fault of his own. SORRY if I bored readers with this Cyprob rant but I had to get it off my chest as the Cyprob has made a big comeback. There is, admittedly, a small probability that I got everything wrong and that our Prez will go full steam ahead for a settlement. If this is the case, I will publicly apologise, put billboards saying “I was wrong” and privately self-flagellate. .