Turkish Cypriot Fears are not Justified

March 2017

Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci has put two preconditions to President Nicos Anastasiades before returning to the negotiating table, Turkish press reports said last week.

"The first is that President Anastasiades should state that he does not approve the decision taken by the House of Representatives regarding inclusion of the 1950 plebiscite on Cyprus’ unification with Greece in the list of the days which are celebrated at the secondary education schools in the government-controlled area of the Republic," according to Anatolia News Agency.

"The second is to annul this decision," the Agency added quoting Akinci saying: "If this step is taken, we will re-evaluate the situation.

Akinci also reiterated the view that the ideal of the unification of Cyprus with Greece is "the source of all problems we experience".

Akinci left UN-brokered reunification talks in Nicosia last Thursday, but blamed Anastasiades of creating the crisis in the fragile 20-month-old process.

Fears which the Turkish Cypriots have been expressing in the past few days cannot be justified, even though the excuse to express such fears hailed from the Greek Cypriot community, Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades has said.

The president also pointed out that no Greek Cypriot political party claims or maintains that the solution to the Cyprus problem is ‘enosis’ union with Greece.

The President described as "wrong" in terms of timing and its objective the House decision to commemorate in schools the 1950 referendum in favour of union with Greece. The decision led the Turkish Cypriot leader to leave last week's meeting with Anastasiades, in the context of the UN peace talks.

The controversial decision, was initiated by ELAM, a small extreme right wing party with racist views and supported by 19 MPs of the five parties of the Centre while AKEL (16) voted against and Anastasiades' ruling party DISY (18) abstained.The DISY party has since reconsidered its position and it has now moved a new legislation, which will see the decision to commemorate the 1950 union with Greece referendum overridden.