Turkish Cypriot Foreign Minister Özdil Nami has said that the current negotiations process has completely collapsed and that both sides are engaging in a war of accusations rather than maintaining a positive stance.
Analysing the Cyprus negotiations process on a TV program, Nami warned that the talks were back sliding.
Emphasising the importance of convergences reached between the two sides between 2008 and 2010 as well as the Joint Declaration signed by the two sides in April of this year, Nami said that the Greek Cypriots had announced that they would not be respecting any of the past convergences and that it was bringing new proposals to the table that ignored all previous convergences.
Critical of US Vice President Joe Biden’s recent visit to the island for being too focused on the fenced-off city of Varosha, Nami said that Anastasiades’ rejection of the package of proposals prepared by the Americans had rendered Biden’s visit useless.
“Currently what we are seeing is a negotiations process that has totally collapsed. The two sides instead of giving out positive messages are engaged in a war of accusations which is very difficult to fix”, he said.
Nami also said that wrong moves had been made by both sides regarding settlement prospects and confidence building measures.
Describing Biden’s earlier statement that the key to a solution in Cyprus was in Turkey’s hands as a “populist and unfortunate remark”, Nami said that Turkey played no role in the current deadlock in the talks. He stated that Turkey strongly supports the negotiations and argued that it “could not do what the Cypriots cannot.”
Also touching upon his recent visit to Brussels, Nami said that such contacts will continue in the future.
Stating that his visit to Brussels had focused on solving problems related to the implementation of the Financial Assistance and the Green Line Regulations, he said that a work plan on solving these problems had been presented to them.
Commenting on the issue of natural gas, Nami said that a narrow window of opportunity existed on the issue, adding that the issue could be used to motivate the people on both sides of the divide towards a solution if the two sides abandoned their power struggle over the island’s resources.
Pointing to a finger at the international community as well, Nami said that the international actors who repeatedly called for both sides to display courage, had failed to do so themselves.
Source: BRTK
