President Akinci’s Spokesman Baris Burcu has said that the Cyprus summit in Mont Pèlerin has collapsed.
He blamed the Greek Cypriot side for its extremist attitude.
After a final meeting between the two Cypriot community leaders which ran between 8.30 – 11.30pm on Monday, Burcu said that President Akinci had done his best and was sad to be unable to give good news about the negotiations.
Burcu said that they would assess the situation when they return to Cyprus and that President Akinci would make a detailed statement on Tuesday evening.
Akinci’s spokesman said that the Greek Cypriot side had been ill-prepared at the start of the summit in Switzerland on 7th November. “Unfortunately, the Greek Cypriot side did not come up with adequate preparation. They did not have enough political, philosophical and technical preparations”, he said.
He noted that that Akinci had been willing to give President Nicos Anastasiades the one week recess from the talks as requested, so Anastasiades could confer with Greek Cypriot party leaders and with Greek PM Alex Tsipras. However, he had not appeared to make good use of that time, Burcu said. This had become evident at the start of the second round of the Swiss summit on Sunday.
Burcu said that the Greek Cypriot side was unwilling to negotiate on returning refugee numbers. Their attitude was “either this or that”.
He also accused the Greek Prime Minister of undermining endless hours of work by his intransigent attitude to security and guarantees.
In summary, neither side could agree on refugee numbers, percentages of territory, and coastline.
Burcu, who has struggled for 42 years with the Cyprus problem and that “this is one of the most disappointing events in my life”.
The Turkish Cypriot delegation is expected to return to the island this evening.
Kibris Postasi
