To be Cypriot…

To be Cypriot…

The year is 1976… Having just been elected as the CTP leader, Ozker Ozgur gave a speech at the end of which he sent out the message for unity-soldarity-struggle with the ‘Brother Party AKEL’ and expressed the hope for the unification of Cyprus…
At the time, the AKEL leader was Ezekias Papayuannu and he also would constantly refer to the CTP as the ‘Brother Party’…
The yr is 1989… The Czech Ambassador to Nicosia has invited those leaders who were unable to meet in Cyprus, to Prague where he had organized a joint meeting…
I observed that meeting from start to finish…
Ozker Ozgur, Mustafa Akinci and Ismet Kotak were amongst the Turkish Cypriot politicians…
Dimitris Hristofoyas, Glafkos Klerides, Tassos Papadopoulos and Dr. Vassos Lissardis were amongst the Greek Cypriot politicians…
As always, Lissaridis created a crisis during the meeting with his negative attitude…
On the first day when the meeting broke up for lunch, Tassos Papadopoulos spread the ‘Republic of Cyprus’ flag he had brought with him on his table, thereby makin it impossible for the Turkish Cypriot politicans to remain there at the table…
The Turkish Cypriot politicians reacted, saying: “In our opinion, the Republic of Cyprus was destroyed in 1963. Since we are now discussing a bizonal, bicommunal federal state, what’s the point of putting the Republic of Cyprus flag on the table?”
Following this reaction, Papadopoulos’s flag was kept away from the dinner table on the remaining days of the meeting….
The warmest rapprochement between the Turkish and Greek Cypriot politicians was between Christofias and Ozgur and Klerides and Akinci….
Christofias’s and Ozgur’s rooms were next to one another and everyone was curious as to whether this was a coincidence or if it had been arranged on purpose by the organizer, Czechoslovakia…
As far as I know, the AKEL-CTP relationship didn’t continue only when Ozker Ozgur was the CTP leader but also during the period when Mehmet Ali Talat was the party leader…
There has been no disagreement come to light between the current CTP leader Ferdi Sabit Soyer and Christofias, or between Talat and Christofias…
That is, until AKEL came to power in the South and the CTP in the North…
When both parties were in the opposition the stated aim of both was settlement…
There was a consesus of views on the issue that a settlement should be based on a bizonal, bicommunal federal settlement on the basis of the Denktas-Makarios and Denktas-Kiprianou high level arrangements…
In the event of AKEL coming to power in the South and the CTP in the North, a promise had been made that the two parties would fight together for a settlement…
In the South, AKEL came to power with DIKO and EDEK…
In the North, the CTP came to power with the DP…
Despite strong opposition from former leader Rauf Denktas and the National Unity Party, the CTP leadership succeeded in carrying the Tirkish Cypriot people to the refferendum and to voting in affirmation of the Annan Plan…
Whereas AKEL at first wanted to postpone the referendum and then rejected it outright…
As a result of which, Cyprus was not reunited…
Tens of thousands of people were left unable to return to their homes, property and land…
Despite saying that if some ‘small changes’ were made to the Annan Plan, it could again be put to a referendum, AKEL has not even managed to achieve this in a period of nearly 21 months….
We are now faced with the elections for the Representatives Assembly…
It’s the first time that AKEL has been so distant from the CTP…
Whereas DISI is approaching the CTP in a way that we have never seen or anticipated before…
Last Wednesday night they organized a joint concert at the Melina Merkouri hall…
On Monday night the same concert will be repeated at the Near East University…
The Cyprus problem remains unresolved…
The Ledra wall is still there…
Yesterday’s so-called ‘Brother Parties’ are now sharing today’s leadership!
Is it easy to be a Cypriot?
Is it easy?

Resat Akar