Neophytou Accuses Christodoulides of Promoting ‘Delusions’ Over Cyprus Talks

Neophytou, who had also run for president in 2023, said over the weekend that for the past year and a half Christodoulides has been “consistently generating delusions”.

Neophytou added that he was surprised to read that the president went on a podcast to “create new efforts to restart the dialogue”.

“Since when have new facts in diplomacy been created by interviews on [news] channels?” Neophytou asked.

He added that the president should realise the Cyprus problem is too important to be left up to public relations specialists.

“It is time he realised that the country needs a responsible leader, not a commentator on events on TV channels,” he said.

Neophytou also questioned all the president’s actions in the talks, including the involvement of the EU, and his recent failure in saying there would be a tripartite meeting with the UN and Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar, when what he meant was “a sounding out”.

“Tatar’s defiant and unacceptable intransigence cannot be used as an alibi. I personally expected it,” he said.

The stake for the Greek Cypriot side was to make Tatar lift his intransigence,

“But the reckless management, the celebration of the sounding out and its premature announcement before the UN secretary-general’s attempt to bring the two sides to the table offered Tatar the opportunity, he was looking for to evade the process,” he said.

Last week, government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis commented on Tatar’s vow to not attend such a meeting should it be organised, he said Guterres’ had “made a proposal” for a meeting to be held and repeated that “[Christodoulides] … said he had been sounded out”.

He added that he hoped Tatar would change his mind and attend such a meeting should it be held.

Christodoulides had announced the planned meeting on Saturday night more than a week ago, saying it had come about thanks to “our own persistent efforts, both in the direction of [Guterres] and the European Union”.

He went on to say he had been “working tirelessly to break the deadlock” which had seen the Cyprus problem unmoved since the collapse of talks at Crans-Montana in 2017.

In addition, Neophytou criticised the president for his handling of depositors affected by the 2013 haircut.

“It is populism to promise our fellow citizens what is pleasant before the election, but to forget them after the election and even by callously exercising your constitutional powers to refer back a law that neither you nor anyone else in your government have studied,” he said.

The president had also referred three other laws passed recently by the House, including one pertaining to the Solidarity Fund that provides partial restitution for those whose savings suffered a ‘haircut’ in the 2013 banking crisis.

Christodoulides came under fire after he refused to sign off on and referred directly to the supreme court a law passed by parliament on July 11. The law provides for the majority of the special fee levied on banks’ deposits to be transferred to the Solidarity Fund providing relief to people whose savings went up in smoke in 2013.

Source: Cyprus Mail