His invitation to the Turkish Cypriots to return to state institutions under the 1960 Constitution was not an alternative to the agreed basis for a solution to the Cyprus problem, but was intended to facilitate the return of the community to the state pending a final solution, the President said. of the Republic Nikos Anastasiadis, on Friday.
Speaking from the podium of the 76th UN General Assembly, President Anastasiadis also reaffirmed his “determination to resume the negotiation process, based on the UN framework and the Berlin Agreement of November 25, 2019.
“For us, there is only one plan,” he said, “is to reach a settlement on the basis of a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation with political equality, as provided for in the relevant UN Security Council resolutions and in accordance with the principles on which the EU is based.” .
The President of the Republic stated that all “the new ideas that have been proposed by us, as requested by the Secretary General, in an effort to move the process forward, have been flatly rejected.”
Referring to his most recent proposal, in which he called on the Turkish Cypriots to return to the state institutions established by the 1960 Constitution of the Republic of Cyprus, he explained that “it is understood that such an invitation was not intended to be an alternative to the agreed basis of the settlement “.
It aimed, he added, “to facilitate the return of the Turkish Cypriot community to the state pending a final solution, given that a strategic agreement has been reached and therefore its full participation in the transformation of the Republic of Cyprus into a federal state”.
This proposal, the President of the Republic noted, “should be evaluated in conjunction with the package of groundbreaking and mutually beneficial Measures of Confidence Building, which I proposed last December and which were unfortunately rejected by the Turkish side.” MOE, he said, which are still on the table now.
During his speech, President Anastasiadis criticized Turkey's stance, noting, among other things, that the narrative promoted by the Turkish side, “according to which all attempts to reach a compromise have failed and that we should seek solutions “Beyond the UN framework, it reinforces the well-founded arguments that Turkey's ultimate goal is not to resolve the Cyprus problem, but to turn Cyprus into a protectorate.”
Watch the President's speech
