Our side is ready for the resumption of talks, the President of the Republic, Mr. Nikos Christodoulidis, said today.
In his statements on the sidelines of the ETYK pan-Cypriot conference, the President of the Republic, in response to a journalist's observation that while there was a de-escalation of tension between Turkey and Greece with the cessation of Turkish overflights in the Aegean, the Turkish President is coming to the occupied territories, said that "indeed , especially after the earthquakes in Turkey and possibly due to the elections that took place in the country, we saw a different approach from Turkey's side, we also saw a new climate being created in the relations between Athens – Ankara.
You realize that the elections (in Turkey) have been completed, and with regard to our issue in particular, what we expect is concrete results towards the resumption of talks, and that is where our efforts are focused.
After the completion of the electoral process in Turkey, we are in contact with European capitals, with heads of EU member states, as well as with the EU institutions, to see how this proposal, the new approach that we have put on the table of discussions for the need for the EU to have a more active, leading role – because we believe that the EU has all those incentives to create or lead to a mutually beneficial state of affairs through the Cyprus solution – and how it can proceed.
There are milestones, we have a European Council at the end of June, before that there is an important Summit that I think there will be discussions on the sidelines, it is the NATO Summit that will take place in Lithuania before the European Council, and what we expect is to create data that will lead to the break of the impasse and the resumption of talks. We will all be judged through developments, through concrete actions.
In response to a journalist's remark that according to analysts there is a strong Government in Turkey, a strong Government is expected in Greece, while there is a strong Government in Cyprus, so there are chances of resolving the Cyprus problem, the President of the Republic said that “these are three important facts.” At the same time there is another fact, it is the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the destabilizing tendencies that are created, the EU's reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. There are facts exactly, and they are some of those that we also use in our efforts, that, yes, must lead to a result – and we hope that it will result, by the result everything will be judged – in the direction of breaking the deadlock and restarting the talks .
We are ready. I can say this with absolute certainty, with absolute awareness of what I am saying, with very specific proposals that we have shared to some extent with EU member states that we have asked to mediate or have a leading role in the direction of the EU. And in order to let there be no doubt, we are always talking within the framework of the UN. The EU should come to support the actions of the UN”.
Asked to refer to a joint exercise between Poland, Spain and the pseudo-state, the President of the Republic said that “relevant steps have been taken by the Ministry Foreign. From what I understand from the first information I had, it was an exercise by Turkey in which the countries you mentioned participated and Turkey had also invited the pseudo-state. It's not the first time it's happened. It is for this reason that we ask the states that are invited to participate in Turkey's exercises, exercises that it sometimes organizes within the framework of NATO, to be particularly careful and to investigate beforehand who else will participate, because it is one of the efforts that it makes Turkey for supposedly upgrading the status of the pseudo-state.
