Cyprus Talks: Greek Cypriot President, Anastasiades express regret over talks deadlock

Greek Cypriot President, Nicos Anastasiades on Tuesday expressed his sadness and regret over the deadlock encountered in the ongoing Cyprus reunification talks adding that talks could become deadlocked over an insistence by Turkey and the breakaway Turkish Cypriots to keep Turkish troops deployed on the island even after a peace deal.

“It is with regret that I face a possible deadlock, a stagnation that is not the result of our lack of will but because of demands that do not serve Greek or Turkish Cypriots,” said Anastasiades.

Anastasiades made the remarks during a youth event at the presidential palace on Tuesday evening report Cyprus Mail.

According to him, it was time to deal with the issue of freeing Cyprus of occupying troops and time to get rid of the obsolete treaty of guarantees.

“Why do Cypriots need guarantees, why do they supposedly need the presence of an occupation army to protect us from foreign forces?”

Reunification talks between leaders of both communities, Nicos Anastasiades (Greek Cypriot president) and Mustafa Akinci (Turkish Cypriot leader) hit a brick-wall last week, when both sides failed to broker agreement on the agenda of a possible international conference in Geneva. 

According to Anastasiades, going to Geneva was not up to the leaders. Suggesting that a conference could only be useful if Turkey decided to address security and guarantees, he said;

“If it’s going to be the two leaders only, why would they go? What’s so different about Geneva, other than Cyprus’ much better climate?” 

“Let us continue the talks, and when Turkey is ready to discuss security we can proceed to the next step.”