Even the glances Anastasiades and Tatar exchanged last night were enough to confirm that they have nothing more to look forward to in the Cyprus problem. The separation has become chaos and the walls are growing dangerously larger by the day. Something that was clearly evident from the brief discussion the two leaders had just before the start of the event on gender equality at the old Nicosia airport. A dialogue that took place in a wellspring of the two with Stuart, Mavroyiannis and Olghoun.
[BR]According to people present at the venue the discussion was heated, with the Turkish Cypriot leader insisting that there must be recognition of sovereign equality before negotiations can resume. This was categorically rejected by the President of the Republic, citing of course the agreed solution framework. He even suggested that a leaders' meeting should be arranged in order to make the big clean-up, which Ersin Tatar rejected. As he rejected any discussion of the terms of reference for an envoy as agreed at the trilateral lunch in New York and the substantive MoUs put on the table by the Greek Cypriot side.
The same stubbornness was shown even when the President asked him to end the instrumentalization of refugees. The Turkish Cypriot leader replied in a belligerent tone that the discussion should be referred to the level of technocrats!
The Turkish Cypriot side is doing everything to maintain the stalemate, to prevent progress and to prevent any movement related to the Cyprus problem as we have known it for the last decades. Its only concern is to promote the creation of two independent states, which is why it insists on the totally absurd condition of prior recognition of sovereign equality.
It is precisely this refusal that is pushing the Cyprus problem to the precipice. The tragic maintenance or even formalisation of the status quo. One way or another, Turkey and the occupied territories want it to be theirs as they described it in the written proposal submitted to the informal five-party meeting in Geneva almost a year ago.
Faced with this unacceptable and dangerous attitude the UN is sitting on its hands, watching one of the two sides crossing the line. It allows the Turkish Cypriot side to humiliate even the Organization's top body, the Security Council, by deleting and insulting the dozens of important resolutions on the Cyprus problem. Only to satisfy the whims of the Turkish government.
Last night President Anastasiades confirmed a sad thing: only by a miracle will there be mobility or progress on the Cyprus problem in the next ten months, i.e. before the end of his second and final term. And who knows if there will ever be progress again with the paths the occupied side has chosen to take.
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