'Officials' in the occupied side want no EU involvement in resolution

Kathimerini.com.cy

The refusal of the T/C side to accept EU involvement in the Cyprus problem was reiterated by the "Foreign Ministry" in a statement, saying "it is time to review our relations with the EU and try to bring them to a respectable level".

As reported in the occupied territories, in the statement, the "Foreign Ministry" argues that the statements recently made by President Christodoulides on this issue are "detached from reality" and are aimed at "creating an image".

The statement argues that it would be unrealistic "to expect a different perception from the new Greek Cypriot leader, who is one of the main architects of the failure of the last attempt aimed at a federation-based agreement, which ended in Crans-Montana".

President Nicos Christodoulides' proposal for the "active involvement" of the EU to start negotiations where they left off "is an extension of the Greek Cypriot policy that has been ahead of us for decades. The EU's pro-Greek stance on Cyprus has obstructed the path to an acceptable agreement and served to maintain the status quo. We would like to state that we cannot accept the involvement of the EU in the Cyprus problem, which continues to maintain the same perception," the statement emphasized.

It further states that it is high time to review T/C relations with the EU, which falls far short of treating the people of Turkish Cyprus with the respect they deserve and uses financial aid to suppress them. Moreover, the statement added that relations between T/C's and the EU should be raised to a respectable level.

The "Foreign Ministry" expressed hope that "southern Cyprus," Greece, and all parties who support their maximalist - as it puts it - policies will see that the federation is a model of a past solution, with no current relevance, and that the adoption of an agreement that provides for cooperation between the two "states" is the only right option.

[This article was translated from its Greek original and sourced from CNA]