Cyprus-Forum.com

[observer]

cypezokyli:

"most of the points could have been accepted by the tc leadership without big problems.
2 or 3 where indeed vital, and at they tc could be considered justified in rejecting them.

the problem of the 13 points, was not so much what they proposed but the climate in which they were proposed.
we are talking about a place which is (correctly imo) often reffered in the literature as a "reluctant republic". the leadership of the constituent people of the republic didnot really wanted to make it work, they both had other aims. and at the same time both were arming themselves against each other, and had secret "defensive plans".

besides that, precisely in that period in which the 13 points were proposed the press was fuelling nationalism on both sides.

concequently, there has never been any serious discussion on the 13 points, since a civil war broke down"

On this we can agree.

[Bananiot]

The Plan itself gives a striking answer to those that kid themselves that it was just a proposition. Makarios had decided to impose the Plan unilaterally and dynamically. Something that shows that this was the case is the refusal of Makarios in 1965 to accept a proposal by the Turkish Cypriot MP’s to return to their seats, provided that the Zurich agreements would be reiterated. Klerides, who was the President of the House at the time, wrote that separate majorities were done with and the signature of the Vice President was no longer required and the Turkish Cypriot MP’s had no legal status. Thus, the position of the Vice President was, for all intense and purposes, abolished. In this way we lost a golden opportunity to return to normalcy, changing in the meantime the Constitution unilaterally, according to the Akritas Plan.

The above is from an article by Pavlos Dinglis, that was published recently in a number of newspapers