Cyprus-Forum.com

[BirKibrisli]

I have been wondering for a while about Papa's real motives.
Does he want to have peace in Cyprus or is the present situation more to his liking? He has been refusing to meet with Talat which has allowed the later to strut around talking about his "arm raised in peace which papadopoulos is refusing to shake"!Why do you think he is refusing to meet Talat who is after all the leader of TCs now?Doesn't he realise that the longer the present situation goes on the more entrenched would be Turkey's position of power in the North.The more likely that the present partition will be entrenched.Another 10 years and there will be 250,000 settlers in the North and virtually no Cypriots of Turkish origin.Doesn't Papa realise that once American influence becomes dominant in the North there will be no turning back from two separate countries policy?
Or has Papa already sacrificed the North to please the EU and preserve the present prosperity in the South?What is he doing to build trust between GCs and TCs?Not much from where I am looking...

[Viewpoint]

Its the power game, his priority is to stay in power not to solve the Cyprus issue, his politics are purely related to the EU leverage card to extract as many concessions from Turkey therefore leaving Talat on the sidelines. Anyone really interested in a solution would have been back at the negotiating table long ago hammering it out with TCs but Papadop has opted for the safe haven of the EU whoch will not last forever and I personally feel that the GCs current policies will backfire and leave the "RoC" with no leverage over Turkey, Cyprus for the EU is a headache and one that keeps reoccuring they will have to take then necessary pill to get rid of that heache one day

[Kifeas]

Its the power game, his priority is to stay in power not to solve the Cyprus issue, his politics are purely related to the EU leverage card to extract as many concessions from Turkey therefore leaving Talat on the sidelines. Anyone really interested in a solution would have been back at the negotiating table long ago hammering it out with TCs but Papadop has opted for the safe haven of the EU whoch will not last forever and I personally feel that the GCs current policies will backfire and leave the "RoC" with no leverage over Turkey, Cyprus for the EU is a headache and one that keeps reoccuring they will have to take then necessary pill to get rid of that heache one day

Nonsense! A paragraph with no full stop but full of nonsense, ignorance, slogans and passion! Papadopoullos is not interested in coming to the negotiating table but Talat is full of eagerness and interest! As if it is not Talat the one who declared Papadopoullos proposals for changes in the UN plan “a none-starter,” only 3 months ago!

[Viewpoint]

Its the power game, his priority is to stay in power not to solve the Cyprus issue, his politics are purely related to the EU leverage card to extract as many concessions from Turkey therefore leaving Talat on the sidelines. Anyone really interested in a solution would have been back at the negotiating table long ago hammering it out with TCs but Papadop has opted for the safe haven of the EU whoch will not last forever and I personally feel that the GCs current policies will backfire and leave the "RoC" with no leverage over Turkey, Cyprus for the EU is a headache and one that keeps reoccuring they will have to take then necessary pill to get rid of that heache one day

Nonsense! A paragraph with no full stop but full of nonsense, ignorance slogans and passion! Papadopoullos is not interested in coming to the negotiating table but Talat is full of eagerness and interest! As if is not Talat the one that declared Papadopoullos proposals for changes in the UN plan “a none-starter,” only 3 months ago!

Apologies, didnt realize this was an English test . Is your problem with me personally? calling me ignorant does not really help anyone to understand the others point of view. If you dont like what I am saying you can just disagree or ignore it. Whos hand is constantly in the air and asking for meetings? who wont meet socially? or with no agenda? we have to start somewhere.
Its obvious Papadop is waiting to play the EU card against Turkey and will at every turn try to extract what GCs want, we will all see how successful this will be.

[Piratis]

The previews two presidents of RoC (Cleredes and Vassiliou) made the mistake to make compromises that were way beyond what the majority of Greek Cypriots would accept without getting anything in return.
Papadopoulos is trying to reverse this.

I believe his aim is that the solution will be a modified RoC rather than anything related to the Annan plan or similar kind of plans. Would Talad be willing to make discussions on this base?

Personally I don't agree that time matters that much. How much time it took Turkey to occupy 1/3rd of Cyprus? Did it matter for them that for 3500 years the great majority of the population of that 1/3rd of Cyprus were Greek Cypriots?

[Kifeas]

Its the power game, his priority is to stay in power not to solve the Cyprus issue, his politics are purely related to the EU leverage card to extract as many concessions from Turkey therefore leaving Talat on the sidelines. Anyone really interested in a solution would have been back at the negotiating table long ago hammering it out with TCs but Papadop has opted for the safe haven of the EU whoch will not last forever and I personally feel that the GCs current policies will backfire and leave the "RoC" with no leverage over Turkey, Cyprus for the EU is a headache and one that keeps reoccuring they will have to take then necessary pill to get rid of that heache one day

Nonsense! A paragraph with no full stop but full of nonsense, ignorance slogans and passion! Papadopoullos is not interested in coming to the negotiating table but Talat is full of eagerness and interest! As if is not Talat the one that declared Papadopoullos proposals for changes in the UN plan “a none-starter,” only 3 months ago!

Apologies, didnt realize this was an English test . Is your problem with me personally? calling me ignorant does not really help anyone to understand the others point of view. If you dont like what I am saying you can just disagree or ignore it. Whos hand is constantly in the air and asking for meetings? who wont meet socially? or with no agenda? we have to start somewhere.
Its obvious Papadop is waiting to play the EU card against Turkey and will at every turn try to extract what GCs want, we will all see how successful this will be.

Papadopoullos has asked in numerous occasions to have a meeting with Erdogan, even under a social (informal) context. Erdogan and Turkey refused blatantly. Talat not only did not facilitate such a meeting but every time such an eventuality came near, he publicly opposed to it, saying that this is something that should never happen because it will undermine the Turkish /TC thesis on the whole issue of the Cyprus problem and will be negatively received and interpreted by the TC community.

Why a social meeting with Talat is important and I agree it is, but a meeting with Erdogan is such an anathema? Turkey doesn’t recognize the RoC, but so does RoC the “TRNC.”

Yet, Papadopoullos and the GC’s do not go around crying and making it such an issue, like Talat, the rest of the TC leadership and you, do all the time.

[BirKibrisli]

Guys,this is so frustrating for me,sitting 12 thousand miles away reading your posts which keep repeating same old arguments.
Kifeas,you are from Lapithos forced by the Turkish army to live in Paphos.Well,I am from Paphos,and I can say I was forced by the Sampson coup against Makarios which allowed Turkey to intervene,forced to live in Australia.We can take that even further back and say it was the fault of the Junta in Greece who was encouraged by the CIA to encourage Sampson to stage his coup which allowed...
But none of this will help us achieve a just and peaceful solution in cyprus.
IMO,Turkey did the right thing coming in when they did under the powers as Guarantor.But they abused that power,which was only allowing them to step in to return cyprus to its legitimate state under the 1960 constitution.That was the perfect opportunity to solve the problem once and for all.Turkey could have said to TCs"come on,time to stop sulking and get back to your legitimate Republic and make it work this time with GCs'.My feeling is Makarios would have accepted us TCs back into the RoC.End of story.But Turkey did not do that because essentially they were looking after their own and USA interests.
My point is we cannot expect others to solve our problems for us.It is not in their interest.If we start speaking to each other at a political level (read Papadopoulos talking to Talat etc) and get to know and trust each other (and build up on the goodwill achieved by free movement in the whole of Cyprus) then we might find our own solution to this mess.
Kifeas, I have not seen my village in Paphos for over 30 years.And I will never see it because it was razed to the ground,as people who visited told me.People couldn't even find the plot of land where their house once stood.The whole area apparently became one big grazing land for animals.I do not blame GCs for this.I can see the big picture now,and in fact blame all Cypriots for falling pray to the political manouvers of the bigboys (USA,Turkey,Greece,USSR,Britain) over our beautiful homeland.
We need to wake up and realise and unless we learn to forget the past and redraw the future to suit us Cypriots,hundreds of thousands of us will live in exile,while our lands are stolen from us and sold to foreigners for profit. What a pity.We have been played for fools,and they are still playing us for fools,I am afraid

[muallim]

Guys,.
We need to wake up and realise and unless we learn to forget the past and redraw the future to suit us Cypriots,hundreds of thousands of us will live in exile,while our lands are stolen from us and sold to foreigners for profit. What a pity.We have been played for fools,and they are still playing us for fools,I am afraid

You are right but as I said before our neighbours were not change why should we wait for them if no trust no love what will be happen DIVORCE.

[Piratis]

Birkibrisli, I agree with what you say but I am not so optimistic. While the problem between common people might be trust and understanding, the politicians are a whole different story. The politicians have their aims and they are trying to achieve their aims.
While I agree Papadopolos is a far from ideal leader for GCs, Talad doesn't even represent the true TC interests, but the interests of the settlers (without their votes can not be elected) and Turkey (without her support can not keep his position) as well. Based on this I doubt that anything positive can come out from a Papadopoulos-Talad meeting.

If the TC leader was one that represented only the TCs and he had the power to go against Turkey's wishes, then I would agree with you 100%. However unfortunately this is not the case. Such meeting it would be like Papadopoulos is talking with a low end official of the Turkish government. If Turkey is the one who is taking the decisions then I perfectly understand why Papadopoulos wants to talk directly with Erdogan and not one of his subordinates.

On the other hand, Erdogan has to take permission from the army for everything about Cyprus, so maybe we should be talking with the Turkish army. However armies do not make discussions. The only thing they understand is force. Which brings us again to my pessimistic conclusion that unfortunately such discussions are close to useless and that all that matters in the end is the balance of power

[Piratis]

You are right but as I said before our neighbours were not change why should we wait for them if no trust no love what will be happen DIVORCE.

Would you accept a "divorce" where the 18% of TCs gets half of what they own (9% of land) instead of double? Or maybe you are using "trust" as an excuse to grab twice as much from us?