However, nothing was announced, he said because “Christofias was afraid of his partners in government.” He added: “Since we had agreed, what was the problem with announcing it?”
Christofias made various excuses such as that this wasn’t real progress, he said, and now he says that Eroglu is reneging on previous agreements. “For me these things are incomprehensible”.
“I told him, Dimitri, you will not find anyone like me who wants a solution to the Cyprus problem. Come let’s solve it now. My mission is to solve the problem, Eroglu’s is partition. My objective in politics was a solution, nothing else. I was not interested in politics without a solution. If we solve the problem, I will withdraw. He was telling me if we solve it we will stay another term to implement it. I said, come let’s solve it first and we’ll see”.
He said Christofias didn’t recognise the danger that Eroglu coming to power presented. He believed that Turkey wanted a solution and that the Turkish Cypriots would just go along.
“But things aren’t like that at all”, he added. “ Turkey cannot impose a solution without the Turkish Cypriots’ cooperation”.
Asked how come in 2004 Turkey turned against Denktash, Talat said “I was the leader in 2004 and the people were out in the streets calling for a solution. Today things are different.
We lost another opportunity in 2010 as we did in 2004, he said. “I assure you in all honesty that we were ready for a solution and Turkey was with us. Now things have changed. It’s a shame because I believe we could have solved it”.
Despite the fact that he acknowledged Christofias had the good intention to solve the problem, he didn’t have the same sense of urgency that Talat had.
“I maintained that if we didn’t solve it now things would get even more complicated. We would all be lost. I tried to convince him that we should involve Greece, Turkey and the international community. The burden of finding a solution was too great for us to carry on our own. Unfortunately he did not respond to this sense of urgency”.
Talat went on to say that Christofias seemed afraid to proceed. “Dimitris wanted, but was cowardly. He wanted to majority of Greek Cypriot to support him, 80%. This is unreasonable”.
He added that possibly his backing off in 2004 was for the same reason. “What he did then, remains an open wound”, Talat said, although they never discussed it. “I felt he didn’t want to”.
“That decision was a black hole in the history of Akel”, he added. “They made many mistakes, for example their support for Enosis. But 2004 was a special mistake. To say no to an agreement which you say was good, was a mistake that will go down in history, especially if the opportunity doesn’t come up again”.
He also admitted that at Burgenstock he had asked Christofias whether he would vote yes for the plan he replied “are you mad, of course yes”.
“He later denied it. Perhaps he forgot. But I remember”, Talat went on. We know that when he came back from Burgenstock he persuaded his Political Bureau to vote yes and criticised Papadopoulos for saying that the Anan plan was partition. Then at the Central Committee they said that I had said that we would not implement the plan. Now that was a big lie and they used it for propaganda to excuse their change of stance”.
Talat also gave his view on the natural gas issue. He said he believes that all the island’s natural resources belong to both communities, as was in the Anan plan. “This is a fair position”, he said. “But you are wrong to think that the nationalists on our side want a portion of the gas. They don’t. They want boundaries. What’s in the south let the Greek Cypriots have, what’s in the north the Turkish Cypriots. That’s their position. Me, I don’t want borders, neither on land nor in the sea”..............
