Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman has pushed back against comments by government spokesman Constantinos Letymbiotis on the status of the two sides at the Cyprus talks, saying everyone knows they sit at the table as “two leaders”.
Erhurman was responding in a social media post to Letymbiotis’ remarks on Thursday that President Nikos Christodoulides takes part in the talks as President of the Republic of Cyprus and as leader of the Greek Cypriot community.
According to Turkish Cypriot media, Erhurman wrote on May Day that everyone knows “negotiations” are not currently taking place, but that the sides are at the “discussion table”.
Whatever the table is, he added, the whole world knows that “we, as ‘two leaders’, are and will remain at the table”, while keeping their positions outside the table confidential. He said all UN reports and records on these processes are publicly available.
Erhurman asked why, when everything was so clear, the Greek Cypriot side kept repeating a position that, he said, no one, including the Turkish Cypriot side, accepts, both directly and in public.
He said the claim had no value or meaning when the facts were clear and known to everyone, and asked what the aim was: “To help the solution?!!”
Erhurman said there was only one way for what he described as a “provocation” to succeed: for the side targeted by it to fall into the trap. “If it does not fall victim, it will remain hanging in the air pointlessly,” he wrote. “We are at the negotiating table. We are moving forward with patience, calmness, seriousness and determination…”
He also said he had answered only one-fifth of the statements made by his “counterpart” and was trying not to raise the issue of the status of the interlocutors publicly.
Erhurman said he had conveyed his views in private meetings and had warned that the issue should not be raised repeatedly at every meeting and opening ceremony, that no attempt should be made to establish new positions in the absence of the other side, that the atmosphere should not be poisoned and that the parties should not engage in blame games.
He also referred to claims and positions that, he said, had not even been raised in bilateral meetings and were being introduced through the media.
