Former justice minister Emily Yiolitis has said she would “gladly vote for a Turkish Cypriot for president” if they were more capable than a Greek Cypriot candidate. She also said she disagrees with the Greek national anthem being used in Cyprus.
Speaking on Fidias Panayiotou’s podcast, Yiolitis said that although Greek Cypriots are Greek, their state is Cyprus, and they should show Turkish Cypriots that they respect their customs. Cyprus should be completely independent of both Greece and Turkey, she said. She added that in a country with both Muslims and Christians, the leader could not be a priest.
She said a bizonal, bicommunal federation was not a good solution, and that she wanted Cyprus freed from all foreign forces, whether Turkish or Greek.
She believed her Turkish Cypriot friends also wanted the guarantees and the Turkish army to go. She asked why Cypriots did not find a solution themselves, instead of negotiating with Turkey, Greece and the guarantor powers, and whether those countries had shown they cared about Cyprus.
Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots had to reach an understanding, she said. She called for an end to propaganda about Turkish Cypriots in Greek Cypriot schoolbooks, and about Greek Cypriots in Turkish Cypriot ones, so that they could unite as one people and seek self-determination.
Resignation
Yiolitis also said she resigned as justice minister after a disagreement with former President Nicos Anastasiades.
One to two months before she resigned, she said, a situation at the ministry made her feel she did not have his support. She phoned him to ask directly what was going on, but the conversation went badly. They argued, and he told her she was damaging the government’s image, she said.
According to Yiolitis, Anastasiades said this was because of her relationship with his family. She said everyone claimed he had appointed her because she was friends with his daughters. She had never hidden the friendship, she said, but did not see it as a passport to a government post.
She said this was unfair and was the reason she resigned, adding that she was the only minister who left with clean hands.
