Front Page Headlines
Political leaders… in less danger
21 police officers leaving guards of politicians – Cabinet to decide tomorrow (Thursday). Police officers guarding leaders of parliamentary parties and former officials are reduced from 56 to 35 with the agreement of the Police and a proposal by Justice Minister Emily Yiolitis. Police officers of leaders of the big parties will be reduced by two and policemen of leaders of smaller parties by one. Cuts for the guards of Lyssarides, Vassiliou and former first ladies. Different approach in the case of Demetris Syllouris, with danger being reviewed every month. 21 police officers free to be used to boost checks – patrols in old Nicosia.
- Nicosia: Talk to Ankara – Tatar raised the banner of two states
- Another 318 cases: They play with the endurance of the health system
- Excluding Morphou: Repent and… vaccinate
Will give a comprehensive image
Lute will talk with all five before she briefs the UNSG on her contacts. She recorded the disagreements of the two sides in Cyprus.
- “Commission” in occupied areas has no liras to pay
- “A large percentage of susceptible young people”: Spread has broken all security thresholds
- Prelates agreed but Morphou sticks to his tune: “Yes” to vaccines, “yes” also to Holy Communion, Holy Synod says
They agree on informal five-party meetings but…
Anastasiades wants to return to the point where he left. Tatar wants a negotiations process for two states. Lute goes to Athens and on December 14 goes to Ankara.
- Loud G/C and T/C voices for federal solution
- New record of 318 plus 15 positive cases
Two leaders back five-way summit
While both say willing to attend, they reiterate opposing views.
- Legal view: Two roads to Cyprus citizenship: legally v buying it
Vaccine is coming
Countdown has begun. Three companies (Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna Inc) yesterday submitted an application for approval for their vaccines against the coronavirus to the European Medicine Agency – They are expected to be available in January. Cyprus has ordered about 1,800,000 vaccines.
- Lute’s meeting with Anastasiades and Tatar: Ready for the informal five-party meeting – With different agendas, President Anastasiades pointed out (his) determination for negotiations from where they were interrupted, while T/C leader insists on broaching two states issue
- Holy Synod: Yes to a vaccine, except from Morphou
- Coronavirus: A tally of 320 cases
Main News
Leaders tell Lute they are ready for 5+1 meeting, reiterate disagreement
Alithia, Cyprus Mail, Haravgi, Oikonomiki Kathimerini, Phileleftheros, Politis
Negotiations Process, Governance & Power Sharing, EU Matters, Regional/ International Relations, Property
OVERVIEW
The dailies report on UNSG envoy Jane Holl Lute’s separate meeting with President Anastasiades and T/C leader Ersin Tatar on Tuesday. Lute saw Tatar in the morning and met with Anastasiades late in the afternoon.
Phileleftheros reports that Lute recorded the disagreement of the two sides regarding the starting point of the negotiation. According to the newspaper’s sources, Lute will continue her meetings with all those involved and will brief the UNSG on her findings after she has had meetings with all five participants of a prospective informal five-party meeting (the two communities and the three guarantor powers).
Politis reports that the situation is expected to become clearer once Lute has had the opportunity to meet with all the guarantor powers, particularly Turkey.
Oikonomiki Kathimerini reports that according to information, President Anastasiades did not mention his ideas for a looser federation to Jane Holl Lute during their meeting. The report adds that Anastasiades did not set prerequisites for the participation of the G/C side in a new round of negotiations, whether regarding Turkey’s actions in the Cypriot EEZ or the situation in Varosha.
G/C sources told the newspaper that they believe that the Guterres Framework binds the T/C and the Turkish side to a federal solution, despite Tatar’s statements on a two-state solution.
Phileleftheros also reports that the date of Lute’s meeting in Ankara has not yet been booked, but that it will take place after the European Council which will be on December 10-11. Phileleftheros cites information that the most likely date for the Ankara meeting is December 14.
Lute will be travelling to Athens on Wednesday, in order to have discussions with officials in the Greek Foreign Ministry.
According to reports, President Anastasiades stated that he is ready to go to negotiations that would start from where the Crans Montana process stopped. Tatar meanwhile disagreed with the prospect of picking up the process from where it had stopped in 2017.
Anastasiades met with Lute for about one and a half hours. After the meeting, government spokesperson Kyriakos Koushios said that the President expressed his readiness to take part in an informal conference convened by the UNSG within UN parameters.
Earlier, when asked by journalists, Tatar said that he gave Lute the message that the T/C side will not go to a meeting to discuss a federal solution, adding that there are now new realities and that the two states should live side by side on the basis of sovereign equality.
Tatar also said that the issue of Varosha was not discussed during the meeting since it does not fall within Lute’s remit.
The media also reports that Foreign Minister Nicos Christodoulides and G/C negotiator Andreas Mavroyiannis were present in Lute’s meeting with Anastasiades, while former negotiators Ergun Olgun and Osman Ertug, Oguzhan Hasipoglu and Berna Celik Dogruyol were present in Lute’s meeting with Tatar.
Politis and Haravgi report that a group of G/C and T/C protesters welcomed Lute on both sides holding up banners advocating for a federal solution. The protesters stood outside the Presidential Palace in the south and near the Ledra Palace checkpoint in the north.
The Cyprus News Agency reports that the UK’s Minister for European Neighbourhood at the Foreign Office, Wendy Morton, said in a letter sent to Cypriots living in the country that London is ready to take part in any process related to the solution of the Cyprus Problem. Morton wrote that the UK supports the discussions conducted by Jane Holl Lute and all the sides, as well as the UNSG’s intention to convene an informal conference on Cyprus.
Phileleftheros also reports on the inability of the Immovable Properties Commission (IPC) in the north to pay for compensations due to a lack of funds. According to the report, which cites a report published by YeniDuzen, the Turkish side attempts to solve this problem by planning for the IPC to focus on returning properties that are located inside the fenced-off city of Varosha.
Meanwhile Phileleftheros reports that refugee association Adouloti Keryneia reiterated in a statement that they are opposed to the bizonal bicommunal federation model. The group was reacting to a statement by AKEL MP Yiorgos Loukaides, who reportedly said that people that are anti-federation are “fascists”. The group added that it was against a federal solution as far back as 1977, when only a few guidelines had been discussed.
In another development, Oikonomiki Kathimerini reports that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo intensely criticised Turkey during a teleconference of NATO Foreign Ministers that took place on Tuesday. Citing diplomatic sources, the newspaper reports that Pompeo pointed out that Turkey is currently going against the principles and the operation of NATO, adding that the country has been taking provocative actions in the Eastern Mediterranean, Libya, Syria and Nagorno-Karabakh.
Turkish FM Mevlut Cavusoglu is reported to have responded to Pompeo’s statements, raising the issue of his country’s complaints on an incident involving the EU’s Irini operation off the coast of Libya. Cavusoglu also expressed his regrets that the US is supporting what he said were maximalist positions by Greece and Cyprus, as well as the country’s support to “terrorist organisations”.
According to the same report, Greek FM Nikos Dendias said that he was satisfied with Pompeo’s statements, adding that he would not comment on Cavusoglu’s accusations of Greek and Cypriot maximalism.
The dailies also report on a statement by the Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Hamit Aksoy, who said that Turkey is in favour of dialogue with Greece, but that Athens used the research conducted by Oruc Reis as an excuse. Commenting on the end of the ship’s operations in the region, Aksoy said that Turkey remains open to dialogue with Greece.
Enclaved found positive for coronavirus are in good health
Alithia, Phileleftheros, Politis
Internal Security, Human Rights, CBMs
OVERVIEW
RoC commissioner for human rights Photis Photiou told journalists after a meeting of the parliament’s committee on refugees (displaced G/Cs) that the 15 G/C enclaved inhabitants of Karpasia that had been found positive for coronavirus are in good health.
Photiou explained that three out of the 15 chose to quarantine themselves at their homes in the occupied areas, while the rest are in the government-controlled areas where they are being monitored by the government.
Three teachers and a woman working at the Rizokarpaso school are included in the group, Photiou said.
Photiou also referred to changes made by the T/C authorities to health protocols regarding the checkpoints. He explained that the T/C side decided to request a negative PCR test issued 24 hours in advance of any crossing, compared to the 72 hours that they had been requesting before.
Photiou said that his office and the Foreign Ministry are in communication with the United Nations, asking for changes to the measures.
He also said that last week the usual truck of food to the enclaved was not allowed to go to Karpasia, noting that the UN had informed the government that the delivery would happen normally on Wednesday.
Politis reports that the T/C administration did not allow the holding of an annual service at the Apostolos Andreas Monastery in the Karpasia region, citing statements made by Photiou during the meeting. Photiou pointed out that the service was not allowed despite attempts by the Foreign Ministry and the Archbishop, who had argued that the service could be held with just four people present to represent the enclaved.
An official from the Foreign Ministry also told the committee that after the election of the new T/C leader, persons who support a two-state solution have been appointed at key positions.
Cyprus Writers Union honours veteran G/C-T/C writers for their work
Phileleftheros
CBMs
OVERVIEW
The Cyprus Writers Union has announced that it will be giving the title of honorary member to four writers from both communities, as recognition of their contribution to Cypriot literature as well as to the effort to keep Cyprus united and peaceful.
The four are writer and former MP Rina Katselli, poet and journalist Thomas Symeou, writer Mehmet Kansu and the former president of the Union of Artists and Writers of Cyprus Tamer Oncul.
In their statement, issued on November 29, the Cyprus Writers Union notes that it wants to send a message both inside and outside Cyprus, as well as to the UN and the EU, that G/C and T/C writers are united in the struggle to reunify Cyprus and achieve a peaceful solution.
Holy Synod calls people to be vaccinated, insists communion is safe
Alithia, Phileleftheros, Politis
Internal Security, Human Rights
OVERVIEW
The Holy Synod of the Church of Cyprus met on Tuesday and decided to call on people to accept vaccination once a vaccine is ready. However the decision was not unanimous, with Morphou Bishop Neophytos stating publicly after the meeting that he has reservations on the vaccination issue.
Neophytos was responding to an official announcement by the Holy Synod secretary that all the prelates had agreed to support the government’s measures against the coronavirus and to support vaccination. According to the same announcement, the prelates also stood by their insistence that the coronavirus cannot be transmitted through the practice of Holy Communion.
The Church of Cyprus specifically stated that it believes that the “body and blood of Christ” in the Holy Communion cannot transfer any disease, and that Communion would continue to be administered in the traditional way, in keeping with health guidelines.
The secretary of the Synod also said that prelates had agreed that the pandemic was allowed to spread by God in order to teach the population. He added that the Church’s position is that citizens should follow all decisions taken by the state, and that it accepts the restriction of rights, including the right to congregation in churches, in order to protect lives.
Neophytos added that epidemiologists had briefed the Synod members of the situation regarding the pandemic and possible vaccines, but that the prelates were not called upon to comment.