GCC Press Review 27 Oct 2019

Front Page Headlines

Sunday Mail

Energy bill hike in 2020

Heavy EU fines for the 3.33m tonnes of CO2 EAC (Electricity Authority of Cyprus) plants will emit next year.

  • Cyprus says it will take part in Varosha case before the ECHR
  • Poll shows TC flexibility over guarantees
  • Reviving Greek ferry link a real possibility

Simerini

(Anastasiades) “I will resign if I have broken the law on passports”

President Anastasiades: I challenge you to investigate both myself and my former law office. “Around 5,000 citizenships have been granted by the Republic of Cyprus. My former law office submitted in total 42 applications.”

  • Position: The mosquito and the wolves (Editorial on lack of Greece’s active support to Cyprus)
  • Green Line, a countdown to zero (article on the Green Line Regulation)
  • Torpedo by US & Russia under UN’s foundations
  • Savvas Iacovides: Ruthless Erdogan’s next goals (opinion piece)
  • Nikos Katsourides: New scenery in our region (opinion piece)

Politis

Presidential jet with a Cypriot Saudi

‘Golden’ passports for the family of Abdulrahman Mahfouz. International media are having a party at the expense of Cyprus during the past week pillorying once more the golden passport programme. Cyprus continues to be under the EU Commission’s microscope in relation to the application of the directive on combating money laundering. The course of the Cypriot investment programme from 2013 until today. The criteria and checks being promoted by the government after international ridicule.

  • Quo vadis, president? The bet for Nicos Anastasiades is the following; to what extent will he manage to leave his bad self behind and restart the government of the country or will he let himself sink in the ‘trivial things’ and the corruption.
  • Cyprob: Turkey’s message through… Syria
  • Interview – (Defence Minister) Savvas Angelides: The defence upgrade is a one-way street

Phileleftheros

Change of the map and of balances

Small and big players in a game of dominance in the Eastern Mediterranean with Cyprus in the middle. Concerns by Arab states over Turkey’s behaviour.

  • Efforts to block the targeted measures – Ankara is threatening EU member states.
  • Millions from Turkey for lobbying – How Erdogan built his image in the US.
  • Closed doors for flights in the Cypriot skies
  • Mine Yucel: Ankara’s influence in the occupied areas is decreasing
  • Takis Hadjigeorgiou: An international organisation is a security guarantor
  • Nikos Moudouros: The crisis of Turkish Islamism and AKP’s future
  • Russia is the biggest winner in Syria – The slaughter that took place in Syria was unnecessary.

Kathimerini

Ankara’s terms for the negotiations

We reveal the plan (Ankara) presented to the UN and foreign ambassadors.

  • A 45-year-old coffee at Larnakas tis Lapithou (article on Nikolas Skourides)
  • Athens: Turkish ambassador: Political equality and energy equals solution
  • Pachyammos Tyllirias: Remains and artillery from the excavations
  • Two weeks that changed Syria
  • The Kurds’ right to a state is not a feasible one

Haravgi

Development projects to the tune of €600m in the drawers

More than €600m for development projects remain in the ministries’ drawers and many of them will not be implemented as we are already approaching the end of the year. In fact, based on data, this year is perhaps the worst in the history of the Republic of Cyprus. By the end of September, the implementation rate (of projects) was 33 per cent while projects related to capital funds which are considered more important, amounted to only 28 per cent.

  • Erato Kozakou Markoullis: A brutal infringement of international law unfolds before us
  • Anna Koukkide Prokopiou: A possible ‘change of guard’ in the correlation of powers in our region
  • Turkey: A different story than Diyarbakir

Alithia

A click that made history!

Alithia in Larnakas tis Lapithou with Nikolas Skourides. “When I’m in my village I am happy, all my sickness goes away when I see this beautiful scenery.”

  • Nicosia on trilateral: The next steps are at the hands of the UNSG
  • Hydrocarbons: Can Turkey be excluded from the equation?
  • French ambassador: If we need to act, we will act
  • Article-intervention by Christos Panayiotides: The phenomenon of mass denial

Main News

Turkey’s road map on Cyprob revealed

Kathimerini
Negotiations Process, Energy

OVERVIEW

The daily reveals the road map Turkey presented to UN special envoy Jane Holl Lute informing her that they agree to a trilateral meeting between the two leaders and Antonio Guterres as long as the meeting would help preparations for an informal five-party meeting.

According to Kathimerini, that has the road map in its possession, Turkey provides for two scenarios: a two-state solution based on the sovereignty and equality of the two states or a new partnership model based on political equality of the two entities that would include discussion on confederation, federation, loose federation and decentralised federation.

In the first scenario, if the parties involved consent to a two-state solution, the Terms of Reference will be based on this and the talks will begin on a set timeframe. The second scenario, in the case the two state option is rejected, calls for discussion on solution models such as confederation, federation, loose federation and decentralised federation, the daily reports.

According to Ankara’s timeframe the aim is to have an agreement on all parameters around political equality including rotating presidency, TC effective participation in all institutional organs and positive vote. When these are agreed on, then preparation can start on the Terms of Reference followed by the restart of the talks based on a specific timeframe.

The paper reports that the issue of political equality and especially Turkey’s interpretation troubles the government especially when all parameters are put on the table before the actual talks begin.

The daily recalls concerns expressed to it by government sources last week over the risk of the GC side not having anything to give at the talks when security, territory and property will be discussed since everything the TC side is asking for on political equality will have been given prior to that.

If political equality that includes rotating presidency, effective participation and a positive vote is agreed on before the talks, then the question arises as to what our side will give at the negotiations table in order to gain on the territory, security and property issues, the daily said.

In the road map, Ankara stresses the restart of the talks within timeframes on both scenarios emphasising on the need for a change in the status quo arguing that it is not viable. Citing TC sources, the paper reported that the aim of the Turkish side is even to ask for UN arbitration for a completion of the procedure. The same sources said that Turkey’s aim is for the ensuing referendum not to include the existing status quo as choice, but for the two sides to either accept the agreed solution plan or to go to two states.

Diplomatic circles believe that Turkey has already entered a process of preparing a package of the issues that concern her such as Syria, the Cyprus problem and the energy issue in order to benefit from at least one of them. The daily also cites diplomatic sources from Athens saying that the Mitsotakis government is putting pressure for the ToR to be discussed at the trilateral which is also as per Anastasiades’ wish.

The GC side is not setting a precondition that the ToR must be agreed on before the five-party meeting but expects that a joint announcement is prepared after the trilateral on the intentions of the two leaders, the daily reported, adding that diplomatic sources assess that at the trilateral there will be a reconfirmation of what the two leaders agreed on during their August 9 meeting. Such a thing would end any discussion on other forms of solution, the paper reported.

There is, of course, the scenario of a joint statement by the UN Secretary-General on behalf of the leaders on what has been agreed, setting the general guidelines on which the five-party meeting will be based on, the paper said.


Nicosia: Guterres is the one to decide the next steps on the Cyprob

Alithia, Cyprus Mail, Phileleftheros
Negotiations Process, Regional/International Relations

OVERVIEW

The dailies report that Nicosia expects Turkey to change its stance on the Cyprus problem while at the same time dismisses as baseless claims by the Turkish UN permanent representative on ethnic cleansing against the TCs in the 1960s and 1970s.

According to the dailies, government spokesman Prodromos Prodromou said on Saturday that it was up to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to plan the next steps in the Cyprus problem, which he will discuss with the leaders during their joint meeting in Berlin on November 25. Prodromou said it was important that Guterres continues his initiative on Cyprus.

President Nicos Anastasiades and the GC side seek the resumption of substantive negotiations within the appropriate climate, he said, conveying Anastasiades’ political will.

He also noted that Nicosia expects a change in the Turkish stance which has prevented the resumption of the negotiations during the last two years.

Prodromou also said that according to the government’s information the UNSG’s special envoy Jane Holl Lute continues to hold contacts with the guarantor powers.

Prodromou recalled that the UNSG considers that there must be good preparation before the resumption of the negotiations, something which Anastasiades has welcomed and considers as very important, “because we do not want what happened during the last Conference on Cyprus to be repeated.”

He added that there was continuous and very close coordination with the Greek government and that Anastasiades will hold meetings with the Greek prime minister and president and most probably with the head of the Greek opposition next week in Athens where he will be attending the EU -Arab States Summit.

Prodromou also said that Turkey’s latest claims in the letter to the UN claiming among other things that GCs carried out armed ethnic cleansing against TCs between 1963 and 1974 would not go unanswered and the issue is being handled by the foreign affairs ministry. “We are talking about yet another unacceptable, unhistoric and groundless action by Turkey in its attempt to create distractions and a climate of tension, or even justify the occupation of Cyprus,” Prodromou said.

KEY ACTORS
Prodromou
>>
Guterres is the one to decide what the next steps on the Cyprob will be & discuss them with the two leaders at the trilateral in Berlin.
>> Anastasiades has the political will and wants the resumption of substantive negotiations within the appropriate climate but expects a change in the Turkish stance which has prevented progress during the last two years.


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