What the papers say

“HOPE dies the last” when it comes to the Cyprus problem, Havadis editor Başaran Düzgün said in a column this week.

Writing on Tuesday, he said the resignation as Özdil Nami as Turkish Cypriot peace talks negotiator to become a government minister had been seen as the abandonment of “hope concerning the talks”, and he quoted the response of President Mustafa Akıncı that “we can’t go talking for another 50 years”, adding: “I shall not appoint a new negotiator.”

Mr Düzgün said: “According to Akıncı what needs to be negotiated, has been; talks have been concluded — now is the time to show will and make a decision.”

Reflecting on Sunday’s presidential election run-off, in which incumbent Nicos Anastasiades beat Akel communist party-backed challenger Stavros Malas, he added: “We tried to evaluate the elections in the South by taking the Cyprus problem as our focal point and I guess we made a mistake. As we are very fond of saying: ‘Nothing new on the Southern front.’

“The Greek Cypriot electorate seems to be determined to make Akel pay for the [Demetris] Christofias era . . . remembered for his disastrous management of the country as well as for dashing the hopes . . . of his will to solve the Cyprus problem.”

Mr Düzgün said Turkish Cypriots liked to characterise the South’s two main parties, Akel and the conservative Disy formerly led by Mr Anastasiades, as “denial front” or “anti-solution front”, but both but were perceived as centrist by the Greek Cypriot electorate and were assessed more in relation to the South’s domestic politics.

Despite other challenges, he said, the majority of Greek Cypriots had voted for either Disy or Akel. “In the end Akel lost, Disy won. It is that simple.”

Turning to “the fate of the Cyprus problem”, Mr Düzgün said most Turkish Cypriots were as “bereft of hope as the writer of this column”.

However he declared: “But they have not abandoned all hope, because ‘hope is the thing that dies last’.

“If both sides give the most they can in concessions, reach a compromise and defend it, the gates of peace and hope can open in Cyprus. Otherwise we shall drift into uncharted waters.

“The issue will no longer be one of Cypriots, and Cypriots will no longer be subjects of the issue.”