Anastasiades lashes out at Averof, denies suggesting two-state solution

Former President Nicos Anastasiades on Monday staunchly denied ever suggesting a two-state solution, while he called former Disy party leader Averof Neophytou bitter.

In an interview on the ANT1 podcast, he was asked to comment on a growing number of public statements including from his former chief negotiator Andreas Mavroyiannis, that Anastasiades had aired the idea of a two-state solution in Crans Montana.

Though it was not formally submitted Mavroyiannis claimed, Neophytou last month called on Anastasiades to come clean over what he discussed with Turkey’s Foreign Minister at the time Mevlut Cavusoglu.

Specifically, he said Anastasiades and incumbent President Nikos Christodoulides (who was foreign minister at the time) met with Cavusoglu at the Peninsula hotel in New York in 2018, months after the Crans Montana talks collapsed.

Anastasiades responded saying he had briefed the National Council and pointedly retorted: “I don’t want to deal with bitter people. Bitterness is a feeling of disappointment it cannot guide political discourse.

“Despite what I hear, I’ve learned to keep silent,” he underscored.

At the same time, he called on Neophytou to look over his dairy and rejig his memory over what may or may not have been said in New York in 2018.

“I never discussed a two-state solution with anyone. What I did discuss and suggested because I could see it as the only sustainable and viable solution, was decentralising powers.”

Anastasiades also outright rejected recent claims by former member of the Greek Cypriot negotiating team Toumazos Tsielepis that Turkey had submitted a non-paper in Crans Montana, agreeing to the abolition of guarantees and the right of unilateral intervention.

“This thing I hear, that Anastasiades got up and left…such atrocious things from people who weren’t even there are sad to hear. Or that Anastasiades got up and left from the talks or asked for them to end. There are minutes.”

Anastasiades added that “thankfully Mavroyiannis is still alive and I hope he lives for many more decades to come. I hope at some point all these stories will come to an end which justify Turkish positions instead of Greek Cypriot positions.”

The latest round of presidential elections also featured in the interview, where Anastasiades was asked to comment on Neophytou’s hints that the former president backed Christodoulides rather than Neophytou who was Disy’s party leader at the time.

Anastasiades quickly retorted to say “what saddens me is that instead of self-reflecting on why we lost the elections, we’re trying to find whose responsibility it was.

“If he [Neophytou] was closer to the people of Disy, shared the sentiments of Disy then he would be president today.”