Athens blunders over Cyprus solution plan

Athens blundered on the Cyprus issue after it emerged on Wednesday that the Greek government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis had mistakenly referred to expectations that a plan for solution to the Cyprus problem was to be submitted to them.

As reported by the Athens News Agency, in an interview with Greece’s SKAI radio station, Marinakis said that Greece is naturally optimistic, as is Cyprus and that the foreign ministry is waiting for the full plan, because currently there is a description of a broader plan.

However, he added: “The past makes us very hesitant and what we have heard from the Turkish president about a two-state solution is completely contrary to the desire for a solution.”

Marinakis said that “it goes without saying that the solution is based on the Security Council decisions, the bizonal bicommunal federation and the withdrawal of the occupying troops”.

And then he made the blunder.

“We are waiting for the final plan, its development by our side and the side of Cyprus,” he said.

Following the statements however, Athens moved to clean up the mistake because there were no new plans for a Cyprus solution.

What Marinakis had meant to say was that Greece was awaiting UN secretary-general personal envoy Maria Angela Holguin’s proposal to Antonio Guterres.

CyBC later reported that Marinakis was talking about the expected new proposal by Holguin to the secretary-general in relation to the next steps towards the resumption of the talks.

“What they expect Athens and Nicosia to consider is not a plan, but the secretary-general’s additional proposal on the process for resuming negotiations,” the CyBC correspondent in Athens Fanis Papathanasiou clarified in the morning.

Cyprus deputy government spokesman Yiannis Antoniou said that Marinakis was referring to the UN’s next steps on the issue.

“It is not a plan, it has been clarified that the Greek government spokesman, that he is referring to the next steps of the UN. We are also awaiting the decisions of the secretary-general on how to proceed with the process. This is a misinterpretation, it is not a UN plan, but the UN’s planning for the next steps in relation to the secretary-general’s initiative,” he said, after a cabinet session on Wednesday.

He added that for the government the important thing is that the conditions for the basis for a solution are met and always under the framework and under the auspices of the UN.

Holguin has already submitted her report to Guterres, and Athens and Nicosia are awaiting a reply on the steps forward.

In an open letter ahead of submitting her report, Holguin had said: “Now, we must think differently, remaining convinced that a common future would bring great opportunities to all Cypriots.”

She said that based on her experiences as envoy and “after extensively researching the island’s history”, she has come to the conclusion that “too many years have been spent in confrontation; too much time blaming the other side”.

“The status quo has created greater distance and lack of knowledge of the other, and this grows with each passing day. As a mechanism to avoid further frustration, without a doubt linked to the failed negotiation attempts, many people seem to have surrendered to the impossibility of changing the current situation,” she said.