By This post is also available in: ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ (GREEK) TÜRKÇE (TURKISH)
DESPITE his burning desire to secure resumption of the talks, Prezniktwo is doing his best to ensure that the UN does not come up with any silly idea for bridging the chasm that currently separates the two sides at the Geneva gathering a week on Monday.
He has obviously identified this as the main threat to the seven-and-a-half-year deadlock that he genuinely hopes to preserve during the informal two-day, five-party meeting that will be attended by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
This is why for the last few weeks, at every opportunity, he and his spokesmen repeat the ‘xekathari’ (crystal clear) position that “anything that deviates from the agreed framework of the UN is in no way up for discussion.” Apart from the agreed framework, he also wants the settlement to be based on the “values and principles of the EU.”
And the second verse of this tedious tune is that Nicosia’s objective is for talks to resume from the point they ended in 2017. It was the point at which the younger Nik urged older Nik, who did not need any persuading, to walk out because if they stayed they would come perilously close to a settlement that would wreck their respective career plans.
THE PREZ pestered Guterres for months to appoint a special envoy to help secure a resumption of the talks. After six months of efforts, the envoy failed, but Guterres, for unknown reasons, invited Prezniktwo and Ersin Tatar to New York and told them to agree to the opening of the Mia Milia crossing point as a confidence-building measure before a five-party meeting.
They failed to agree because the Prez demanded the opening of another two crossings as well as other measures, aware that Tatar would never agree to them. But the informal meeting was not abandoned by Guterres despite the failure to even agree on the opening of a crossing.
This is what is really worrying our Prez – the determination of the UNSG to find a breakthrough, which is the last thing he would want. Turkey may have signalled to the UN that it could be willing to be more flexible, hence the decision to hold the Geneva meeting.
Our Prez is terrified of the possibility that Guterres might get Turkey to move from its two-state position and ask him – God forbid – to show some flexibility that would lead to a new process that he wants to avoid at all costs. Like his predecessor, he loves being the Prez of the Cyprus Republic and is happy to give up half of Kyproulla to Turkey to safeguard this privilege.
IT IS NOT only Prezniktwo’s position that talks must stay within the agreed framework. “Anything that deviates from the agreed framework is in no way up for discussion and I am pleased because this is also the position of the international community.”
Who exactly represents the international community? Did Donald Trump’s associate, who is on friendly terms with our Nik, tell him that Trump opposes any deviation from the agreed framework? I would bet not one member of the so-called “international community” has a clue what the agreed framework is or would give a damn if there was any deviation from it.
THE PRESIDENCY of Nik II cannot stop writing history. In the last seven days, we witnessed two more historic events, according to our Prez who likes to point out the historical significance of things happening in Kyproulla.
On Tuesday there was the “historic” visit of King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands. We also had the “historic” visit, a day later, of the deputy prime minister and foreign minister of Kazakhstan Murat Nurtleu.
And on Friday the Prez met the commander of the Sixth Fleet of US Navy, Vice Admiral Jeffrey Anderson at the presidential palace, but that visit was not deemed historical. It had another significance according to the Prez.
Through cooperation with the US, “we are sending a very powerful message to all countries of our region, but also to countries not in our region, but that are interested in our region,” said the Prez without informing us what the powerful message was.
POOR old Dr Christina Yiannaki, the perm sec of the health ministry, will not be getting the well-paid job she had been offered at the Health Insurance Organisation (HIO) when she retires at the end of the month because the job offer was withdrawn by public demand.
The media-generated outcry against the employment of Dr Christina immediately after her retirement by another state organisation must have terrified our people-pleasing government which issued instructions to the HIO board to cancel the appointment.
President of the board Stavros Michael announced on Thursday that administering the scheme for sending patients abroad (Dr Yiannaki’s empire) which would have been run by her at the HIO would now stay under the authority of the health ministry until October when he hoped the HIO would finally get its act together.
He did not say whether Dr Christina would be hired in October to run the scheme, when the public fury sparked by Kyproulla’s angriest man in his Phil column, would have died down. I suspect there is some plan for her comeback, and it was probably discussed at the fashionable Nicosia eatery at which the good doctor, universally loved by our politicians, was seen having a tete a tete lunch with the health minister on Thursday.
THIS was not the only issue on which our people-pleasing government was forced to take action because of public demand. A day earlier it sacked the entire board of the English School because some of its members had pressured the headmaster into admitting a kid who had failed the entry exams to the school.
What made matters worse was that the kid’s parent was a member of the board, several members of which, including the chairperson, had demanded that the headmaster admitted the kid. This would not have been a big deal, considering the headmaster had the discretionary power to give the kid a place.
This trivial matter was treated as a colossal scandal by social media warriors and the government acted with untypical decisiveness, sacking all members and appointing a new board within hours.
Given the way one of the new members was appointed suggested that Prezniktwo and his missus did not have many friends or relatives who wanted to sit on the English School board. One appointee, for example, received a phone call on Wednesday evening and was asked if he would he like to be appointed to the English School board.
He was told his name was found from an application he had made to the farcical ‘gnomodotiko’ council, a couple of years ago, that was set up to forward names of candidates to the government for appointment to semi-governmental organisations.
IT WAS not just President Trump’s journalist friend who expressed disapproval of President Zelenskiy’s attire for the televised meeting at the Oval Office 10 days ago. In a film clip, posted by Manolis Kalatzis on X, former minister, lawyer and blonde fashionista Emily Yiolitis also objected to the way the Ukrainian leader was dressed for the meeting.
“How did he go dressed like that,” she asked the man she was conversing with. “Zelenskiy was following the dress strategy of Varoufakis and Tsipras. He went dressed in a Maserati track-suit? What was that thing he was wearing?”
Yioliti had mistaken the national symbol of Ukraine on the t-shirt Zelenskiy was wearing for the Maserati logo. What was she thinking? That Zelenskiy had a secured a sponsorship deal with Maserati for his meeting with Trump?
AN OWNER of a Honda CRV received a call from the dealership a few days ago to take his car to the garage for new airbags to be placed. He told the caller that the car had no airbags and was therefore not a hazard, because it had been in a head-on collision some 15 years ago and he had chosen not to put in new ones because they cost too much.
The caller from Honda insisted that he took the car to the garage to have new airbags placed as he was entitled to have new ones, which was quite nice of the dealership.
This article was originally published on 09.03.2025
Source: TALES FROM THE COFFEESHOP: IS GENEVA MEETING A THREAT TO CYPRUS TALK DEADLOCK?
