Blame game in Cyprus

Commenting on the long expected and highly anticipated collapse of the Cyprus talks process, Turkish Cypriot President Mustafa Akıncı placed the blame on the shoulders of his Greek Cypriot counterpart Nikos Anastasiades. After, Anastasiades shot back with an equally blunt statement, claiming it was Akıncı who objected the modality of the talks and landed the process in a deadlock.

"The international community must see and voice discontent with the wrong attitudes of the Greek Cypriot leader that obstructed progress. It should not be only us to talk about this reality. In all our contacts we see that this [uncompromising stance] was understood by everyone. It is obvious that the preconditions put forward by the Greek Cypriot side cannot take us to a settlement," Akıncı said. Anastasiades refused that he put forward preconditions, re-expressed readiness to attend a Geneva conference to finish of the property, territory and guarantees chapters and after that to move on to other headings.

The blame game, a much accustomed traditional final game of each and every Cyprus exercise since the first talk in Beirut in 1968, cannot achieve anything other than a sense of self-satisfaction for those in executive positions. Obviously, Greek Cypriots are concerned that if the international community realizes they never ever wanted a settlement on the island and their entire aim has been to frustrate Turkish Cypriots and force them to agree to become a patch up to the Cyprus Republic as a "peculiar minority," perhaps the world might consider elevating the status of the Turkish Cypriot state. And that has always been the fundamental aim of the Turkish Cypriots: to show the international community that despite their earnest efforts, the exercise failed because of...