26,02,2007

CONFESSIONS FROM FORMER GREEK CYPRIOT LEADER CLERIDES
“AKRITAS PLAN WRITTEN BY PAPADOPOULOS”

Greek Cypriot daily Politis devoted big coverage to Cyprus University Instructor Niazi Kizilyurek’s book entitled “Glafkos Clerides: a Period of a County”, where he conveyed Clerides’ expressions with regard to the Cyprus issue. The newspaper reported that Clerides had thrown a light on the political unknowns of a certain period.

Former Greek Cypriot Leader Glafcos Clerides stated that Greek Cypriot Leader Tasos Papadopoulos had written a big part of the Akritas Plan, and had always seen the Turkish Cypriots as a minority.

According to the Greek Cypriot press organ Politis, Clerides had never seen the Turkish Cypriots as a community or accepted to offer them any rights other than minority rights.

Clerides stating that a big part of the Akritas Plan was written by Papadopoulos, confirmed that in 1964 Papadopoulos by personally going to the USA Embassy in Cyprus, had said the notorious statement that; “If Turks try to land their soldiers to the island we have 1 and 45 hours to wipe Turks out of Cyprus”.

Clerides pointing out that the 1960 Constitution was functional and Turkey’s wish was also the functioning of the constitution stated that at that period extreme nationalists from both sides discussed the issue.

With regard to the 1960 Constitution Clerides said:

“In 1960 constitution all subjects apart from tax issue, which was one of the main subjects, were functional. Separate majority was need for elections and municipality laws. If the tax issue had been solved the government could have functioned. The Turkish Cypriot side did not approve the increase in the income tax, since it would bring an extra tax payment for them. For solving this problem, it was proposed that the government undertake the education expenditures of the Turkish and Greek Cypriots. The Turkish Cypriots accepted this solution proposal and asked for a protocol. The protocol was signed by The President, Deputy-President, The Speaker of the Parliament, and the leaders of the two communities and the Greek Cypriot side asked for a constitutional amendment. The Greek Cypriots request was emotional rather than reasonable, and the Greek Cypriot leadership ( III. Archbishop Makarios, Polikarpos Yorgacis and Tasos Papdopoulos) wanted to show to the people that the constitution has started to be amended. Despite to the fact that the Greek Cypriot received positive external view on the validity of the protocol, the problem could not be solved and 1964 events followed this.”

According to Politis one of the interesting parts of the book was the exposition of the 1975-1976 events. The Greek Cypriot negotiator Glafcos Clerides and Konstantin Karamanlis had accepted the bi-communal bi-zonnal federation.

Tasos Papadopoulos and Mihalakis Triantafillidis who also participated in the negotiations with Clerides opposed this type of a solution and Makarios faced with a dilemma.

Following the publication of the famous map, which Clerides took the initiative to submit to Rauf Denktas, Clerides resigned from his negotiator role.

The other interesting part of the book was Clerides’ words about Papadopoulos. He said Papadopoulos was caught in the act of calling various people to wipe Turks out, if Turkey carries out an operation in 1964.

“Yorgacis and Makarios also confirmed this. They told him to stop pulling them into a direction where they were going to be accused of committing an offence” said Clerides. Clerides also said that Makarios Drusiotis in his book referring to Papadopoulos’ visit to the American Embassy and famous words to the effect that ““If Turks try to land their soldiers to the island we have 1and 45 hours to wipe Turks out of Cyprus” also confirmed this.

Clerides’ response given to the drafting of the Akritas Plan was ;

“Whenever an effort was spent towards finding a cooperation method between the two community, Tasos was saying that the Turkish Cypriots should acknowledge that they were a minority and should not demand rights more than minority rights. Tasos was opposing to any kind of demand from the Turkish Cypriots which exceeded the classical minority rights. He never had a two community perception.”

According to Clerides the reason behind Papadopuolos not accepting the Annan Plan was the reference in the plan to the political equality of the two communities.

The writer of the book Niyazi Kizilyurek stated that “with the new conjecture reached following Cyprus being a full EU member, the solution momentum was lost”.