Netanyahu ‘convinced Anastasiades to collapse Crans Montana talks’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convinced then president Nicos Anastasiades to collapse Cyprus problem negotiations at Crans Montana in 2017, former Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat said.

The talks at Crans Montana, a small town in southeastern Switzerland, were the most recent formal negotiations to be held with the aim of solving the Cyprus problem and were abruptly halted and never resumed in July that year.

News agency Reuters at the time cited a source which said that United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had “finally called a halt at 2am after a session marred by yelling and drama”.

Since then, many who were party to the talks have said it was Anastasiades who left the negotiation table, with some reports in the intervening years suggesting that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was involved in “sabotaging” the talks.

However, Talat has now pointed his finger at another major international player.

“The reason Anastasiades flipped the table at Crans Montana is because Netanyahu said, ‘are you crazy? Why would you include Turkish Cypriots in the government? Why would you make them partners? Now, when you are governing Cyprus and representing all of Cyprus globally, what would the Turkish Cypriots be doing there?’,” he recounted to television channel Kanal T.

He said he had been told this “by Greek Cypriots”, before going on to point out that relations between the Republic of Cyprus and the State of Israel are “improving”.

“The Greek Cypriot side’s rapprochement with Israel and its establishing of relations with the United States and the west is a first in Cyprus’ history, as it is also a member of the European Union. Cyprus was previously a member of the non-aligned movement … and therefore it stood somewhere between the western and eastern countries,” he said.

He also pointed out that Turkey’s relations with Israel have become strained in recent years, highlighting the Israeli raid on the Turkish-flagged Gaza Freedom Flotilla ship the Mavi Marmara in 2010, which saw ten flotilla passengers shot dead.

“As Turkey’s relations with Israel became strained, the Greek Cypriot side began to approach Israel and furthered its relations,” he said, before going on to speak about the stationing of western military equipment and occasionally troops on the island, with France and the US both occasionally housing hardware and soldiers in Cyprus.

This, he said, runs contrary to the Republic of Cyprus’ constitution.

“It is forbidden to arm the island of Cyprus or make military agreements with other countries, but the Greek Cypriot side is doing these things. Moreover, by not establishing any contact with the Greek Cypriot side and by leaving the field empty, we are paving the way for these steps to be taken,” he said.

On this matter, he said incumbent Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar has left the Turkish Cypriots with “no voice in the world” because he has not entered negotiations since being elected almost five years ago.

“If you do not establish relations with the Greek Cypriot side and do not expose them, you will not have a voice on any platform,” he said.

Anastasiades has denied that he is to blame for the collapse of talks at Crans Montana, instead saying earlier this year that Turkey’s refusal to accept an abandonment of the Treaty of Guarantee, which allows Cyprus’ three guarantor power to use force to intervene on the island should its legal order be disrupted.

“I will not comment at this stage on the unsubstantiated allegations that the conference was interrupted because the former president allegedly abandoned the negotiations, which is why the talks collapsed,” he said, adding that he would “address this matter later”.