Erhurman: I will not engage in blame games

Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman on Thursday promised to not “engage in blame games” following the latest statement made in his direction by President Nikos Christodoulides on Wednesday night.

“Mr Christodoulides asked me questions and requested that I answer them publicly. The public already knows everything I have put on the table. Moreover, unless something changes, I will have a meeting with Mr Christodoulides on February 24,” he said.

He said that at that meeting, “he will have questions for me and I will have questions for him”, and that “I will answer his questions as always, and I hope and wish that he will also answer mine”.

“Many have tried to test my patience and composure. They have failed. I continue on my way with patience, composure, seriousness and determination, relying on the will of my people for a solution. I have not engaged in blame games and I will not,” he said.

His comments come after Christodoulides had said that “Turkey’s position is clearly for a two-state solution in Cyprus” and that “if this is Mr Erhurman’s position, he should say so publicly”.

Prior to that, Greek Cypriot chief negotiator Menelaos Menelaou had also offered harsh words for Erhurman on Monday, saying that Erhurman’s positions “mirror those previously advanced by Ersin Tatar”, his predecessor who had advocated for a two-state solution to the Cyprus problem.

Menelaou had also expressed his displeasure at an op-ed penned by United Nations envoy Maria Angela Holguin on Sunday, accusing her of adopting an “equalising logic” which places both sides on the same footing, despite what he insisted has been “sustained obstruction by the Turkish and Turkish Cypriot sides”.

Holguin had in her article noted that Cyprus’ holding of the Council of the European Union’s rotating presidency will “keep the government very busy coordinating the different issues and meetings”, and that this, combined with May’s parliamentary elections, may create “a political moment that ends up limiting the possibility of significant changes”.

The developments come after Erhurman had met United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in New York last week, with Erhurman stressing to Guterres that “what is important to me is not that the meetings are for the sake of meetings, but that this time, they are for the sake of reaching a solution”.

To this end, he said he “had the opportunity to share with him that we have developed our four-point proposal, based on his own frequently used phrase, ‘this time it must be different’”.

In recent weeks, discussions on the Cyprus problem had been dominated by the question of whether or not an enlarged meeting, similar to those held in Geneva and New York last year, involving the island’s two sides, the UN, and its three guarantor powers, Greece, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, would be convened.

However, a tripartite meeting involving Erhurman, Christodoulides, and Holguin in Nicosia held last month ended without result, and as such, Holguin announced in its aftermath that no enlarged meeting on the Cyprus problem would be held until more before “results on the confidence-building measures” between the island’s two sides are achieved.