A public spat erupted on Monday over the contentious Crans Montana talks on the Cyprus problem which collapsed in 2017, and whether former President Nicos Anastasiades walked away from the dinner on the final night, prompting a collapse of the talks.
In the course of a few days, the issue has drawn in former European Commissioner Christos Stylianides, former Greek Cypriot negotiator Andreas Mavroyiannis, and former AKEL Secretary-General Andros Kyprianou, each offering differing accounts of what happened at the critical dinner. The talks in Crans Montana were the last round of negotiations which have the Cyprus problem at a complete standstill.
Anastasiades has largely been accused of walking away from the dinner, while Turkey had shown willingness to renegate on many of its hardline positions. He has ardently rejected this version of events.
The spat began on Sunday when Anastasiades' interview was aired on Alpha TV’s programme “Tet-a-Tet”. He claimed that Stylianides had conveyed to then EU High Representative Federica Mogherini the Turkish side’s version of events regarding the reasons for the conference’s failure - a version placing responsibility on the Greek Cypriot side - effectively that he walked away.
Mavroyiannis: a ‘baseless Turkish narrative’
On Monday, former negotiator Andreas Mavroyiannis was called on to comment on the allegation, invited as a host on Alpha News.
Reading a written statement on live TV, he said that from the time of the talks' collapse “a completely baseless and unrealistic Turkish narrative began to circulate, even among our own well-meaning people - that our President left Crans-Montana and that this caused the failure.”
“This narrative,” he added, “concealed and overshadowed the fact that the deadlock clearly arose from Turkey’s refusal to accept two of the six points of the Guterres Framework, namely the fundamental proposals on guarantees and troops.”
Mavroyiannis also appealed for restraint, saying that this “public personal confrontation is harmful and inappropriate. It hurts and discredits people, questions their patriotism, and exposes others.”
Despite the tension, he expressed esteem for Christos Stylianides, saying he continues to regard him as “a worthy person and an important asset for the country.”
Stylianides: 'moral assassination against me'
Responding to those remarks, Stylianides later on Monday issued a written statement on his personal Facebook page, rejecting the claims made by Mavroyiannis and calling on anyone with evidence to make it public.
Stylianides said that “a political and moral assassination” was being attempted against him by a system “directed by former President Nicos Anastasiades, who brought Cyprus into complete disrepute due to serious issues of corruption.”
He added that “some people are trying, through gossip, to put words and opinions in my mouth that I never expressed.”
Referring to the discussion that followed in the College of Commissioners after Crans-Montana, he stated:
“I challenge them to release the Commission’s minutes and the evidence.”
Stylianides went on to say: “So far, I have not spoken publicly about the events at Crans-Montana. My silence was an act of national responsibility. If I am provoked further, I will decide what is best with the survival of Hellenism in Cyprus as my guide. I continue my struggle for truth and for a united European Cyprus.”
Kyprianou throws Anastasiades under the bus
In the midst of the controversy, Andros Kyprianou, former Secretary-General of AKEL, told Politis that Federica Mogherini, who at the time was the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, had personally conveyed to him “very different things” about what took place at the Crans-Montana dinner than those described by Anastasiades.
Kyprianou underlined that Mogherini was present at the dinner and had informed him that “Mr Anastasiades did not want to proceed.”
He also pointed to the United Nations notes from the meeting and to the report of Secretary-General António Guterres, published in September 2017.
“In paragraph 18 of that report,” Kyprianou said, “Mr Guterres mentions that, regardless of the public rhetoric of the guarantor powers, in the private and in-depth meetings he held with them, he found them ready to cooperate in overcoming differences to reach an agreement.”
Mogherini told a different story
Kyprianou explained that a draft of the report had been circulated to interested parties and members of the UN Security Council for comments before publication. Anastasiades, he said, “made no observations on paragraph 18.”
“I asked him many times why he allowed the report to be published as it stood, if his version of the dinner was correct, thus leaving the UN’s interpretation of Turkey’s position to stand as the historical record. I never received an answer,”* he said.
He further noted that since Ms Mogherini attended the dinner herself, “she did not need any briefing from Christos Stylianides about what happened in Crans-Montana.”
“In fact,” Kyprianou concluded, “the opposite of what Mr Anastasiades described seems to have occurred: Ms Mogherini, who knew the stance of each side, may have been the one who informed Christos Stylianides - as she had also informed me.”