Wiki Cyprus Greece not to fond of roc

wanderer


Joined: 05/02/2009
Posts: 1653

Message Posted:
23/03/2011 08:15

US DIPLOMATIC cables leaked by WikiLeaks reveal that the US wanted to “punish” former president Tassos Papadopoulos for the ‘NO’ vote on the Annan plan while the Greek leadership did not enjoy a health relationship with him either.

Kathimerini newspaper got its hands on a number of US leaked cables from the US embassies of Athens and Nicosia that have yet to make it into the public domain, publishing an article on them on Sunday.

The cables are mostly from the Athens Embassy and are classed as ‘SECRET’. According to Kathimerini they reveal the rather intense and “Byzantine” relations between Greece and Cyprus after the 2004 referendum.

Following the Greek Cypriot rejection of the Annan plan in 2004, the US sought new ways to reignite negotiations on the Cyprus problem. According to the leaked cables, on June 9, 2005, Greek Foreign Minister Petros Molyviatis had lunch with American Ambassador Charles Ries.

wanderer


Joined: 05/02/2009
Posts: 1653

Message Posted:
23/03/2011 08:16

Asked by Ries whether Papadopoulos really wants a deal, Molyviatis replied: “Papadopoulos is not sure he doesn’t want a deal.”

In September 2005, Ries speaks to Molyviatis in Thessaloniki where the latter confesses he’s having a hard time talking to Papadopoulos who was in Florida for medical reasons, adding, “I don’t believe Papadopoulos is avoiding me.”

Molyviatis expressed his frustration with then Cypriot foreign minister Georgios Iacovou, moaning that he simply couldn’t communicate with him on Turkey-EU matters and so avoided talking to him.

In September, 2005, the US embassy in Nicosia writes that “the Greek Cypriots have poisoned public opinion so much on the Annan Plan that every effort to defend various aspects of the plan appears as an Anglo-American conspiracy to benefit Turkey and punish the Greek Cypriots. Papadopoulos is using US support for the Annan plan to prove that he strongly defends Cypriot Hellenism.”

wanderer


Joined: 05/02/2009
Posts: 1653

Message Posted:
23/03/2011 08:17

The embassy proposed “changing our public discourse, putting less emphasis on support for this specific Annan plan and putting pressure on the Greek Cypriots to tell us what changes they want.”

The Athens embassy noted in one cable that every Greek government, especially under Costas Karamanlis, was “more afraid of creating the impression to voters that it doesn’t support its Greek ‘little brother’ than it fears Turkish troops in Northern Cyprus”.

Ries explains in one cable that according to Molyviatis, Papadopoulos wasn’t particularly popular among Greek officials and had more leverage over Greece than Greece did on Cyprus. He painted a picture where Karamanlis was keeping his distance from Papadopoulos and Molyviatis from Iacovou.

“Molyviatis believes and we agree that relations with Ankara are much more important than to be kept hostage by the negative position of Papadopoulos,” said Ries.

wanderer


Joined: 05/02/2009
Posts: 1653

Message Posted:
23/03/2011 08:18

The American diplomat concluded that Papadopoulos must feel satisfied sitting at the EU table, having changed the issue from Greek Cypriots rejecting the Annan plan to Turkey not recognising Cyprus.

On February 1, 2006, the Nicosia Embassy sent a cable seeking ways for Papadopoulos to “pay” for his rejection of the Annan plan, claiming “the EU is playing his game”. He proposes the EU “wake up” and convince Papadopoulos to sit down with Mehmet Ali Talat at the negotiating table. At the same time, he proposes “to find ways to cause domestic political problems if he refuses”.

When Dora Bakoyianni takes over at the Greek foreign ministry, she tells Ries that Nicosia was ready for a new round of talks though any plan had to be different from the Annan plan “even superficially” for Greek Cypriots to accept it.

wanderer


Joined: 05/02/2009
Posts: 1653

Message Posted:
23/03/2011 08:18

When a Cypriot ship was prevented from entering a Turkish port the same day she was meeting with Turkish officials, Bakoyianni’s feathers were ruffled as she had to find out about it via the news wires.

The US cables revealed that Bakoyianni wasn’t sure whether Papadopoulos or his close associate Tasos Tzionis were behind the ship’s attempt to enter Mersina or not.

When the US ambassador passed on George Bush’s congratulations following Demetris Christofias’ election in 2008, Christofias replied: “I’m happy Mr Bush doesn’t fear a communist Cypriot president.”

The same month of his election in February, 2008, Christofias reportedly told the ambassador that “Greek and Turkish Cypriots are children of the same land. My friend, Turkish Cypriots have more in common with us than with Turks... it is not impossible to bring the two sides towards a solution.”

wanderer


Joined: 05/02/2009
Posts: 1653

Message Posted:
23/03/2011 08:19

On Talat, he said jokingly: “Talat started his political life as a Cypriot. Then he became a Turkish Cypriot. Now he’s a Turk”, adding that he hoped to make him a Cypriot again.

In June 2009, the president said he needed something better than the Annan plan to convince suspicious Greek Cypriot voters to vote yes. The key was in the return of properties and generous return of territory, including Karpas peninsular.

Christofias described property as the “soul of the capitalist system”, adding that he wanted Greek Cypriot refugees to decide for themselves what they wanted to do with their properties. He noted that in reality, most Greek Cypriots would choose not to return to their properties on the Turkish Cypriot side

All quotes have been translated from Greek as WikiLeaks has yet to release these specific cables.

TRNCVaughan


Joined: 27/04/2008
Posts: 4578

Message Posted:
23/03/2011 09:35

Can we have a link please, for our GC friends?

ScubaBoy9


Joined: 19/07/2010
Posts: 87

Message Posted:
23/03/2011 10:42

It's been reported in the Cyprus Mail



http://www.cyprus-mail.com/cyprus/wikileaks-reveal-greece-cyprus-divide/20110322

andre514


Joined: 05/10/2010
Posts: 763

Message Posted:
23/03/2011 13:34

it is a very bitter pill for nato that not only is greece an unreliable nato ally,

but turkey too is now proving difficult



this is one-in-the-eye for those propagandists

who would have us believe that unsubstantiated conspiracy theories

can substitute for crippling political weakness and bankrupt re-conquest fantasies

relating to the cyprus "issue"



and despite all the hoo-ha the wikileaks cables are as much gossip as anything else

...noneless the greek "cyprus" administration must believe its position is unassailable

within the eu, since so many ponderous statements are made in their support

mmmmmm



Joined: 19/12/2008
Posts: 8398

Message Posted:
23/03/2011 16:22

Andre re msg 9



The info Wanderer is posting ( Thanks, BTW) is not new.. !



Greek wanted a 'yes' and better relations with Turkey.. it had washed it's hands of Cyprus - as it was in the EU.

andre514


Joined: 05/10/2010
Posts: 763

Message Posted:
24/03/2011 01:13

eu health warning:



with portugal's credit-worthiness on a knife edge and spain probably the next domino to fall,

we may well see the end of the euro and the eu as we know it in the next year or so



while nato stumbles on,

...having been responsible for safeguarding europe's freedom and independence 1945-1989

YFred


Joined: 06/05/2009
Posts: 1471

Message Posted:
24/03/2011 01:29

This is not very fair. You guys work my GC cousins south of the border to a frenzy and they take it out on my real friends. Stop it now, my fascist cousins south of the border are fine specimen of neanderthal kind and one day will be represented in every single zoo, not just in Cyprus, like now.

Groucho



Joined: 26/04/2008
Posts: 7993

Message Posted:
24/03/2011 08:17

YFred msg 12. You should be ashamed...

This is more like the dire rubbish spouted on that other site. We are better than that are we not?