They can only provoke laughter
Source: in-cyprus.com
If all the elements that make up politics in our country – production, argumentation, action, analysis, diplomacy – weren’t so entertaining and amusing, our interest would likely have waned. These days, there’s hardly any other… serious reason to keep us alert.
The word “these days” is deliberately inserted to hint that perhaps more serious matters existed in the past. Unless, of course, you feel patriotic shivers down your spine when the government spokesman announces that “the floating unit Prometheus has departed from China’s port and has now left the country’s 13-mile territorial waters.” If so, I’ll concede the point.
I might have understood such excitement at the next part of his statement, where he declared that “Prometheus’s departure represents a crucial and decisive step for our energy strategy. It marks the dawn of a new energy era for our country…” And this (albeit ten years after Lakkotrypis expressed certainty that “by early 2015 we’ll be selling our natural gas”), if only because Letymbiotis gets so thoroughly into character when announcing such nonsense that he doesn’t “allow” you to snigger at words like “strategy” and “new era.” Though “they can only provoke laughter,” as the late Spyros, that great comedian, would say.
The other day, I recalled other absurdities while reading Trump’s “a smart guy and he’s very tough” comments about Erdogan and his praise for Turkey’s show of force and manner of entering Syria, the country of our erstwhile “friend” Assad. Back then, as if he were a Foureira groupie, Kammenos, the Greek Defence Minister, was dragging our Foreign Minister (now President) through White House corridors, hoping to join other expatriates behind the barrier in greeting Trump!
I also remembered the late Archbishop’s 2018 statement: “If Trump wants to solve it (the Cyprus problem), he’ll solve it. That’s why I told the President to brief him properly, so at least if he decides to solve it, he’ll have the right picture and solve it correctly so it works.” Trump didn’t solve it, of course, though I’m not saying he didn’t want to. But I hope our then Foreign Minister and current president followed the Archbishop’s instructions and, through Ka(m)menos’s White House in-law connections, briefed him properly, so whenever he decides to solve it, he’ll have the right picture to solve it correctly so it works.
Especially now that our relationship status with the Americans is no longer “complicated”! Though Trump’s relationship with Erdogan during his first term was indeed complex – even if in Cyprus we’re accustomed to one-sided readings. When the latter pushed things to extremes, the former would threaten economic consequences, the latter would comply, and then the former would… abandon the Syrian Kurds!
Politics is admittedly complicated. Only in Cyprus do we stubbornly refuse to grasp this. Look how we didn’t even notice when we shifted from “isolated Turkey” to “Turkey’s enhanced role”! You see, there were also the readings of our high-level analysts, who had been riding high since the second half of 2014.
After the Cairo trilateral, an impression was cultivated that if we weren’t already, we could certainly become “masters of the game”! Turkey was already “cornered”, its relations with the “big players” weren’t good, it was just a matter of time before they’d put it in the dock.
Now, by common observation, “all roads to Syria go through Turkey.” Even if Christodoulides wants a… roadmap, which he claims to convey as a message from regional states! On behalf of whom, really, given that Syria’s new Caliph speaks of “victory for the Turkish people too,” while Lebanon’s Prime Minister rushed to Turkey to declare that after God, there’s Erdogan?
The original article: belongs to in-cyprus.com .
