LEFT-WING CHALLENGER PROMISES CLOSE RELATIONS WITH

C O N F I D E N T I A L NICOSIA 000094

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR EUR/SE

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/06/2023
TAGS: PGOV PREL UNFICYP CY TU
SUBJECT: LEFT-WING CHALLENGER PROMISES CLOSE RELATIONS WITH
U.S.

REF: NICOSIA 91

Classified By: Ambassador Ronald Schlicher, Reasons 1.4 (b),(d)


1. (C) SUMMARY: AKEL (Communist) Secretary General and
presidential candidate Dimitris Christofias promises his
administration will seek and value close relations with the
United States. Only with U.S. and UK input and support could
Cyprus reunify, he told the Ambassador February 5; while
relations with Washington had improved in recent years,
official ties with London were strained. Turning to the
campaign, Christofias, running a close second in most polls,
voiced optimism over his February 17 prospects. No longer
did Cypriots fear a government from the left, he asserted.
From the left, but not leftist -- his team would pursue
concrete results, not follow strict ideology. Regarding the
Cyprus Problem, Christofias repeated his assertion that, of
the three principal candidates, only he possessed strong
links to Turkish Cypriot parties and individuals, vital to
reaching agreement or even re-starting serious negotiations.
END SUMMARY.

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Up with America, Down with Britain?
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2. (C) On Stop 2 on our final tour of party headquarters
before the February 17 presidential first round (Reftel),the
Ambassador February 5 visited Dimitris Christofias. The AKEL
Secretary General was as warm and friendly as usual, but

SIPDIS
unexpectedly less guarded. In response to the Ambassador's
primary points -- that the United States favored no candidate
and was intent on working closely with whoever emerged
victorious, and that the Cypriots and international community
needed to move ahead quickly after the elections --
Christofias asserted that his administration aimed to bolster
bilateral ties between Cyprus and the U.S., "the world
superpower." Relations had improved since their post-Annan
Plan trough, and he intended to ensure the trend continued
upward. A Cyprus settlement depended on the contributions
and support of the United States and Great Britain,
Christofias reckoned, mandating that Nicosia pay close
attention to these relationships. But while dealings with
Washington trended upward, the opposite unfortunately rang
true with London.


3. (C) Close commercial, educational, cultural, and blood
connections should ensure that official Cyprus and Britain
worked well together, Christofias thought. Yet Her Majesty's
Government, or the Foreign Office at least, remained mired in
the mid-50s, the period of Cyprus's anti-colonial struggle.
"They can't get past (Greek Cypriot guerilla band) EOKA,"
Christofias fretted, arguing that current UK leaders had
inherited their predecessors' prejudices against G/C
interests. The British ought to reconsider their current
policies that seemed to lead to a two-state settlement, he
reasoned, since "partition means the abrogation of the
founding treaties...and the end of their Sovereign Bases."
In hopes of changing UK policy, AKEL had urged its
sympathizers living in Britain to vote Labor as a bloc and
thereby increase G/C influence within the governing party.

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Campaign Advances, but Unhappy with Tone
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4. (C) Published polling shows Christofias in a virtual
first-round tie with incumbent President Tassos Papadopoulos,
and edging him in the projected run-off. AKEL's private
surveys showed similar outcomes, Christofias revealed, as did
anecdotal evidence from the trenches. "Twenty years ago, it
was inconceivable that an AKEL candidate could win the
presidency," he declared. "But we've succeeded in overcoming
these prejudices against the left." Troubling, however, was
the negative environment surrounding the campaign.
Christofias insisted that February 24 should not be a day to
celebrate victory, but to get to work on solving the Cyprus
Problem. To do so, he would need the support of each of the
vanquished candidates and their parties.


5. (C) Portraits of Vladimir Lenin and Che Guevara decorate
the walls of Christofias's Communist-shabby office. "But
forget the pictures you see here," he stressed to the
Ambassador. "I am a humanist above all, and want only the
best for Cypriots." The policies he favored were by no means
extreme, evidenced by his competitors incorporating them into
their own platforms. And Christofias rightly realized that
the only manner of increasing social benefits without

breaking the bank lay in growing the economy. "I want to
create wealth," he avowed.

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Must Define What We Want
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6. (C) The discussion turned toward the Cyprus Problem, or
more specifically, to the current negotiations impasse.
"Cypriots must determine what exactly we want," Christofias
contended. A unitary state was most democratic, but was
clearly unacceptable to Turkish Cypriots. Two states meant
disaster. That left only a bi-zonal, bi-communal federal
solution framework. Both the incoming RoC president and T/C
leader Mehmet Ali Talat needed to restate their commitment to
this model, he maintained, which amounted to a huge G/C
concession to the far-smaller T/C community.


7. (C) Only an AKEL-led government could deliver a viable
solution, he believed. The party long had fought chauvinism
and nationalism, on which the centrist and right-wing parties
feasted, and respected Turkish Cypriots as equal citizens of
the Republic. Under Christofias, the July 8 process would be
reinvigorated, the goal being a restart of substantive
negotiations soonest. The international community would have
a significant role to play both on the island and in Ankara,
where it needed to pressure the Turks to deal in good faith.

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Comment
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8. (C) In seeking these meetings with party leaders and
presidential candidates, we aimed to dispel persistent rumors
that we favored one candidate over another. Most of the
scuttlebutt concerned Christofias -- specifically, that the
Embassy abhored the idea of a Communist in power, and would
support the one candidate who might defeat him: Tassos
Papadopoulos. While the tributes to Latin American and
Russian revolutionaries papering his walls do give us pause,
Christofias has taken pains to emphasize that an AKEL-led
government would be more inclusive and less ideologically
rigid than the party itself; hence his promise in the first
debate to appoint a finance minister "of broad acceptance,"
and his commitment to us to seek closer bilateral relations.
We're not so blind to believe Christofias will become a
pro-American free trader overnight, of course. But nor are
we ringing alarm bells that Cyprus verges on becoming a
Mediterranean Cuba come March 1.
SCHLICHER