Greek Cypriot leader Tassos Papadopoulos denied Sunday that he had deceived the international community by refusing to endorse a UN plan to reunify the island and alleged that the talks process had been riddled with flaws.
Greek Cypriots in the internationally recognised south of the island voted overwhelmingly against the peace blueprint Saturday, killing efforts to unite the island in time for EU membership on May 1.
But faced with a nearly 65 percent support rate at a separate referendum in the breakaway Turkish-held north, foreign powers have strongly criticised the Greek Cypriot no vote spearheaded by Papadopolous.
"Nobody took these talks seriously except me," Papadopoulos told a Nicosia news conference, referring to UN-brokered negotiations on the blueprint that restarted earlier this year. "Everybody involved in the talks were anxious to bring on board Turkey and ensure a 'yes' vote by the Turkish Cypriot community, ignoring the fact that the far bigger Cypriot community had also to be convinced to vote 'yes'."
The Greek Cypriot leader dismissed fears that his community would be punished for exercising their "legitimate, democratic right" in voting on the plan.
"When I go to heads of state dinners, will the waiter pass me over and not serve me?" he joked.
Instead, he appealed to foreign media to present the Greek Cypriot side rather than stick to the idea that "these are the bad guys, freeze them out." Rejecting criticism from advocates of a "yes" vote that they were victims of intimidation and media bias during a deeply acrimonious referendum campaign, Papadopoulos insisted that the debate was "calm and civilised".
He delivered a stinging rebuke of the UN plan to explain away the Greek Cypriot rejection of the deal and stressed that his government remained as committed as ever to a "viable" solution.
Major objections to the deal were plans to grant citizenship to post-1974 immigrants from mainland Turkey, limits on the proportion of Greek Cypriots allowed to live in the north and the funding of the plan, he said.