The Parliament will decide on March 31st on the Parliamentary proposal by DISY that gives to the Ministry of Education the authority to decide on which anniversaries are to be celebrated in schools and how.

This legal initiative is introduced in order to detour the earlier Parliamentary decision, according to which the 1950 referendum for the unification of Cyprus with Greece was to be mentioned in the schools.

This decision was used as an excuse by the Turkish side, through the Turkish-Cypriots, in order to stop the ongoing negotiations for the resolution of the Cyprus dispute at least until the Turkish referendum, and blame it on the Greek-Cypriot side.

It should be noted that every year the Turkish-Cypriots celebrate with parades and other festivities the 1974 Turkish invasion, something that makes the their “sensitivity” on the above issue quite hypocritical.

Now, the Cypriot government retreats from its position, practically accepting the Turkish demand that the 1950 referendum should not be mentioned at the Greek-Cypriot schools. What will happen now is that, since the Parliament can not take back its initial decision, as it would look real bad, it will be the Ministry of Education that will grant Turkey its wish…

What analysts in Greece and Cyprus were afraid of is actually happening, as it seems that Nikos Anastasiades is reaffirming that he is of the opinion that a solution is necessary at “all costs” and that “any solution is an acceptable solution”. According to them, this mentality is set to bring new tragedies to the island, instead of healing the old ones.