Last Monday the Athens newspaper Ta Nea reported that President Nicos Christodoulides proposed the opening of a Turkish port to ships under the Cyprus flag, in exchange for visas for the EU for Turkish businessmen. The source of the information was obviously the presidential palace which had passed it on to a friendly journalist.

Government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis, not surprisingly confirmed the report, saying this was the result of initiatives undertaken by the president with the aim of activating the European Union and utilising “EU-Turkey relations and the pursuit of the targets that Turkey has set and it is in this framework that these actions have been set – the Cyprus-linked obligations of Turkey that we must see, first, so that we can move to the second, EU-Turkey relations that Turkey desires.”

A spokesman of the Turkish foreign ministry described the idea of opening a Turkish port to  Cyprus-flagged ships in exchange for facilitating the issuing of EU visas to Turkish businessmen, were “figments of the imagination”. Like so many of the president’s initiatives this belonged to the ‘publicity gimmick’ category. Anyone with a very basic knowledge of the Cyprus problem would have known that the proposal was a non-starter, something that Ankara would never accept. So why was this meaningless proposal, guaranteed to go nowhere, leaked to the press?

It is another example of how Christodoulides has turned the Cyprus problem discourse into a publicity game, often featuring the EU. His latest proposal is along the same line as his other EU-linked initiative, soon after his election, for the direct involvement of the EU in the Cyprus problem process through the appointment of an envoy, something neither Ankara nor Turkish Cypriots would accept. Everyone knew this, but Christodoulides made a big fuss about his idea for a few months before abandoning it. Christodoulides’ latest publicity gimmick has a dimension that is certain to infuriate the Turks – the Cyprus Republic making a ‘visa relaxation’ offer on behalf of the EU.

The submitting of proposals that will never be accepted by the Turkish side seems to be the president’s favoured tactic. When he met Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar in Cyprus, supposedly to agree the opening of the Mia Milia crossing point, which was the understanding after their New York meeting with the UN Secretary-General, he went with another seven or eight ‘confidence-building’ proposals, including the opening of another three crossing points. He knew that two of his proposed crossings had already been ruled out by the Turks but he still made them, in the name of proportionality. The result was that none of his proposals were accepted by Tatar and the Mia Milia crossing never opened.

The making of proposals that will not be accepted by the other side is a throwback to the presidency of Tassos Papadopoulos, who was under the illusion that this would conceal his commitment to maintaining the status quo. And it appears that Christodoulides, who has as his national security advisor, Papadopoulos’ right-hand man – Tasos Tzionis, a committed rejectionist – is playing the same game.

It is more difficult to understand the thinking behind this transparent tactic. Is his objective to win the eventual blame game by showing the world that the intransigence Turks have been rejecting his positive proposals, made in good faith and intended break the deadlock? Even if he is victorious in this pursuit, the Greek Cypriot would have gained absolutely nothing – the status quo would remain unchanged and Turkey would move closer to cementing the two-state solution or annexation of the north which everyone in the Republic, including the president are, in theory, vehemently opposed to.

If Christodoulides and his supporters do not want reunification he could at least negotiate partition and secure the return of Varosha and the buffer zone to the Greek Cypriots. Instead, with his Papadopoulos era tactics, which everyone can see through, he will pave the way for the eventual formalisation of partition without securing the return of any territory to the Republic. That would be quite an achievement.