The bet for the T/c leader is to continue to have the support that he seems to have from the G/c community. If Akinci's real strategic goal is the "freeing" of the T/c community from the bonds of Turkey and the just solution to the Cyprus issue, then he knows that he cannot afford to lose this support.

 

Mustafa Akinci’s election was seen by the g/c community as a positive change and gave them a sense of optimism. For others in the community it was seen as “not a big deal”. 

 

But even the harshest critics among the G/c’s saw in Akinci a moderate approach to the Cyprus problem placing him in a positive light.

 

Surely, whosoever was elected as the t/c leader, after the extremist Eroglu would give up an optimistic perception. 

 

The big goal of Akinci is not only maintaining good relations with t/c community but also having the support of Greekcypriots. 

 

Information from left-wing sources in the occupied areas are saying that Akinci is taking on major pressure from Turkey to stick to Ankara’s policy on the island. 

 

Akinci knows that he needs to be doubly careful. On the one side the t/c leader cannot “provoke” Ankara and on the other side he must try to maintain the support which he has from a large majority of g/c.

 

For the time being, he seems to have struck the right balance. The leader is frequently saying that the position of Turkey is “it wants a solution” and at the same time he also recognizes the damage that the invasion of 1974 caused to the G/c  community and the Republic of Cyprus. 

 

He is sending both messages of unity with the G/c’s and that he is not like the former leader Eroglu.

 

These are the messages that he is giving to the international community. It is not by chance that he has been invited to meet with the UN Secretary-General so soon after his election as a leader and that he has held meetings with other Ambassadors to the Republic of Cyprus. 

 

The “optimistic bunch” in the G/c community seems to support Akinci’s attempts and at the same time watching his movements without withdrawing their suspicions, since it cannot forget that Turkey is just across the sea with its own prerogative on Cyprus. The more progressive and optimistic G/Cs understand that (or hope at least) that Akinci really wants a just and viable solution, on the basis on resolutions passed by the United Nations. If we accept that Akinci himself, as a T/C, as a Cypriot, and as a person really wants a solution, then the following question seems unnerving: What if in the end Akinci won’t be able to pressure in some way Turkey, to back-down from its unacceptable positions? 

 

If his true goal is to find a just and viable solution to the Cyprus problem and his strategic goal is to “free” his community from its illegal status, in which Turkey has placed it and keeps it under lock-and-key, then he must be aware that he needs the support of the Republic of Cyprus and the EU framework to achieve his goal. 

 

There is of course another point of view that Akinci and every T/c leader who has passed through the position are playing a game to win the sympathy and support of the international community in hopes of presenting the G/c side as the unyielding factor to a solution. 

 

For something like that to be true however, Akinci would have to be unwilling to work on solving the Cyprus problem. But even the European Parlementarian Eleni Theocharous, who is against the bi-zonal bi-communal federation as a solution to the Cyprus problem, “holds” that the T/c leader “has good intentions”. That leads people to believe that Akinci really wants a solution.