Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades expressed his determination, on Saturday evening, to persist that the only way forward in the Cyprus problem is to resolve it by peaceful means.
At the same time, he said that there are limits to any concession, to any compromise.
Addressing an event in remembrance of Famagusta, President Anastasiades said that undoubtedly what is happening to the city of Famagusta is preposterous. “A city held hostage, remaining uninhabited,” he said, used as a pawn in Ankara’s political blackmail choices.
“This is not a situation we have accepted and we never will,” he stressed.
Varosha, was part of the once thriving holiday resort of Famagusta, on the eastern coast of Cyprus, has been fenced off since the 1974 Turkish invasion and according to the UN the Turkish military is responsible for it. Repeated attempts to hand the fenced off area of Famagusta – known as Varosha – to UN administration and its Greek Cypriot legal inhabitants have so far failed due to the stance of the Turkish army.
The Republic of Cyprus, an EU full member state since 2004, has been divided since 1974 when Turkish troops invaded and since then occupy 37% of the island`s territory. The latest round of UN-backed negotiations, in early July 2017 in Crans – Montana, Switzerland, ended inconclusively.
Our effort, President Anastasiades said, “for Famagusta to be turned over to its lawful inhabitants is continuous and will always be a key goal in any negotiation for the solution of the Cyprus problem.”
He added that as he noted in his address before the UN General Assembly recently “the resettlement of people from Varosha in their homes, as United Nations resolutions provide, could constitute a genuine confidence building measures between the two communities of our country.”
Particularly, he pointed out, at a time when as a result of Turkish intransigence talks have reached a dead end.
If Turkey truly had the willingness, good will and good intention that it declares, he noted, then the return of Varosha under the administration of the United Nations would be a first step, a first indication of good will.
Instead, President Anastasiades said, “what we observe is a toughening of position, while steps are taken which instead of building confidence between the two communities cultivate a climate of mistrust and enmity.”
“We will not follow in their footsteps, as they seek for us to do in order to set the agenda, but at the same time we will not stand by and continue to put up with the hypocrisy of everyone who merely observes what is happening with apathy,” he stressed.
Referring to a decision by the Turkish occupying “authorities” to impose “tax duties” to the humanitarian help transported by UN convoys to Greek Cypriot enclaved he pointed out that “it is inconceivable for a violation of the Third Vienna Agreement, which was signed before the United Nations, to take place and for a suggestion to be made that the two parties must find a way to resolve the difference.”
At the end of the second phase of the Turkish invasion late in August 1974, about 20,000 Greek and Maronite Cypriots inhabiting in villages and townships primarily in the Karpass Peninsula of northeast Cyprus and in villages west of the city of Kyrenia remained behind the ceasefire line. Today, only a total of 437 (April 2013) persons remain behind the “green line,” of whom 328 are Greek Cypriot and 109 Maronite Cypriots. These persons are known as the “enclaved”.
On 2 August 1975, at the conclusion of UN sponsored intercommunal talks the leaders of the Greek and the Turkish Cypriot communities reached an agreement known as the “Third Vienna Agreement” addressing important humanitarian aspects affecting the lives of the enclaved.
Despite the Third Vienna Agreement, Turkey and its Turkish Cypriot surrogates have violated all its terms. Since 1974, the enclaved have endured conditions of hardship and oppression because of their ethnicity, language and religion.
A European Court of Human Rights judgement in the case of “Cyprus v. Turkey” of May 2014 has ordered Turkey to pay €90 mln in damages to relatives of missing persons and enclaved Greek Cypriots.
In his address, President Anastasiades also pointed out that he has explicitly and unequivocally stated also in writing to the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres that he is ready to return to the negotiating table whenever he wishes, at once, as long as there is proper preparation so that a new conference on Cyprus to be well prepared.”
“We do not wish to be faced with the same phenomena and to have to wait during the course of a day or a night to ascertain whether Turkey has genuine and true intentions,” he added.
He expressed his determination while he is in office as a result of the popular vote “to stubbornly continue to insist that reaching a solution of the Cyprus problem by peaceful means in the only way, but at the same time there are limits to every concession, every compromise.”
