Day: September 16, 2021

It is very likely that a meeting between the UN Secretary – General, Antonio Guterres, and the two leaders in Cyprus, namely Cyprus President, Nicos Anastasiades, and Turkish Cypriot leader, Ersin Tatar, will take place later this month in New York, diplomatic sources have told the Cyprus News Agency

The diplomatic sources noted that it should be expected that Guterres will make use of the opportunity provided by the fact that both Anastasiades and Tatar will be present in New York, and that he will seek to have a joint meeting with them, with a view to discuss the current situation in the Cyprus problem. Guterres will also hold separate meetings with the two leaders.

Source: Cyprus News Agency

Cyprus Government considers the Summit of the nine southern EU countries (EUMed) that will take place on Friday in Athens as particularly important. The Summit will be extended with the participation for the first time of Croatia and Slovenia, beyond the countries of the Med7 group (Cyprus, Greece, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Malta).

As CNA has learnt, the President of the Republic, Nicos Anastasiades, will utilise the Summit and the meetings on the sidelines, in order to discuss issues of European interest, but also issues of security and cooperation in the region.

Source: Cyprus News Agency

Another attempt by Turkey to close the supervision of a case, concerning the property rights of Titina Loizidou, a Greek Cypriot with property in Turkish-occupied Kyrenia, proved futile on Thursday, as the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe decided to pursue its oversight role. The same body, sitting in Strasbourg on September 14-16, also decided to adopt an interim resolution concerning the damages Turkey has been called by the ECHR to pay to relatives of Greek Cypriot missing persons and to enclaved Greek Cypriots living in the Karpas peninsula, in the northeastern tip of Cyprus.

Diplomatic sources told CNA that member states were not persuaded during the session that Turkey did everything in its power to enforce a 1998 ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for the restitution of the applicant’s rights.

Source: Cyprus News Agency

The message that no matter how many years go by, the Republic of Cyprus will continue to hunt looters who stole works of cultural and religious significance from Turkish occupied north of Cyprus, was conveyed during a ceremony on Thursday where the Antiquities department handed over to Archbishop Chrysostomos the Royal iconostasis Doors of Agios Anastasios in the Turkish occupied Peristeronopigi village.

The Royal iconostasis doors were returned to Cyprus last month after extensive efforts that intensified in the last two years, thus concluding one of the most renowned and at the same time complex cases of repatriation. The Royal iconostasis doors were located in Japan in the 1990s at the Kanazawa College of Art.

Source: Cyprus News Agency

Austria on Thursday sent clear and sound messages that it stands by Cyprus and shows full solidarity as regards the migration influxes from Turkey and as regards the Cyprus peace negotiations and Turkish occupied Varosha.

Austria’s Minister for the European Union and Constitution Karoline Edtstadler was received by Cyprus’ FM Nikos Christodoulides in Nicosia with whom she discussed apart from migration and the Cyprus reunification talks, the forthcoming General Affairs Council to be held in September, the pandemic, EU’s relations with third countries, including with Turkey, and current issues of special interest such as enlargement and the Conference on the Future of Europe.

Christodoulides signed the “Alpbach Declaration on the Future of Europe”, already signed by Austria, Ireland, Greece, Hungary and Spain.

Source: Cyprus News Agency