Cyprus marked on Friday “Ohi Day” commemorating Greece’s refusal to capitulate to the Axis forces in 1940 and its victory against Italy on the Albanian front. Religious services and student parades were held in various cities across the free areas of the Republic of Cyprus.
President of Cyprus Nicos Anastasiades attended a service at the St. Barnabas cathedral, in Nicosia, and then watched the parade in front of the Greek Embassy, together with House President Annita Demetriou, Minister of Education Prodromos Prodromou, the Greek Ambassador to Cyprus, other government and party officials and the people.
“Today, when a merciless war is raging in the heart of Europe after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we invoke the glorious historical past and define the present and the future”, said the President of the Parliament, Annita Demetriou, in her statements after the student parade for the anniversary of October 28, 1940. “Our position, our responsibility and our obligation is to use every step to seek justice for our homeland and to ensure and protect our principles and values,” she added.
“Today we celebrate and honour the great saga of 1940, when the Greeks defended national freedom and together resisted the scourge of totalitarianism,” said Prodromou, adding that “today the Greek flag flies proudly, along with the flag of our Cypriot state”. Furthermore, Prodromou mentioned that Cyprus counted “more than 600 dead in that struggle for freedom and democracy”, indicating that the Greeks “defended the principles and values of the whole world, the principles that are the foundations of the united Europe”.
On his part, the Ambassador of Greece to Cyprus, Ioannis Papameletiou, said that “today we honour the heroes of 1940”, who “with vigour and self-sacrifice defended freedom”, as well as the Cypriots who participated in World War II. “Unfortunately, today Cyprus does not have the freedom we want because of the continued occupation. Our unwavering goal is the end of the occupation, the reunification of the island through a solution that will be within the framework of the United Nations”, he pointed out.
The Government has not stopped making efforts for meaningful negotiations, which will lead to the solution of the Cyprus problem within the framework of international legality, European principles and values and the resolutions of the United Nations, the Deputy Government Spokesperson, Niovi Parisinou, said, speaking in Polis Chrysochous on Friday. She also said that the goal is to make Cyprus a functioning state for all its legal residents “without guarantees, without occupying troops, without intrusive rights from foreign protectorates”.
Source: Cyprus News Agency