President of Cyprus Nicos Anastasiades said Thursday that Russia could not have expected Cyprus to disagree with Europe’s collective decisions. The President, who paid a visit to the Open University Cyprus, in Nicosia, was invited by journalists to comment on Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s statement that the governments of Cyprus and Greece have been “transformed”.
“The problem is to make a self-criticism over why some countries, some unions of states like the EU possibly took the measures. But at the same time I want to point out that when the otherwise friendly country – Russia – forced us to follow the collective decisions of the EU, it could not have expected that we could be the stigma of Europe, that is, those who disagree with the collectively decided measures.”
Therefore, the President continued, “I want to maintain the friendly relation we had with Russia and the gratitude, of course, for the longstanding position that Russia has maintained and maintains as regards the Cyprus issue and the understanding from Russia’s side that there are no options when international law is violated”.
It is noted that in his statements, Lavrov had talked about “transformations” of the leaderships of Cyprus and Greece, but also of Italy, which Russia “took note of”, despite the fact that it had traditional relations of “close friendship” with these countries.
The head of the Russian Foreign Ministry had been invited by CNA to give a reply to those who believe that Russia is behaving like other imperialist powers that violate international law and seek to occupy territories and change borders, a policy that affects countries such as Greece and Cyprus.
Lavrov had said that Russia has “always been very close friends with the Greeks and the Cypriots, and those transformations that took place with the leaderships of these countries, it is natural that we pointed them out, we took note of them.”
Source: Cyprus News Agency