We are pursuing the prevalence of international legality as the only guarantee to secure peace in our region, said Presidential Commissioner Photis Photiou, during a gathering entitled “The Mediterranean a sea of peace and culture – Cyprus among the cultures of the Mediterranean”, held in Rome.
Addressing the gathering, in a speech read by Cyprus’ Ambassador to Italy, George Christofides, Photiou said that Cyprus, with its unique geographic position, has developed a mosaic of different cultures that shaped over the time, a distinct cultural identity with a history of 11 thousand years.
Photiou said Turkey’s aggressiveness and revisionist stance as well as its leadership’s arrogance, affects not only efforts to solve the Cyprus problem but also creates tension with its aspirations in the coastal areas of other states such as Libya recently and Greece, disregarding international law and the principles of peaceful co-existence and states neighbourliness.
And all this, he added, while all states in the Eastern Mediterranean are pursuing through cooperation and bilateral or multilateral agreements, to formulate permanent conditions for stability and development, establishing regional security and peace in the region as well as the welfare of their states.
“We want the sea to unite us, not to divide us”, he said, adding that “we want and are pursuing the prevalence of international legality as the only guarantee for securing peace in our region.”
Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkey invaded and occupied its northern third. Repeated rounds of UN-led peace talks have so far failed to yield results. The latest round of negotiations, in July 2017 at the Swiss resort of Crans-Montana ended inconclusively.
Source: Cyprus News Agency