PRESS CONFERENCE BY CYPRUS PRESIDENT

Dividing the island of Cyprus between two separate States was not a solution that would ever be accepted by Greek Cypriots, no matter who the president or the Government were, Mr. Tassos Papadopoulos, President of the Republic of Cyprus, told a correspondent at a Headquarters press conference.

Moving straight to questions, Mr. Papadopoulos touched upon several subjects, including the abandoned city of Famagusta, ferry service between that city and Syria, and the current situation in Cyprus, where efforts at unification have stalled.  “The status quo is unsatisfactory,” he said, referring to the division between the Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots since 1974.  The dispute is among the longest-running problems on the agenda of the United Nations.

“To borrow a phrase, the Gambari agreement is the only game in town,” said Mr. Papadopoulos, referring to the 8 July 2006 agreement brokered by United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Ibrahim Gambari.  Under the agreement, the leaders of the two Cypriot communities would commit to the unification of Cyprus through a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation.  Mr. Papadopoulos expressed dissatisfaction that the Turkish Cypriots side of the dispute “had tried to get out of the agreement”, but said that negotiations must continue.  There was no alternative, he said, as the Annan plan of 2004 was so overwhelmingly rejected by the Greek Cypriot community.

The Turkish side could not just walk away from an agreement that they had signed with free will, said Mr. Papadopuolos.  “If there is an ocean separating the two communities, we must build the bridges,” he said.  At the heart of the matter was not distrust between the divided communities of Cyprus, now separated for more than 30 years, but rather Turkish ambitions to control the whole of the island.  “The root cause is a Turkish invasion and occupation,” he said.

Mr. Papadopoulos asked for the international community to exert pressure both on Turkish Cypriots and on Turkey to implement the Gambari agreement, and welcomed a resolution by the House Foreign Affairs Committee of the United States Congress in support of the agreement.  He was also positive towards Turkey’s negotiations on accession to the European Union, but said Turkey must be judged on the same criteria as any other candidate State, and not fast-tracked into membership.

Mr. Papadopoulos was joined at the press conference by Mr. Tasos Tzionis, a senior aide, and Andreas D. Mavroyiannis, Permanent Representative of Cyprus to the United Nations.  Mr. Kiyotaka Akasaka, the Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information moderated the press conference.

Reacting to a question that referred to a recent Turkish statement listing religion along with political matters as divisive issues for Cyprus, Mr. Papadopoulos was disapproving.  That, he said, was the first time religion had been included among issues dividing the communities of Cyprus.  “I believe,” he said, “it is ill-advised to try to inject religion into our differences.”

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