The initiative of the UN Secretary-General, the more active involvement of the European Union, the appointment of a European Commission envoy and the linking of progress in Euro-Turkish relations with the Cyprus problem compose a new political environment, Government Spokesman Constantinos Letymbiotis said on Sunday, giving assurances that the government will continue to make use of every window of opportunity for the solution of the national problem.
Letymbiotis was delivering a memorial address at the national memorial service for the heroes of Germasogeia, Panayiotis Tsangaris, Trofimos Koulles, Evangelos Georgiou and Sofronis Sofroniou, and at the supplication for the determination of the fate of missing person Christakis Agathokleous. He said that no people can effectively claim its liberation and reunification unless it first forges its unity.
"At a time when the initiative of the UN Secretary-General is under way, we remain absolutely committed to our effort for the resumption of substantive negotiations," he continued, noting that "with clear political will and assertive realism we will continue to make use of every diplomatic tool, every possibility, every window of opportunity".
Two international pillars working in parallel
The UN Secretary-General's initiative, the EU's more active involvement, the appointment of a European Commission envoy for the Cyprus problem and the "clear" linking of progress in Euro-Turkish relations with the Cyprus problem, he said, compose a new political environment.
"Two significant international pillars, the United Nations and the European Union, are being activated in parallel and are operating complementarily," he continued, pointing out that "this development is not circumstantial" but "the result of our persistent diplomatic effort and of a consistent strategy by President Christodoulides, which seeks to mobilise all available international and European levers in the direction of a solution".
We have, he stressed, absolute confidence in the justice of our cause, in the strength of our arguments, in the legitimacy of our claims, and in the universal demand for respect and implementation of human rights.
'A modern, normal European state'
At the same time, Letymbiotis added, "we have deep faith in the great prospects of this country once it is freed from occupation", sending the message in every direction that "we are fighting for the liberation of our homeland and we will not settle for anything less than a solution of the Cyprus problem that will make our country a modern, normal European state". "A state whose citizens will all enjoy the same self-evident rights as every citizen of a modern European state," he added.
He also underlined that "the solution of the Cyprus problem will be in line with the agreed framework defined by the UN Security Council resolutions and compatible with international law, the principles, values, acquis and law of the European Union", adding that "occupation has no place in international law, anachronistic guarantees have no place in the Europe of the 21st century".
Among other things, he said that those who invested in stagnation "did not reckon with the endurance of a people that refuses to give up" and that "those who believed the Cyprus problem would be marginalised did not calculate the persistence and strategy of the Republic of Cyprus". "And those who consider that the force of arms can forever prevail over justice forget that peoples who know what they are defending may be wounded, may be tested, but they are not defeated," he added.
'Present, until liberation'
At today's roll call, the Government Spokesman continued, our heroes are not absent, and today history calls on us to prove worthy of their sacrifice and "not to surrender to oblivion a single inch of land, a single name, a single missing person. To march united, until the roads of return open again, until our churches ring out free."
Memory may hurt, he noted, but "it becomes responsibility, it is transformed into strength, and when responsibility becomes collective consciousness, no obstacle can bend a people that knows its cause is just, honours its heroes and believes in its homeland, a people that does not forget and keeps fighting".
When history makes its roll call, Cyprus will always answer "present, present with the memory of its heroes, until liberation", the Government Spokesman concluded, before laying a wreath on behalf of the government.
