Nicosia will assist the UN Secretary-General’s personal envoy, María Ángela Holguín Cuéllar, in her mandate “in every possible way” Minister of Foreign Affairs Constantinos Kombos pledged on Saturday.
The Minister delivered a eulogy in Pera Chorio Nisou, in Nicosia, at the funeral of soldier Minas Antoniou Papavasiliou, who died during the 1974 Turkish invasion but his remains were discovered only after information provided in the summer of 2022, that brought new evidence to light as to his whereabouts.
Fifty years after 1974 there are still more than 750 missing persons, the Minister said. This is due Turkey’s refusals to open the military archives, that include evidence for most of the cases of our missing persons, he went on. With every occasion, in every international forum, the Republic of Cyprus protests for Turkey’s crime to intentionally relocate the remains of missing persons and destroy mass graves, in an apparent attempt to hide the truth, Kombos underlined.
He said moreover that terminating the
country’s illegal occupation is a top priority for the government. “We are working with sincerity and perseverance, in order to create the conditions that are necessary for the resumption of talks to achieve a settlement on the basis of the agreed framework and “nothing beyond this.”
The Minister also said that the UN Secretary-General’s personal envoy María Ángela Holguín Cuéllar is expected to return to Cyprus in March for a new round of contacts.“Our side supports Holguin’s mandate and will assist her in every possible way” he said, adding that a Cyprus settlement is “an existential issue for us.”
He said finally that a “collective apology” was in order for not being able to soothe the relatives of missing persons from their pain any time sooner, for not being able to put a stop to the invading Turkish forces and for “heroes like Mina”, who were faced with treason and had to pay with their lives.
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. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres appointed María Ángela Holguín Cuéllar of Columbia as his personal envoy for Cyprus, to assume a Good Offices role on his behalf and search for common ground on the way forward in the Cyprus issue.
Source: Cyprus News Agency
