Surveillance of Interstate Cyprus Property Case v. Turkey Secured, Foreign Minister Says – “Heaps of Contacts and Meetings with Countries from Africa and Asia”
After an intense and coordinated effort, with the valuable assistance of Legal Service secured the surveillance for next year, of case concerning its aspect of property in Interstate Cyprus against Turkeysaid today the Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr. Konstantinos Kombos.
In his statements to the journalists, in New York, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who on the sidelines of the visit of the President of the Republic made a series of contacts, stated that “in the context of the General Assembly, the diplomacy of the Republic of Cyprus moved on the basis of guidelines as follows:
First, we had heaps of contacts and meetings with countries from Africa and Asiacountries with which there is the prospect of strengthening relations and countries participating in the Islamic Conference, the Organization for Turkic Peoples, and also in the Commonwealth.
Second, we had emphasized contacts with European countries that are not member states of the Union, but have such ambitions or that have commercial relations with the EU and with which we want to maintain and develop our relations.
This was part of our approach to the Council of Europe, where today the termination or not of the Interstate Cyprus v. Turkey, the property aspect, was considered. Recently, the decision reached by the Ministerial Committee is not to terminate the surveillance of the case. This is not something that is now unfortunately taken for granted as an achievement on our part. Last year it was closed case of Titina Loizidou and this year there was a proposal from the Secretariat to close the case. After an intense and coordinated effort, with the valuable assistance of the Legal Service, the surveillance of the case for next year and indeed with four-state attitude shift always compared to last year’s period.
Finally, we participated in a number of multilateral thematic meetings on issues such as strengthening the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and the Middle East peace process.
Yesterday I participated in a dinner given by the American Secretary of State for transatlantic relations as well as in the Informal Council of European Affairs of the EU and of course there was the tripartite Greece – Cyprus – Israel and tomorrow we will have the tripartite with Egypt and Jordan”.
Asked if today’s decision on Interstate keeps the pressure on Turkey open, Mr. Kombos said “clearly, our arguments were both legal and political. On a political level, we think that a message should be sent that this factory-scale attempt to exploit the properties should be stopped, not that keeping the case and its surveillance in practice has any effect, but it is a matter of principle and a matter of political message. But in these matters for a very long time we have seen a clear shift in our positions, a negative one, which, however, this time we managed to reverse and we will see next time how our effort will continue towards this direction”.
Asked what the next steps are in this effort, Mr. Kombos said that “there is pending the missing persons aspect of Interstate, which will be in the Spring and a similar nature of process will be considered, and after September next year we will have a review of the issue of the aspect of property”.
When asked if the issue of missing persons will follow the course of the property aspect, the Minister of Foreign Affairs said that “this will definitely be our effort and we have already started working in this direction. It’s an even more important issue for us, as you understand it’s a humanitarian aspect as well and we will continue to push and work to maintain surveillance of that aspect as well because it’s something that matters both symbolically and politically.”
