Sunday, September 18, 2005

Greek Cypriot Blockage

Turkish Daily News - Greek Cyprus hijacks EU declaration on Turkey

According to this rather credible report, it is the Greek Cypriot government in Nocosia that is now trying to do whatever it can to throw sands into the machinery of the membership negotiations between Turkey and the member countries of the EU scheduled to start October 3.

This is hardly surprising. The nationalist credentials of President Papadopoulos are impeaccable.

He was the man that used the most irrendist and xenophobic language possible to defeat the UN peace plan for Cyprus in the referendum last year.

The UN peace plan, endorsed also by the European Union, was the result of years of diligent work, and at the end of the day it was endorsed by the Turkish Cypriots in their referendum.

These things should not be easily forgotten. Now, it has been the Greek Cypriots that have been sabotaging the efforts to bring the island back together again.

I fail to see that one should tolerate them sabotaging also the effort to achieve wider reconciliation and integration in the Eastern Mediterranean.