Cypriot President Demetris Christofias received visiting Pope Benedict XVI yesterday, expressing hope for peace and calling on the world to press Turkey on its occupation of the island’s north.
Their meeting, on the second day of the pontiff’s landmark trip, comes ahead of talks with the head of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus, who has angrily denounced Turkey for “ethnic cleansing” in the north and for seeking to annex the whole country.
Christofias spoke of the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus, which came in response to a Greek Cypriot coup seeking unification with Greece. Turkish troops remain in the island’s northern third.
Since then, he said Cyprus has been “experiencing the painful military occupation of more than 36 percent of its territory,” with Nicosia remaining the last divided European capital.
Speaking of the pope’s visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories, where he expressed distress at the separation wall built by Israel, he said: “I recall that you prayed for peace. May this prayer for peace soon be fulfilled in the case of Cyprus as well.”
Christofias said he was seeking a “just, viable and functional solution to the Cyprus problem” under the framework of a “bizonal, bicommunal federation with political equality for the two communities.”
So far, years of on-off negotiations with the breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus have failed to end the division.
“The international community must exert its influence on Turkey” to facilitate that, Christofias said. “Otherwise, justice and stability in the whole area of the eastern Mediterranean will be jeopardized.”
UN envoy Alexander Downer warned Cyprus’ Greek and Turkish communities on Friday that their destiny lay in their own hands as he left the island after a new spat between their leaders.
“I always say if it is true that the United Nations should not be an arbitrator or a mediator, it is also true that Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots are responsible for their own destiny, their own future and their own decisions,” Downer said.
Christofias canceled a meeting at the last minute on Thursday in protest at statements by Eroglu which he said called into question the whole basis of the talks.
Pope Benedict’s three-day pilgrimage to Cyprus is the first ever by a pontiff and his first to an Orthodox country.
While on the island, he will meet and pray with the small community of Roman Catholic faithful and also present the working paper for an October synod of Middle Eastern bishops focusing on the plight of Christians in the region.
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