February 22, 2014

Cyprus is currently in an enormously difficult and crucial trajectory of complicated problems, the resolution of which requires calm, creativeness as well as leaning on principles and values. Cyprus needs and deserves a comprehensive and functional solution, the reunification of the island in a bi-communal and territorially bi-zonal federation based on the decisions of the Defense Council of the UN and the resolutions of the General Assembly of the UN  (such as 541/1983, 550/1984, 1251).  

The goal should be a peaceful Cyprus, the common home of all Cypriots with people sovereign. It should be a country that secures the human rights of all its citizens far from racial and racist discriminations. Cyprus has to become a country where all live peacefully with equal rights Greek-Cypriots, Turkish Cypriots, Armenians, Maronites and Latin Catholics.

Syriza supports every effort of finding a just and stable solution. That is the transformation of the Cypriot democracy to an authentic democratic federal Cyprus with sovereignty, one international personality and one citizenship, democratic distribution of responsibilities inside the multi-level system of governance and a clear structure of rules.

Syriza supports a complete reversal of the “facts” of 1974. Most importantly Syriza emphasizes the need for a Cyprus free from occupation forces and policies of population settlement and supports a federal Cyprus, with structures and institutions that will aim at the co-existence of the populations and not at their separation. The goal should be the real rapprochement between the two communities as well as the harmonic co-living and cooperation. Syriza considers that the right of the two communities and the recognized minorities to live in a sovereign Cyprus without guarantor powers and without external forces determining the destiny of the common home of the Cypriot people is fundamental.

Syriza supports a just and functional arrangement of the territorial issue in the framework of the European principles. Namely that the people have the right to live where they choose on the island and the goods will move freely on its territory. Furthermore the property issues should be settled in the spirit of jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights.

The Common Declaration has many vague points and grey areas. For this reason Syriza raises serious reservations for its final outcome. It is imperative that the negotiations will take place without external pressure, on the basis of the internationalization of the Cyprus issue and not by encountering it as a bilateral Greek-Turkish issue. On the contrary it needs the assistance of all the friendly forces of Cyprus and overview by the permanent members of the UN Defense Council.

Syriza will do everything in its capacity to prevent the use of the memorandums in Greece and Cyprus as a pressure tool for unjust choices. The genuine, uninfluenced expression of will of the Cypriot people has to be encouraged and all likely efforts of blackmailing or imposition of misleading dilemmas, have to be overturned.

Syriza calls upon all Greek citizens to support the Cypriot people and to contribute to the formation of the widest possible movement of support for a fair and viable solution in the Cyprus case.

The Press Office