Theresa Villiers condems call for partition of Cyprus

Theresa Villiers MP Press Release Tel:      020 8449 7345 Fax:      0208 449 7346 email: theresa@theresavilliers.co.uk www.theresavilliers.co.uk
Ref : Date: 11th November 2010

VILLIERS CONDEMNS CALL FOR PARTITION OF CYPRUS

MP for Chipping Barnet, Theresa Villiers, has condemned comments made by senior Labour MP and former Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, in The Times this week. Mr Straw called on the UK Government to consider a formal partition of Cyprus into two separate states. He also criticised former President of Cyprus, the late Tassos Papadopoulos for campaigning for a ‘no’ vote in the referendum on the Annan V proposals. 

Theresa said, “Jack Straw’s comments go against a political consensus that has lasted for decades – namely that the island is Cyprus is one country in international law and that its people should be reunited. The Conservatives have made it very clear that we strongly oppose partition. We have always supported the efforts being made by Cypriots to find a just, lasting and peaceful settlement that sees Cyprus reunited with its people living together again in one country with a single international personality and single citizenship.”

“Mr Straw’s article fails to recognise the pain caused by the invasion and the continuing impact it has on thousands of Cypriots who lost homes and loved ones. His comments about the stance of the late Tassos Popadopoulos during the referendum show a fundamental misunderstanding on the key to the success of any settlement in Cyprus – that Cypriots should be free to make their own decisions on their future after a full and frank debate in a referendum.”

“Jack Straw is a very senior member of the Labour Party and held office for many years in the Governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. His latest statement shows that Labour cannot be trusted on Cyprus”, concludes Mrs Villiers.

ENDS. For further information please contact Claire Dowson on 0208 449 7345 or email theresa@theresavilliers.co.uk

Fanoulla Argyrou and Leonidas Leonidou reply to Jack Straw

Mr Jack Straw, MP
House of Commons
London SW1A 00A
Dear Mr Straw

In your letter to The Times (8.11.2010) you presented no tangible arguments for your support of Turkey’s accession to the European Union.

The spirit of your letter and your subsequent radio threat of partition unless the Republic of Cyprus withdraws objections to Turkey’s EU accession amount to a gross blackmail reminiscent of colonial times practices.

In pursuing your strong pro-Turkish stance, during your time as Foreign secretary and currently as an MP, not only you undermine issues such as the military invasion and occupation of 40% of Cyprus, the ethnic cleansing and 36 years of violations of fundamental human rights and liberties by Turkey, but you also suggest a reward for the instigator of these injustices.

I hope you reflect on these points and reconsider your one-sided, biased and unjust viewpoint.


Yours sincerely,


Leonidas Leonidou
President of EKEKA
(Federation of Cypriot Refugees in the UK)
3 Elmwood Avenue
London N13 4HG
10.11.2010

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mr Jack Straw, MP

House of Commons

London SW1A 00A

Dear Mr. Straw,                                            London 10.11.2010

Your article in The Times 8 November 2010

There are indeed no ifs and no buts in Turkey’s accession negotiation process.

Your despicable article is in contempt of Law and Justice as we know it in order to appease Turkey. From one hand you are actually calling upon the British Government to commit illegal acts in defiance and violation of United Nations resolutions (541 of 1983 and 550 of 1984) which is unthinkable especially coming from a Member of Parliament  through a national newspaper, and from the other you are indeed “forgetting” that Cyprus is no longer a British colony to mess about as you please, your jurisdiction and free hand to cut and join has long gone since 1959…

Turkey’s accession negotiations are a totally separate issue. If Turkey wishes her application to proceed smoothly she has to abide with the rules of the game. Turkey has not fulfilled her obligations expected of her and the EU will not proceed with her entry negotiations unless she does fulfil in full those obligations. As simple as that. No ifs and no buts. Therefore it is not Cyprus’s fault, another member of the EU, if Turkey is stubbornly refusing to meet those demands one of which is the paramount need and obligation to recognise the Republic of Cyprus.

There are no two stories to the Cyprus situation as you wrongly claim. But only one and very clear one – Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974 and still is there occupying half of the Republic of Cyprus, an EU member, depriving 200,000 Greek Cypriot refugees from returning to their stolen land and properties and in violation and contempt of numerous UN and EU resolutions calling for her to withdraw her troops and 160,000 (or so) settlers she imported into the occupied area.  No solution without restitution of our properties in the occupied.

Your article is full of prejudice against the Greek Cypriots and their plight for justice. It is a venomous outburst which has its roots back in 2004 when you were furious with the 76% NO of the Greek Cypriots who overwhelmingly and DEMOCRATICALLY rejected through the referendum imposed on them, the racist apartheid solution of the so called “Annan Plan”. Which was based on the Turkish demand of bizonal bicommunal federation.  And you vowed at that  meeting in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on the 26 of April 2004 to revenge the Greek Cypriots, late President Tassos Papadopoulos and the Republic of Cyprus for not bowing to your and to Turkish demands to commit suicide to please Turkish interests and ambitions.

Your article also appear with disrespect to two major London Court of Appeal decisions a) Apostolides v Orams and b) the very recent one (published The Times 9 November 2010) “Flight refusal justified”  when Lord Justice Richards rejected the Turkish appeal for direct flights to the occupied area in Cyprus. Lord Justice Richards said that the granting of permits sought by the “Kibris Turk hava Yollari and Another” would constitute a breach of the United Kingdom’s obligation to respect the rights of the Republic of Cyprus and would be unlawful.

Finally no need to repeat the Cyprus Spokesman’s response that your pro-Turkish article will affect the very existence of the British military bases in Cyprus.

Yours faithfully,

Fanoulla Argyrou

Researcher/Journalist and refugee from occupied Nicosia

London.

c.c. Rt. Hon David Cameron MP, Prime Minister

c.c. Rt. Hon William Hague MP, Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary

Cyprus High Commission

Press

Letter to Jack Straw by the Movement for Freedom & Justice in Cyprus

Nicosia, 11^th November 2010 

Mr Jack Straw, MP

House of Commons

London SW1A 00A

Dear Mr. Straw, 

We refer to your article in “The Times”, 8 November 2010, to mention the following:

1.  Your principal statement “No ifs or buts, Turkey must be part of the EU”

We express sympathy to your pro-Turkish persistence.  After all, Turkey is paying a lot of money in promoting such statements.

• However, your arguments in support are unfounded, wrong, unjust and politically senseless.

2.  Your argument “Turkey (population 74 million) is now hostage to negotiations over Cyprus. (Greek Cypriot population 0.75 million, Turkish Cypriot 0.25 million)”

This is, indeed, the main argument of the Turkish Government itself, reconfirming that Turkey’s arguments and actions on Cyprus continue to be of British origin.

• No surprise, Mr. Straw! As a matter of fact, if you visit www.freedomjustice.com.cy and download the fully documented, bilingual book «Αιματηρή Αλήθεια – Bloody Truth”, you will be fully educated on the British/Turkish conspiracy against Cyprus since the 50’s.

• May we remind you, Mr. Straw, that against Turkey’s population of 74 million stands the EU population of 500 million, part of which is the Greek Cypriot population (820 thousand), as well as the LEGITIMATE Turkish Cypriot population, whereupon the conclusion of the Cyprus Issue according to the EU Principles (please refer to the Accession Agreement of the sovereign Republic of Cyprus in the EU, Athens 16 April 2003).

• Your invented figure of “250 thousand Turkish Cypriots” IS FRAUDULENT.  In 1974 Turkish Cypriot population was 120 thousand, TODAY is 80 thousand (the rest could not stand the illegal presence of Turkish soldiers and settlers and left their Country).  The vast majority of what you call “250 thousand Turkish Cypriots” is ILLEGAL SETTLERS, exported from Turkey to the illegally occupied part of the Republic of Cyprus, for the purpose of occupying the stolen Greek owned properties and change the demographic picture of the occupied area TO START WITH and, eventually, the entire demographic chart of the Island.

As you may be are aware of, this consists an internationally declared Crime of War.

3.  Your lengthy argument “the writ of the Government of Cyprus extends only to the south of the island, ever since the Turkish Army’s occupation of the predominantly Turkish Cypriot north in 1974. A UN “Green Line” runs through the middle of the capital, Nicosia, with the government of the not-so-far recognised “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” (TRNC) in control in the north […] There are two stories: one of the “unjustifiable” Turkish invasion; the other of such “violent oppression” by the Greek majority of the minority that Turkish protection was (and is) vital. Both sets of stories have truths, but because Greek Cyprus was admitted to the EU before any settlement of the island’s future it is their truths which dominate EU decisions on Turkey”

• This argument violates all political, legal and ethical principles, is cynical and degrades your status as former Foreign Secretary and MP of your Country. 
• May we remind you, Mr. Straw, that the Republic of Cyprus is the State evolved in 1963/64 due to the British/Turkish UNSUCCESSFUL conspiracy to abolish the existing State, the secession/self-isolation of the Turks of Cyprus and the self-abolition of the Treaty of Guarantee, that this sovereign State is democratically governed by the natural majority of its legitimate Citizens, that this very State is internationally recognized for the past 47 years and that this is the State, which on the 1^st of May 2004 joined the EU, as an equal member-State, sovereign over the whole of the island of Cyprus.
• May we further remind you, Mr. Straw, that the “Green Line” running through the middle of our Country was NOT originated by the UN, but by a group of British soldiers led by British Major Taggart, who on 30 May 1956 divided Nicosia into two with iron bars and barbed wire, calling at the time this dividing line “Mason-Dixon Line”. This was the initial “partition line” imposed in Cyprus by the British colonial power, which was completed (and drawn In green) by British General Peter Young in December 1963, and so called “Green Line” since then (see "Bloody Truth" Ch. B19 and B31).
• Last but not least, we also wish to tell you, Mr. Straw, that violent oppression indeed exists, imposed however by the illegal Turkish invaders, who violate collectively and day after day for 37 years the Human Rights on all the legitimate Citizens of the Republic of Cyprus (Greek Cypriots, Turkish Cypriots, Latin Cypriots, Maronite Cypriots and Armenian Cypriots).

Here is our own statement:

• Your overall approach is made purely for the sake of applying moral and psychological pressure on Greek Cypriots, in view of an anticipated repetition of the David Hannay’s “Anan Plan 2002-2004”.
• Forget it, Mr. Straw. Any such “arrangement” will be just another FIASCO.
• The attempt to abolish the European Republic of Cyprus and convert it into a Turkish protectorate under British Guardianship is, simply, out of the question.

So, please, do not be furious upon the -even stronger compared to that of 2004- rejection of the “Bizonal, Bicommunal Federation” conspiracy. Just blame yourselves for being arrogant and extraneous.  

Sincerely,

Movement for FREEDOM & JUSTICE IN CYPRUS

Panos Ioannides

President

Cypriot High Commissioner Alexandros N. Zenon replies to Jack Straw

Turkey, the EU and the Cyprus issue
'THE TIMES', Letter to the Editor

November 11 2010 1:01AM

Never has a former Foreign Secretary overlooked his country’s international treaty obligations in such a provocative manner

Sir, What is surprising about Jack Straw’s article (“No ifs or buts, Turkey must be part of the EU”, Opinion, Nov 8) is not so much his inflammatory positions but his lack of understanding of basic facts of the Cyprus problem.

Cyprus became a member of the EU after long negotiations, having fulfilled all criteria, with the support of Mr Straw’s predecessor and of the UK. Accepting a proposed plan for solution was never a precondition, hence the need for a referendum.

Despite his claims, Cyprus, never vetoed Turkey’s membership, but was not given a blank cheque either. The 2006 decision to “freeze” a number of chapters was taken unanimously by all member states, including the UK, due to Turkey’s refusal to fulfil her obligations vis-à-vis the EU and its member states.

While Mr Straw is ready to admit “Turkish Army’s occupation”, he did not condemn this tragic reality. Instead, he calls on the UK Government “to consider formally the partition of Cyprus”. Never before has a former Foreign Secretary overlooked his country’s international treaty obligations and UN Security Council decisions, guaranteeing the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Cyprus, in such a provocative manner.

Mr Straw seems to have anticipated the fury that his comments would cause. I am not going to ask him to “wash his mouth with carbolic”. After all, it is not his words that I, and thousands of Cypriot refugees, find disturbing, but his logic. Can he not really see that the consequence of his line of thinking would open a highway for his worst fears to come about?

Alexandros N. Zenon
High Commissioner for the Republic of Cyprus, London SW1

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