Replies of Vera Polycarpou, Head of the International Relations and European Policy of AKEL, Member of the Central Committee of AKEL, to “Haravgi” newspaper

 

Sunday 5 November 2023

QUESTION: How do you comment on the government’s stand regarding Israel’s operation against the Palestinian people?

VERA POLYCARPOU: In front of the eyes of all humanity, just 400 kilometres from Cyprus, a crime of enormous proportions has been taking place for four consecutive weeks.

The slaughter of more than 9,000 civilians, most of them children and women.

Over 25,000 have been wounded, almost one and a half million Palestinians displaced.

Over 200,000 housing units have been hit.

Hospitals, schools, mosques, mosques, churches, infrastructures and roads have been destroyed.

There is no water. People are starving. There is no electricity or fuel.

Children are being operated on without any anesthetics. Cancer patients have been left outside the only specialist centre because Israel has ordered its evacuation.

Children are born wherever the mother can be found.

People stand in line outside the few bakeries that still operate to get some bread to feed their family and are bombed.

For the Christodoulides government and those forces and circles who support it, this is part of Israel’s “right to self-defense”!  Only that “self-defence” for the Netanyahu government means letting its occupying army, armed with modern bombs and equipment also from the USA, to completely raze Gaza to the ground in ruins, murder thousands of civilians and children, until it imposes a final solution of ethnic cleansing with the Palestinian people as the victims.

They hide behind the reprehensible and barbaric acts of “Hamas” against Israeli civilians to justify the new massacre being committed against the Palestinians.

The Christodoulides government fully embraces the rhetoric of Israel’s most extreme right-wing government, which citizens of Israel themselves are denouncing as an attempt to abolish democracy.

It chooses to turn a blind eye to the fact that history did not begin on 7 October and that the Palestinian people are subject to the longest occupation in modern history since 1967.

The Christodoulides government embraces the distortion of the truth and obediently reproduces the arguments of a government of another state.

The fact that Nikos Christodoulides saw fit to go to Israel after the Cairo conference [of Arab states], support and embrace Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu raises many questions. Equally questionable is Netanyahu’s statement that the visiting leaders, including those from Cyprus, “conveyed a clear message – namely, ‘not only do we support you, but we hope for your victory’”.

What victory does Mr. Christodoulides really support – ethnic cleansing?

Let him provide an answer.

QUESTION: Is Cyprus’ pro-Israel stance likely to cost Cyprus in the long run in relation to the Cyprus problem?

VP: The Secretary General of the UN, the heads of numerous international humanitarian organizations and agencies and representatives of the International Criminal Court are talking about a humanitarian catastrophe that is taking place in Gaza.  Others say that the Israeli army is committing war crimes, that these can be defined as ethnic cleansing, even genocide.

On 27 October, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution with the key demand for the immediate declaration of a humanitarian ceasefire and the uninterrupted delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza. 120 UN Member States voted in favour, 14 against and 45 abstained.

The Christodoulides government said it did not disagree with the content of the resolution that was approved, but failed to align itself with the overwhelming majority of the world’s states. It abstained. And it cannot put forward the easy argument as it usually does, namely that it is aligned with the position of the European Union precisely because EU states France, Portugal, Spain, Belgium, Belgium, Ireland, Malta and Luxembourg all voted in favour of the UN resolution.  Cyprus would not have been alone [if it had voted for the resolution].  This stance has exposed Cyprus in the eyes of all these countries.

Day by day, voices around the world are growing in number demanding a ceasefire, while this government and those parties and forces that support it are following a policy of severely damages our country’s credibility internationally.

This behaviour has been noted by the Arab states, the Group of 77 and the Non-Aligned Movement to which Cyprus belonged and until recently had close ties with, as well as the states of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference – all the groups that have supported Cyprus during our country’s most difficult times.

It is an illusion to believe that by obediently following the USA and Israel, Cyprus is protected. The double standards policy pursued by the US, Britain, NATO and the EU is something that we too have experienced repeatedly.  In Cyprus’ most difficult times, they will not the ones who will stand by us, but the genuine friends in whose eyes our country is gradually losing its credibility.

QUESTION: Do you think that Cyprus’ stance on the issue is in line with the position based on principles that a country facing the problem of occupation and colonisation should take?

VP: The Cypriot people, as a country that is a victim of invasion and suffering from 49 years of ongoing occupation, which continues to suffer its consequences, have always understood the struggle of the Palestinian people. Cyprus up until recently had been a consistent supporter of the Palestinian people to put an end to the Israeli occupation and for the establishment of an independent state on the 1967 borders and with East Jerusalem as its capital.

In 1988 the Republic of Cyprus was among the states that recognised the State of Palestine. At different times it has hosted Palestinian refugees, given that Cyprus and Cypriots know what it means to be a refugee.

However, with the intensification of Cyprus’ relations with Israel, at the bilateral level and at the level of the “trilateral meetings” [between Cyprus, Greece and Israel] and the “trilateral meetings plus the US”, the successive DISY governments and now those parties and forces who support Christodoulides have changed the principled position that Cyprus has always maintained on international issues.

The foreign policy of the Republic of Cyprus has gone from being multidimensional to almost one-dimensional, contrary to the well-intentioned interests of Cyprus. The secret negotiation of the agreement with the USA and the submissive implementation of the provisions of the “Rubio-Menendez law” have turned our country into a subservient to the interests of the US.  The militarisation of relations with Israel, the military exercises conducted by Israeli soldiers and commandos on the territory of Cyprus, the training in our skies of Israeli pilots – those who are now killing children in Gaza – has led to a downward spiral.

The abandonment of Cyprus’ position of principle is taking place before our very eyes:

How can Cyprus whose territory is colonized by the occupying power Turkey, which opened the enclosed city of Varosha, which has altered its demographic character [in the occupied areas], pretend that there is no Israeli occupation and colonization of the occupied Palestinian territories – which in itself constitutes a war crime?

That more than 700,000 settlers are stealing Palestinian land, evicting them from their homes and properties, displacing one by one the Bedouin communities?

Instead of remaining firm and consistent to the principles of international law and the Resolutions of the UN which for five decades have protected the very existence of the Republic of Cyprus, Cyprus is supporting an occupying power [Israel] that is colonalising occupied territories in violation of international law.

This policy pursued by the Christodoulides government means adventures for Cyprus and its people.