Statement by the General Secretary of AKEL Stefanos Stefanou at the Monument to the Fallen and Missing Persons in Deryneia

 

14 August 2025, AKEL C.C. Press Office, Nicosia

Today is a sad day. It is the anniversary of the second round of the Turkish invasion that completed the betrayal and crime committed against our country and people. Fifty-one years have passed since then, and Turkey continues to illegally occupy a large part of the territory of the Republic of Cyprus, to violate the human rights and fundamental freedoms of our people, to  breach the UN Resolutions on Cyprus and the Cyprus issue, while at the same time violating both international law and the UN Charter.

In recent years, we have been organising this symbolic event here at the Monument to the Fallen and Missing Persons of Deryneia, first to honor and pay tribute to the people who rushed to defend our homeland Cyprus against the Turkish invasion. At the same time, through this symbolic event, we wish to express our strong condemnation of the ongoing Turkish occupation to express our rejection of any policies and efforts aimed at consolidating or, even worse, accepting the de facto partition, which we reject because we consider it a source for new adventures and new disasters at the expense of our country and people.

At the same time, with this symbolic event, we wish to affirm our determination to continue the struggle and efforts to solve the Cyprus problem on the agreed basis and framework of a Bi-zonal, Bi-communal Federation with political equality, as described in the relevant United Nations Resolutions and as agreed by both sides and contained in the convergences recorded so far and the negotiating acquis.

This is AKEL’s well-known position and I would like to reiterate it. In these difficult conditions of prolonged deadlock on the Cyprus problem and heightened intransigence and negativity on the part of the Turkish side, which is now officially promoting the goal of a two-state solution, the only way to achieve a solution is to remain consistent to the agreed framework for a solution and to seek the resumption of negotiations from the point where they were interrupted in Crans-Montana in 2017 on the basis of the Guterres Framework, preserving the negotiating acquis. We will continue this effort and we must continue it because we cannot justify the fait accompli of the invasion and occupation by accepting the de facto situation and partition.

Nor do we have any moral or political right vis-à-vis our dead, our refugees, the enclaved people (in the occupied areas), our relatives, the missing persons, the war-stricken people, all those who have suffered from the invasion and occupation.

But at the same time, we have no right towards our people, the Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, to accept the division and partition. We therefore continue the struggle for the liberation and reunification of our homeland and people.

14.08.2025