The Anastasiades government is fully in line with the US and British attack on Damascus and their strategy and rhetoric on the war in Syria

AKEL C.C. Press Office, 17 April 2018, Nicosia

Yesterday at the EU Foreign Ministers Council meeting the Anastasiades government gave its consent yesterday to the text on the Conclusions concerning Syria, which express their “understanding” of the US, French and United Kingdom air raids carried out against Syria. The EU Foreign Ministers have in fact adopted the rhetoric of Donald Trump and Teresa May about “the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime,” something about which, of course, we have yet to see any proof of. In addition, the EU Foreign Ministers are claiming that the government of the country, but also Russia bear the overwhelming responsibility for the devastating humanitarian situation in Syria. By doing so they provocatively pardon and exonerate the “Islamic State” and the jihadist forces that have been massacring the Syrian people for several years.

One wonders why the Anastasiades government for a whole week was trying to persuade the people that it was not taking a stand in the war in Syria, that it did not consent to the use of the British bases in Cyprus for the raid carried out or that “there can be no military solution to Syria.” Yesterday, however, the truth was made clear officially. The Anastasiades government is fully in line with the US and British attacks waged against Damascus and, in general, with their strategy and rhetoric on the war in Syria. The Anastasiades government must now explain to the Cypriot people which moral and political criteria it based its choice upon.

It is also worth noting that the Conclusions which centre on detailed denunciations of Syria and Russia are very short and laconic about Turkey’s invasion of Syria in Afrin. In the Conclusions agreed to by the Anastasiades government, the Turkish invasion is characterized as an “operation” instead of being denounced in the strongest terms as constituting an illegal invasion and violation of the territorial integrity of a sovereign state.