President Nikos Christodoulides will call for a “free, secure, strong, and prosperous Cyprus” during his speech to the United Nations general assembly on Wednesday night, according to the presidential palace.
In a post on social media, the palace said he will “refer to efforts to resolve the Cyprus problem and for the reunification of our occupied homeland, with the aim of a free, secure, strong, and prosperous Cyprus for all its citizens”.
Away from the matter of the Cyprus problem, it said he will “highlight, in this critical geopolitical juncture, the importance of multilateralism, collective responsibility, and cooperation in addressing common challenges”.
“He will also present the positions of the Republic of Cyprus and emphasise our initiatives at the regional and European levels, as well as Cyprus’ upcoming undertaking of the Council of the European Union’s rotating presidency” in the first half of next year, it said.
His speech is set to begin at around 9pm Cyprus time, and comes a little over a day after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan used his speech to say that a solution to the Cyprus problem “cannot be built on the federal model” – the model preferred by Christodoulides and set out in UN resolutions.
This, Erdogan said, is because attempts to find a federal solution to the Cyprus problem have “failed due to the intransigent stance of the Greek Cypriot side”.
“There are two separate states and two separate peoples on the island of Cyprus. Turkish Cypriots are equal owners of the island and cannot accept being a minority. The international community must end the unjust isolation to which the Turkish Cypriots have been subjected for half a century,” he said.
As such, he said, “I reiterate the call I made at the last three United Nations general assemblies”.
“I invite the international community to recognise the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and to establish diplomatic, political and economic relations,” he said.
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