Anastasiades irked by Zelensky's failure to condemn Turkish invasion

The President of Cyprus Nicos Anastasiades expressed his annoyance at the failure of the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, to condemn the Turkish invasion of Cyprus during his speech before the plenary session of the House of Representatives on Thursday.

Anastasiades stated, "We did not expect a reference to the Turkish invasion today, although, there should have been one. What we expected today was to hear about the suffering of the Ukrainian people, however, we suffered the same in 1974."

"We are disturbed by the fact that there was no mention of it. The principles of law do not distinguish between states and the rights of some being violated and of others being ignored," Anastasiades added, stressing that "we followed the principles of international law. If there are others with a more flexible conscience or who can tolerate similar acts as long as they are not affected, this is completely alien to the principles that govern a European country and especially a country that has experienced and is still experiencing to this day the suffering of an invasion that was justified with exactly the same arguments and, unfortunately, on the same rationale which is non-existent."

Asked to comment on left-wing AKEL`s absence from the Ukrainian President`s speech to the plenary session of the parliament, he said that "it is the right of anyone to behave (as it wishes), people are the judge".

Asked whether the Cyprus government would remain faithful to its principled positions on the Ukrainian issue, the President replied "of course".

Asked about Zelensky`s reference to the "golden" passport scheme granted by Cyprus to Russian oligarchs, the President said that "the Council of Ministers today authorized the Interior Minister to proceed with revoking four of the 850 passports on the EU sanctions list.

A large number of Ukrainian citizens living in Cyprus and supporters of Ukraine had gathered outside the Conference Centre in Nicosia, ahead of the speech by the Ukrainian President to the plenary session of the Parliament.