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An odd exchange took place on Tuesday during a parliamentary summit on Crimea, when Cypriot House Speaker Annita Demetriou took issue with a point of order raised by a Turkish delegation member who criticized invasion references to the Cyprus Problem.
Demetriou was invited by Ukraine and Croatia to speak at the First Parliamentary Summit of the International Platform for Crimea that took place on Tuesday in Zagreb, a meeting aimed at calling for the return of the Russia-held peninsula back under Kiev’s control.
During her remarks, Demetriou expressed the Republic of Cyprus’ support for Ukraine and urged participants to be consistent in all situations no matter what country is involved.
The Cypriot House speaker said she could not understand how “a third country believes that they can use force, weapons, and their power to invade, to kill, to erase every legality and moral principle just because they believe they can do so.”
“In my country we know, in Cyprus we know. We experienced back in 1974 the Turkish invasion and we are still experiencing the ongoing occupation after 48 years,” Demetriou said.
The House speaker also reiterated her country’s support for Ukraine, adding that now was not the time to discuss where else international law and sovereignty rights were being violated.
But just to be honest
“We will continue to support Ukraine as much as we can, nevertheless we never had the same support as a country, and I want just to be honest,” Demetriou said, adding Cyprus could understand as “we are the victims of the same nightmare.”
Greek House Speaker Constantine Tassoulas, who addressed the summit via a pre-recorded video message, also expressed his country’s support for Ukraine against “Russia’s illegal and unprovoked aggression” and added Athens would never accept the annexation of Crimea, home of many cultures “including a historic Greek community.”
Tassoulas said Athens was committed to providing Ukraine and its people with political, financial, military, and humanitarian support for as long as it takes, adding that “a grave challenge and anachronistic, aggressive, barbarian revisionism which disputes international law, borders, and violates international treaties… must not be allowed to prevail.”
“Our position of principle is unshakeable. We defend our principles and values, democracy, inviolability of borders in Ukraine as we did in Cyprus for 48 years,” Tassoulas said.
Then Turkish delegation member Ahmet Yildiz raised a point of order, saying this was not the place to discuss the Cyprus issue.
“Mr. Chairman, dear colleagues, I [condemn] those comparisons between aggression on Ukraine and Cyprus dispute, this is a crazy thing,” Yildiz said.
The Turkish parliamentarian said there were six decades of negotiations on the Cyprus Problem, adding that “those responsible for the continuation of the problem is not Turkish intervention but the responsible ones who rejected the Annan plan prepared by UN and later rejected the solution in Crans Montana, thank you.”
“Thank you but we will concentrate now on the issue of Ukraine because that’s why we are here,” Croatian House Speaker Zeljko Reiner and session moderator said.
The moderator spoke as an official seated right behind him was caught on camera looking amused as Demetriou took the floor and launched a counter-response.
“Mr. Mustafa has no right to intervene and make an intervention and I ask for one or two minutes just to say I will agree to something, this is not the place, but we need to understand that we cannot read international law as we want,” Demetriou said.
“If we really believe in international law -and this is not the place to solve any dispute between us- we need to obey it every time,” the Cypriot House speaker added.
“No third country has the right to intervene, make an invasion, has more than 50,000 Turkish troops everywhere,” Demetriou continued.
At the sound of the gavel, which was heard but not seen in the video, Demetriou went on to say “so I will respect the place and I will stay until here.”
“What I am saying is that we want peace everywhere,” Demetriou said.
Earlier, during the first segment of the summit, Turkish House Speaker Mustafa Sentop told the audience that “Türkiye did not and will not recognize the annexation of Crimea.”
Sentop said Ankara would “continue to support Ukraine and the Crimean Tatars on both bilateral and multilateral platforms.”
"Apart from its strategic, historical, and economic dimensions, the issue is also important for us in this respect. Because, like all other people, the Crimean Tatars deserve to live freely and safely in their own homeland," he said.
Sentop also made vague references to other “serious problems” facing the United Nations, in addition to Ukraine, and reiterated Ankara’s position that “the world is bigger than five,” a reference to Turkish calls for reforming international organizations and expanding the number of permanent members in the Security Council.
Turkey has been calling for the next UN representative tasked on the Cyprus Problem to report directly to the Secretary General, thus bypassing Security Council politics amid an impasse on the issue.
Cyprus remains divided between a recognized south in the Republic of Cyprus governed by Greek Cypriots and a Turkish Cypriot north not recognized by any country except Turkey.
A UN peacekeeping force established in March 1964 monitors a buffer zone that splits the two communities, with peace talks so far between the two sides and guarantor powers -Greece, Turkey, Britain- having yielded no results.
