In
a provocative decision the authorities of the illegal state entity of
Northern Cyprus announced on Tuesday the opening of the coastal section
of the long fenced-off occupied town of Varosha (Famagusta).
Speaking after a meeting in Ankara with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkish Cypriot official Ersin Tatar told reporters that "the coast will open to the public from Thursday morning."
Erdogan
welcomed Tatar's announcement as a "courageous decision" and added: "We
hope Varosha will entirely open. We are ready to give any support on
this issue".
"It is an undisputed fact that Varosha is a Turkish
Cypriot territory. The decision about it rests with the Turkish Cypriot
authorities," the Turkish President added.
The Turkish army has kept the town fenced off since its Greek Cypriot residents fled when it invaded Cyprus in 1974.
In a statement issued today, the Press Bureau of the CC of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) denounces the decision of Turkey, pointing out that this act reveals the hypocrisy of EU-USA-NATO.
The statement reads:
“The KKE denounces Erdogan's decision to open the Varosha coastal front in occupied Famagusta.
This decision is part of the perpetuation of the 46-year Turkish occupation of the 37% of Cyprus' territory and part of the dichotomous plans that have been hatching.
These developments reveal, once again, the hypocritical stance of the EU, the U.S. and NATO, who add grist to the mill of Turkish aggression, promoting strategic relations with Turkey's bourgeois class. At the same time, they [developments] expose the government of ND which entangles the country deeper in the euro-atlantic plans and cultivates dangerous complacency among the people.
Today, it becomes even more necessary to strengthen the demand for an independent Cyprus, one and not two states, with a single sovereignty, one citizenship and international personality, without foreign troops and bases, without guarantors and protectors, a common homeland of Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots, with the people being dominant in their place.”
