CYPRUS PRESIDENT CHRISTOFIAS SAYS TURKEY SHOULD RECOGNISE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Maria Fili

Financial Mirror
July 07, 2009

President of the Republic of Cyprus Demetris Christofias has reiterated
that the recognition of the Armenian genocide by Turkey would have
a liberating effect on Turkey itself and would show that the country
is on a course of modernisation.

He added that the Republic of Cyprus will continue to support the
people of Armenia and the country’s government in efforts for the
recognition of the genocide.

President Christofias was speaking in Yerevan at the memorial for the
victims of the genocide, where he laid a wreath. He also placed two
white carnations at the inextinguishable flame and observed a minute
of silence, and then planted a tree at the museum of the monument in
memory of the victims.

Speaking after the ceremony, President Christofias said it was
unacceptable that Turkey, which is aspiring to become an EU member
and wishes to create a modern state, continues to refuse to recognise
the genocide.

He noted that Cyprus is continuing its own struggle to reunite the
island, which has been divided since the 1974 Turkish invasion, and
wishes to cultivate good neighbourly relations with Turkey, which
should modernise its home and foreign policy in order to join the EU.

President Christofias also signed the book of condolences at
the memorial, in which he wrote that the condemnation of the
Armenian genocide was a duty of the modern world in its whole