Author: Hakobian Adrine

Allentown Messenger Press, NJ
March 18 2004

Washington Township resident, Lisa Scorsolini, remembers her Peace
Corps service in the town of Stepanavan, Armenia.

WASHINGTON – The smiling faces look out from the photos that
captured a moment in the past. Lisa Scorsolini looks through the
pictures, remembering the time she spent in a country halfway around
the world.
From May 1997 to August 1999 Ms. Scorsolini, 32, of Schenk Place
was a volunteer with the Peace Corps. She was stationed in Armenia,
in the small town of Stepanavan.
“I joined the Peace Corps because it was something I had always
wanted to do,” she said. “In today’s world it would behoove us to
know more about the rest of the world. The Peace Corps is one of the
best uses of taxpayers’ dollars that I can think of.”
In honor of National Peace Corps Week held last week, Ms.
Scorsolini spent the week encouraging young people to consider
volunteering for the organization, while creating an interest and
awareness of the program.
She gave presentations about her experience at Pond Road Middle
School and Notre Dame High School in Lawrence Township.
“The Peace Corps has three main missions – to provide technical
assistance to countries in need, provide a better understanding of
American culture to foreign peoples and to give Americans a chance to
better understand foreign cultures,” she said.
Ms. Scorsolini studied international relations and Hispanic and
Italian studies in college. and said the Peace Corps seemed like an
interesting experience. She also has been an exchange student to
Mexico in high school and that experience prompted her to want to
travel and work abroad.
However, the Peace Corps was not her first stop after graduating
from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. She went to work as an
international marketing manager at the World Trade Center for a
division of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
“My department was slated for privatization and downsizing, so for
a few months it was very unsettling to work there,” she said. “No one
knew what the future would bring so I considered applying for the
Peace Corps.”
She submitted her application in February 1997 and received her
acceptance in April along with her assignment to Armenia. She said
the Peace Corps does not allow volunteers to choose where they will
work and live.
“The application asks for a geographic preference and I put down
Latin America,” she said. “I figured that would be good for me
because I spoke Spanish and had already been there when I was in high
school.”
She said she was excited about the chance to explore a different
area of the world but was naive about the former Soviet Union.
“I researched the country before I left but I always assumed I’d
be speaking Russian,” she said. “When I got there I realized that
everyone knows Russian but Armenian is what’s spoken in homes,
workplaces and on the streets.”
After arriving in Armenia Ms. Scorsolini lived with a host family
in Abovian. For 12 weeks she underwent intense Peace Corps training,
including language and cross-cultural awareness classes.
After graduating and becoming an official volunteer she was moved
to Stepanavan and lived on her own in a small studio apartment.
“Armenia was affected by a massive earthquake in December 1988
that killed between 25,000 and 30,000 people and left more than
100,000 people homeless,” she said. “Then winter hit and the
international community brought in temporary housing structures to
hold the country over until permanent buildings could be built.”
However, 10 years later the citizens are still living in the
temporary structures, including Ms. Scorsolini. The wooden building
was heated by individual heaters and she had a flushing toilet. There
was no running hot water or gas, but she said she had it better than
most of her fellow volunteers.
“Some people only had access to running water at specifics times
during the day,” she said. “And the water was always cold. They had
to schedule their time around when the water would come.”
She had a refrigerator and cooked with propane tanks and portable
gas burners provided by the Peace Corps. She also received a $180 a
month stipend.
“It was very modest but it met my needs,” she said. “It’s amazing
what you can do without. You couldn’t take a vacation but it was
enough to pay for basic necessities with some money leftover.”
One of the requirements of the Peace Corps is that the volunteers
live at the same economic level of the people they are living with.
Ms. Scorsolini said she had a neighbor, a single mother with two
children, aging parents and a younger brother, who supported her
family of six on less than $80 a month.
“Living there is very different from living in the United States,”
she said. “Every meal is prepared from scratch. You have to can
vegetables in the summer because during the winter all you can eat
are carrots, cabbage and potatoes because that’s what’s in season.”
Getting the food she needed to eat was not an easy task. There was
no public transportation in Stepanavan so she was forced to walk to
the market every day.
“One time I needed milk and when I was living there in 1997 there
was no processed milk,” she said. “If you did not own a cow you
needed to know someone who did. Even then, milk was only available in
the early mornings after the cows were milked. It was late afternoon
and I needed milk for a dish I was making and I spent the afternoon
walking around the town asking if someone had any milk. They all
laughed at me.”
Officially Ms. Scorsolini was a business development volunteer,
but she said her job description was purposely vague.
“The Peace Corps sets up a broad framework for volunteers so that
the individual can make the experience their own,” she said.
One of her missions in Stepanavan was to set up a language and
computer center by working with local community groups to write grant
proposals for local improvement projects. She managed to secure
computers for the center with a Peace Corps grant.
“There was a woman there who had been trained in computers, but
she had never worked with Microsoft Word, Windows or the Internet,”
Ms. Scorsolini said. “Our grant was to enable her to take classes and
then teach what she learned to the townspeople.”
The center also provided language books and classes to the town’s
residents for a modest fee. According to Ms. Scorsolini the center is
still operating today and has expanded twice.
Ms. Scorsolini also taught an aerobics class for women, recruiting
a local carpenter to make steps out of wood. The classes were held in
the evenings in an old building.
“I made it work however I could,” she said, adding that she wanted
to provide recreational opportunities for Armenia’s large female
population that would improve their self-esteem and promote healthy
living.
“It’s a Christian nation that tends to be male dominated,” Ms.
Scorsolini said. “There aren’t any activities for young women.”
In addition to her other jobs, she taught junior achievement
classes in Western business practices at local universities. Her
classes were made up entirely of women.
“There is a disparate population of girls in Armenia,” she said.
“There are seven women to every one man.”
She said most men left the country to find work or were killed
during conflicts with neighboring countries.
A typical day entailed waking up and going for a morning jog with
her neighbor. Then they would cook breakfast, usually an omelet made
with vegetables, pancakes made from scratch or french toast.
“Eggs and bread were very plentiful in town and my neighbor had a
cow so we had lots of milk,” she said. “Dinner leftovers were also
served for breakfast sometimes, which was a common practice.”
After breakfast, Ms. Scorsolini taught her classes at the
university, coming home for lunch, and then worked in the afternoon
on grant proposals or conducted meetings. Her aerobics class met in
the evenings and then she would cook dinner, socialize with friends
and go to bed.
“It was a very simple existence,” she said. “The town didn’t have
many restaurants. There was no movie theater or other forms of
entertainment.”
After completing her two years of service with the Peace Corps,
Ms. Scorsolini headed back to New Jersey. After three months of
unsuccessful job hunting she realized she was not ready to be back
stateside and began pursuing job opportunities overseas, ending up in
Georgia on Armenia’s northern border.
“I was nostalgic for Armenia and my former life there and figured
I could visit my friends on long weekends,” she said.
After six months of working in Georgia as program director working
with internationally displaced persons, she moved back to Armenia to
work with the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Population,
Refugees and Migration.
For more than three and a half years she worked as a grant writer,
helping small tourism, apparel, information technology and jewelry
businesses cooperate and compete in the growing Armenian market.
However, too much of a good thing can spell disaster and for Ms.
Scorsolini being away from home for more than six years caused her to
burn out.
“I just spent too long in one country,” she said. “Our grants were
significantly downsized and I realized that I had accomplished what I
had set out to do.”
She also decided that she needed to further her education in order
to advance professionally and personally. She is hoping to attend law
school in the fall and one day work in international law, either for
a United States government agency or the United Nations.
One of the most important lessons Ms. Scorsolini learned from her
Peace Corps experience was how to be tolerant and flexible.
“I find that now I can do without luxuries,” she said. “There are
very limited resources in Armenia and it made me realize just how
wasteful we are as Americans. Coming back and trying to adjust to the
every day materialism is hard.”
She said she went into a Wal-Mart recently and was overwhelmed by
the number of choices she had.
“We really take everything for granted because we have access to
everything in this country,” she said. “We truly are a country that
does not want for anything. To see what people in other countries can
live without is astounding and really taught me a lot about
humility.”

PRESS RELEASE
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia
Contact: Information Desk
Tel: (374-1) 52-35-31
Email: [email protected]
Web:

MINISTER OSKANIAN ADDRESSES 60TH SESSION OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION

Minister Vartan Oskanian addressed the 60TH SESSION OF THE COMMISSION ON
HUMAN RIGHTS in GENEVA on 16 MARCH. On the occasion of this meeting,
foreign ministers from 70 countries addressed the Commission on global and
local human rights issues and concerns.

Less than a week after a terrorist attack resulted in massive deaths and
injuries in Spain, the Minister called for unity in implementing the ideas
that are shared in order to make possible democratic systems which breed
stability and protect the human rights of all mankind.

In his statement, Minister Oskanian reflected on the links between human
rights and development explaining that many of today¹s social and economic
ills can be resolved if human rights are accepted, absorbed, respected and
implemented as inarguable, inalienable, unalterable rights.

He spoke about Armenia’s commitment to the Human Rights agenda, Armenia’s
accmplishments over these 10 years, including the abolition of the death
penalty and the appointment of an ombudsman, and reforms in legislation. The
Minister cited the recent killing of an Armenian soldier in Budapest by an
Azerbaijani soldier as example of ethnic hatred. He explained that today’s
grievances in the region are the results of human rights abuses and called
on the international community to recognize the Karabakh population’s
inherent basic human right to self-determination.

Withiin the margins of the Commission Session, the Minister held a series of
important bilateral meetings. Below is the complete text of the statement.

STATEMENT BY THE MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF ARMENIA
MR. VARTAN OSKANIAN

60TH SESSION OF THE COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS
GENEVA, 15-16 MARCH 2004

Mr. Chairman, the first time I addressed this forum seven years ago, Armenia
was not yet a member of the Council of Europe, was not a member of this
Commission, and the responsibilities and obligations facing us appeared
overwhelming. Today, as I take stock of where we were and how far we¹ve
come, I am pleased to say that Armenia has had a role to play in the efforts
to promote, espouse, advocate, even celebrate human rights. The freedoms
enjoyed in many countries, the freedoms that make some societies the envy of
the world, are the right of each individual man, woman and child. As
societies and governments represented here, we gather to reaffirm our
commitments and to continue the search for ways to make those ideals real.

This 60th session is symbolic of all our hard-learned lessons. The struggle
to articulate, explain, codify, legislate, impose, ensure human rights in
each society has been both international and local. We wish to achieve
universal access to and guarantee of human rights for all the world¹s
citizens. Whether motivated by altruism or enlightened self-interest, we
want the same civil liberties for the old and new democracies, the big and
small powers, the developed and developing nations. As a new democracy, a
small country following the path to development, we know that what happens
inside countries – large and small — can have and has had, a huge effect on
the rest of the world.

While symbols should not be mistaken for substance, they should not be
dismissed as insubstantial, either. The gains that we have made are
testimony to the truism that what is right is also good. Many of today¹s
social ills, and the economic ones, too, will be well on their way to
disappearing if human rights are accepted, absorbed, respected and
implemented as inarguable, inalienable, unalterable rights.

This is why older democracies – having suffered first-hand the risks of
civil societies which do not extend human rights protections — are
determined to instill good governance mechanisms around the world. That is
why international organizations include the human dimension as a significant
component of their security concerns. That is why the terror of terrorism
has imposed discussions of the elimination of human rights violations as
solutions.

The driving force is not just philosophy and idealism but also politics and
pragmatism. Societies which respect the human rights of their own people are
more likely to respect the rights of their neighbors. Countries which
acknowledge that national aspirations can be given their just dues without
resorting to violence or aggression are the kinds of societies in which we
ourselves wish to live, and which we all want at our borders. Those among us
who can confront remembered wrongs without committing new ones will have
earned the right to call ourselves modern, inclusive, tolerant, neighborly.

That is what we want for our neighborhood.

>From the Caspian to the Black Sea, the Caucasus, the South Caucasus, the
Northern Middle East is a cauldron of constant dynamic change, geopolitical
fermentation, domestic and sub regional threats, and multi-power interest
and competition. An uneven distribution of resources, mixed with a bumpy
path to regional development and cooperation makes good governance based on
a respect for individual rights even more critical for the interests of
governments and citizens alike. We know that this requires a determination
generated inside our societies. It necessitates intellectual and practical
conversions that go beyond our international commitments.

Towards this end, the comments, observations and even admonitions of various
countries and international organizations on our human rights
accomplishments and goals is acknowledged, and appreciated. We know that
this is a win-win struggle, where what is good for Armenia is also good for
the region. But we also know that preaching democracy is no substitute for
the sustained efforts essential to create a healthy society, which in turn
will guarantee the health of the state. We are ready to work with all those
who comprehend the natural process of maturation needed for these changes to
be authentic and deep-rooted, not cosmetic and short-lived.

In Armenia, where human rights has been on our collective agenda for just
one sixth of these 60 years, changes have already begun to take root. This
year, the death penalty was abolished. The inherent right to life is now
guaranteed for all our citizens. Just a few months ago, an ombudsman was
appointed to hear grievances and facilitate solutions.

Armenia¹s minority populations, although small in number, continue to enjoy
the government¹s attention and equal protections under the law.

Trafficking, an emergent global evil, is the object of an interagency plan
to eradicate the local conditions and mechanisms that enable this crime.

The National Plan of Action for Children was approved to coordinate
Armenia¹s obligations and programs for children – a vulnerable group whose
basic quality of life indicators are paradoxical, just like those of their
parents. Our kids are the victims of drastic and still incomplete economic
and social transitions. Their access to nutrition and medicine is sometimes
in jeopardy, but not to culture and education. This same dilemma is at the
root of our implementation of the Millennium Development Goals, which when
met, will go farther than any declaration to protect the basic rights of
each individual citizen.

Just as those goals are still not completely met, neither are programs to
grow an independent judiciary. The road plan is there, but we still have far
to travel. We are working with the Council of Europe on judicial and
electoral reforms. The same is true for a fully participatory transparent
legislative process. The existence of laws does not mean that their
implementation is full and comprehensive. Our laws on press freedoms
continue to be reformed in line with Council of Europe standards. We are
committed to arriving at improved legislation. But we also know that
legislatively facilitated press freedoms have still not resulted in an
intellectually and fiscally free and responsible press.

That we can even make these lists, and slowly cross off some of the items
listed there, is ample indication that we are fully engaged in one of
society¹s hardest tasks: to equally and broadly allocate the rights,
privileges, benefits of human civilization.

But, Mr. Chairman, the world is not there yet. Even as the world champions
human rights, we tolerate excessive human wrongs.

We tolerate atrocities, massacres, ethnic cleansing so long as they happen
in distant lands. We tolerate their memories and approve the deniers. We
tolerate historians who claim that there are circumstances in history that
justify ethnic cleansing and its logical progression, genocide. Armenians
have experienced these inexplicable human wrongs for a hundred years. We who
have suffered these crimes have declared that the best way, the only way to
restore faith and confidence is for perpetrators and victims to acknowledge
the past, and move on to the future. Ironically, it is we the victims who
have and who continue to make these unconditional offers. The perpetrators,
old and new, do not. We do so, moved by a need to restore relations between
peoples who have been and will continue to be neighbors. It is not for
history¹s sake alone that we insist on acknowledging the past, but for the
sake of the future. The political obstacles, the economic blockade that
exist today are left over from an unfinished and unreconciled past. We want
to move on to a collaborative and cooperative future. For that, our
neighbors must sit with us today, in the present, with a will to recover
that which the past has erased.

In our neighborhood, the past is not buried in history. Today¹s grievances
in our region are the consequences, expressions and manifestations of human
rights abuses, not their causes.

There were no refugees and no territorial issues when the people of Nagorno
Karabakh, legally, in accordance with the legislation of the time, followed
all necessary steps, to opt for self-determination. The state abrogated its
responsibility to provide safety and security for its population. Instead,
the response was military aggression.

It is very telling that a sovereign government responded to its people¹s
democratic calls for self-determination with military means. Moreover, the
violent, military response was not directed against the population of
Nagorno Karabakh alone, but also against Armenians in Sumgait and Baku,
miles away from the territory and population of Nagorno Karabakh.

This was ethnic cleansing — the first time that ‘solution’ was brought to
and utilized in the former Soviet space — even before it showed its head in
the Balkans. The Armenians who were driven out were the first refugees in
the former Soviet Union.

Despite Armenians’ continuous victimization, despite recent memories of
pogroms and deportations, despite the continuing fragile defensive,
protective position of Armenians in Nagorno Karabakh, Armenians continue to
express readiness to arrive at some compromise settlement. This is not
diplomatic talk. The Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh have held legitimate
elections, are building a civil society based on legislation which protects
human rights, and are preparing for the day when their own rights to
self-determination and a life of peace and dignity will be recognized.

Mr. Chairman,
Unfortunately, the past is not behind us. Earlier this month, in Budapest,
in a North Atlantic Cooperation Council training program, the concept of
cooperation was shockingly shaken by the murder of an Armenian soldier by an
Azerbaijani officer. This expression of ethnic hatred is more than
disturbing, as we continue to search for solutions that will allow us to
coexist in peace in this region.

That is why we continue to call on our neighbors to join us in searching for
ways to go forward. In a complex, problematic neighborhood, heavily burdened
with history, we know full well that human rights, when equally and
indiscriminately protected, will mean the ability to protect the safety,
security and dignity of entire populations, whole countries and regions. It
truly does start with each country, one person at a time.

Mr. Chairman,

We wish to join in welcoming Justice Louise Arbour to her new position as
the new High Commissioner for Human Rights. We would have wished her good
luck even had this meeting taken place a week ago, and we do so, even more,
today. In the wake of the shocking, frightening, inexplainable horror that
hit Spain and the world just a few days ago, I must repeat that which we all
know: there is a way to beat the terrorism, to defeat those who are bent on
destroying a way of life. That way is to unite in implementing the ideas
which we all hold dear, in making possible the democratic systems which
breed stability, in protecting the human rights of all mankind so that we
never again need to protect ourselves from ourselves.

Thank you.

Polish Press Agency
PAP News Wire
March 16, 2004 Tuesday

Polish, Armenian MPs discuss bilateral relations

Warsaw

Sejm Speaker Marek Borowski and head of the Armenian National Assembly
Artur Bagdasarian met Tuesday to discuss bilateral relations,
international affairs and Armenia’s policy towards the Polish
minority.

Borowski said after the meeting that Bagdasarian was interested in
European legislature, Poland’s political system and the functioning
and powers of the Sejm. The Armenian side expressed readiness to
develop closer interparliamentary contacts between the two countries
and interest in Polish experience in European integration.

On Wednesday the guest will be received by President Aleksander
Kwasniewski, PM Leszek Miller, Foreign Minister Wlodzmierz Cimoszewicz
and presidia of the Sejm’s foreign affairs and European committees.

Azat Artsakh, Republic of Nagorno Karabakh
March 8 2004

REVOLUTION MAY BE PREVENTED IF IMPOSED FROM ABOVE

-After his meeting with the president of Georgia George Bush said
they had discussed the possibility of spreading the sprouts of the
“rose revolution” in other countries. Mr. Petrossian, in your
opinion, may the direct neighbours of Georgia Armenia and Azerbaijan
be included in the list of “other countries”?
– Certainly, these countries first of all. The president of the USA
would not discuss the problem of democratization of the countries of
Arabic world, Africa or Latin America with Georgian president. They
could have referred to only those countries which have common
political system and problems with Georgia. Still in December “The
Washington Post” wrote when the heads of the states formed in the
territory of the Soviet Union gathered in Baku at the funeral of
president Heidar Aliev behind the scenes rumours were circulated
about change of power not in Azerbaijan but neighbouring Georgia. The
revolution deposed the president of Georgia E. Shewardnadzeh and his
colleagues in the CIS were worried by the possibility of such
situations in their own countries. President of Russia Putin caught
these moods and, as two direct sources state, during his talk to the
acting president of Georgia Nino Burdzhanadzeh mentioned with
rudeness typical of him, “All the CIS heads were scared the pants
off.”
– Do you think that “a rose revolution” is expected in Armenia.
– But why not? I consider it not only possible but also inevitable;
it is possible to avoid a revolution from “beneath” if only it is
organized from “above”. Let us consider: during the last 10-12 years
our almost unchanged government did not stir a finger to punish at
least some bribe-taker and robber officials. But discontentment is
genetically inherent to man, especially its “plural number” people.
And this in normal conditions for existence. But when you are in need
of everything, when cynical injustice is around, blast of the bomb of
protest, serious shocks within the society are inevitable. By the
way, a “bloodless” revolution was possible in Armenia last March,
earlier than in Georgia if the protests of the people in 1996 did not
fail. The failure of this attempt and the hopelessness that followed
were still fresh in the memory of the people and oppressed their hope
and spirit. In spite of all this the government were hopeful and
continue to be that the people will wait until the “reforms” will
slowly but give “fruits”. They hope that the inert majority of their
citizens understands them, understands that the difficulties are
overcome by objective reasons which are not dependent on the
activities of the government. Almost in everything the “transition
period” is to blame and as evidence they point at our neighbours. But
“the political wonder of Georgia” dealt a strong blow to this absurd
principle, and became a reality by the slogan “Down with corruption,
the source of poverty”. And if the words of Sahakashvili and his
supporters do not essentially differ from their actions and the
organizational streak does not betray them (and I believe in this)
the true results of their work will not wait long. In this case the
neighbouring nations, at least the Armenians will gain hope and
belief that by active opposition it is not only possible to depose an
ineffective government but also radically change their life and the
life of their country. That is to say, in a year, or a year and a
half the rule of law will be maintained in Georgia and the population
will feel the results of the activities of the new government, which
will certainly provide favourable basis for the “Georgian practice”
in Armenia.
– However, many analysts forecast the possible failure of
Sahakashvili because of hastiness of his plans and ambitious actions.

– Of course, there are and there will be faults. New actions,
especially the reconstitution of the system cannot pass without
mistakes. As great organizer Vladimir Lenin confessed, “there has not
been such a cause to which we did not come back”. You say what the
majority of the Russian and CIS mass media write or broadcast, which
are under the influence of either authorities, or big capital. And
radical changes are not favourable for either the first, or the
second, more exactly such actions are directed against them. And I
can state for sure that the activities of the new government of
Georgia have already produced results. The first result is the
improvement of relationships with Russia. “I did not expect such
wonders from that visit,” confessed Sahakashvili after returning from
Moscow to Tbilisi, and added, “Our talk with Putin lasted for four
hours and we arranged to work on painful issues unless they are
eliminated. Our line is to shift the relationships with Moscow to a
strategic level and we will not deviate from that line. Demanding
from Russia to withdraw their military installations from the
territory of our country we do not refuse to cooperate in either the
military or political and economic spheres,” clarified the president
of Georgia. The same was confirmed by the Russian party. I. Ivanov
said, “Moscow is pleased with the results of the negotiations with
the president of Georgia.” The second result is the assistance of the
USA to Sahakashvili which he was granted during his visit to
Washington. Answering the questions of journalists, Colin Powell
expressed support for the actions of the president of Georgia against
corruption. The state secretary of the USA mentioned that he was
impressed by the determination of the president of Georgia in his
struggle against corruption as it is impossible to build democracy
with a corrupted state system. He said he is sure that president
Sahakashvili will manage to maintain rule of law and uproot
corruption. What is more, he mentioned that the Georgian leadership
may rely on the support of America. In his turn at the meeting with
the president Sahakshvili on Wednesday George Bush highly appreciated
the contribution of the president Sahakashvili in maintenance of
democracy and struggle against corruption which also aim at
stabilizing the economy of Georgia. According to the agency
“Associated Press” George Bush expressed his support to the “rose
revolution” characterizing it as an example to the people of the
world who seek for democracy, who want to have honest government.
Bush stated he was impressed by the sensibility and courage of this
leader and was encouraged by the fact of having such a reliable
partner with whom they have common values. He said he had first-hand
information that president Sahakashvili does everything possible to
win the trust of the people by following their will, fighting
corruption and creating an effective state system. At the end of the
meeting he told Sahakashvili that in he current year Georgia will be
the CIS country which will receive the biggest aid of the USA,
reaching 200 million dollars. Aren’t these true results?
– But what about the suppositions about confrontation of Russia and
the USA in Georgia?
– No, the United States and Russia must and will cooperate in Georgia
and not compete for Georgia. This was stated by the US state
secretary C. Powell after the meeting with the president of Georgia
on February 26.

AA

XINHUA GENERAL NEWS SERVICE
March 11, 2004, Thursday

Greek Cypriot side to continue reunification talks: Papadopoulos

NICOSIA

Cyprus President Tassos Papadopoulos said on Thursday that his Greek
Cypriot side remains firm in its commitment to continue the current
reunification talks under the auspices of the United Nations.

Papadopoulos made the promise in a written speech to the opening
ceremony of a trade union congress, which was read by Labour and
Social Insurance Minister Iacovos Keravnos.

It is too early and dangerous to draw conclusions on the progress of
the UN-led direct negotiations for a comprehensive settlement to the
Cyprus problem, despite the fact that most of the positions raised by
the Turkish side are contrary to the philosophy and parameters of the
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s plan, Papadopoulos said.

He said that what he can reiterate at this sensitive and important
present juncture is that the Greek Cypriot side remains firm in its
commitment to continue working positively, constructively and
productively with the UN Secretary General on the basis of his plan,
to secure a functional and viable solution to the Cyprus problem.

The Greek Cypriot side is striving for a solution which will secure
the rights of the Turkish Cypriots and will allow them to enjoy the
benefits with the accession to the EU, within the framework of a
reunified Cyprus, the president added.

He stressed that “our firm pursuit and constant concern is and will
remain the creation of a stable, peaceful and safe environment,
necessary for the welfare, progress and well being of all the people
of Cyprus, Greek Cypriots, Turkish Cypriots, Maronites, Armenians and
Latins.”

Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when Turkey sent troops to take
control of its northern third. The two sides are currently engaged in
talks with a view to reach an agreement that would be put to
referenda, the positive outcome of which would enable a reunited
Cyprus to join the EU in May this year.