President to hold meeting over sanctions

President Nikos Christodoulides is convening a meeting at the presidential palace at noon on Wednesday to discuss the US and UK sanctions on a number of Cypriots.

Attending the meeting will be the deputy attorney general, finance minister, justice minister, foreign minister and central bank of Cyprus governor.

The sanctions imposed by the US and UK last week have put the government on damage control mode as it seeks to protect its international reputation. Though the government has stressed Cyprus’ law only abides with EU and UN sanctions, banks were quick to adopt the sanctions.

As a result, all sanctioned individuals and entities in Cyprus have seen their bank accounts frozen.

Christodoulides has pledged Cyprus will not allow for even a shadow of doubt in the way it will handle the matter. He stressed the government’s “clear political will” in the way it will approach it.

The president said he has been in touch with the US government from the onset, which has praised Cyprus’ cooperation thus far.

In a further blow to Cyprus’ international standing however, a number of Guardian articles suggested sanctioned Cypriot Demetris Ioannides had in 2014 helped Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev for around three years despite EU sanctions against him, helping with over US$35 million in transactions, with the use of Cyprus-based service provider Meritservus.

Both Ioannides and Meritservus were sanctioned by the UK last week.

Cyprus in the meantime has requested evidence regarding the sanctions, so as to assess whether criminal proceedings can begin on the sanctioned individuals.

In total, there are 23 sanctioned Cypriots – 10 of which are born in Cyprus, while the remaining have more than one nationality, which is in most cases Russian.