Cyprus’ future will remain in limbo unless the island adopts a mutual defense posture with Greece that is capable of deterring Turkey militarily, independent MP Andreas Themistocleous asserted on Monday.
He was speaking at a special session of parliament, convened on the occasion of the 1974 coup and invasion.
“We need to realise that our future will be in doubt unless Cyprus comes to its senses soon and revives the unified defence dogma, unless it enters into alliances which ultimately will have an equivalent military result to the Turkish threat,” Themistocleous said in his remarks.
The ‘unified defence dogma’ was a doctrine promulgated in the 1990s, where Cyprus was supposed to be incorporated into a unified defence space with Greece which undertook the defence of the island. Conceived as a mutual defence pact with Greece, it was announced with much pomp by then Greek prime minister Andreas Papandreou in 1993.
However, the concept remained just that – an idea – and was never implemented. It was allowed to wither away following the Imia islands crisis between Greece and Turkey in early 1996. Many years later, in 2008, Cyprus’ defence minister admitted that the doctrine had amounted to empty talk.
Elsewhere in his remarks on Monday, Themistocleous said the only solution that people would vote for today would be one ridding the island of the Turkish occupation.
“It is our own inexcusable acquiescence and docility”, he went on, “that has emboldened Turkey, whose [aggressive] stance has forever discredited and negated the abject policy and practice of appeasement, discredited the apostles of capitulation and subservience”.
The MP said that 50 years on from the events of 1974, “we have nothing more to give to Turkey, we’ve given everything.”
Despite this, he added, there are parties and politicians who still pressure and advise the president to make concessions so that Cyprus talks can resume “from where they sank in the quicksand of Crans Montana”.
Themistocleous next asked rhetorically why all previous presidents had failed to solve the Cyprus problem.
And answering his own question, he said: “It is because not one of them consented to letting Cyprus become a protectorate of Turkey, which would allow Ankara to have a say through the back door on matters concerning Cypriot Hellenism, expanding the Turkish occupation to the free areas [the south of the island].”
In closing, Themistocleous urged President Nikos Christodoulides to “stay strong” so as to withstand pressures both from within Cyprus and overseas.
Now an independent, Themistocleous had started off as an MP for Disy before joining the Elam party in 2021. He was expelled from Elam later that year.
