Strasbourg, 04.11.2010 – Mevlüt Çavusoglu, the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), has written to the Speaker of the Cyprus House of Representatives Marios Garoyian expressing surprise at his reported suggestion that he was “misled” over the President’s planned visit to the northern part of the island.
Mr Çavusoglu was in Cyprus from 31 October to 2 November, meeting President Demetris Christofias and Foreign Minister Markos Kyprianou, as well as Mr Garoyian. In the northern part of the island he met Dervis Eroglu, leader of the Turkish Cypriot community, and elected representatives of the Turkish Cypriot community.
In his letter to Mr Garoyian, the President wrote: “As you, and the members of the Cypriot delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly, are well aware, my visit to the north was planned from the very outset, and was announced [...] before I left for Cyprus. Indeed, we personally spoke about it during our meetings on Sunday and Monday before I went there.”
Mr Çavusoglu pointed out that previous PACE Presidents have visited the northern part of the island during official visits, adding: “In the search for peaceful solutions, the Assembly has always believed in hearing from all parties.”
He also responded to the reported comment that he had acted as a Turkish official rather than as PACE President: “As you are well aware, I strictly kept to and promoted the positions of the Parliamentary Assembly, as set out in resolutions from 2004 and 2008, in all my meetings during my visit, including when in the northern part of the island. This is underscored in the press statement issued at the end of my visit.”
The suggestion that he stayed in a hotel built on the land of Greek Cypriots while in the north was also “completely unfounded”, he wrote.
In his letter, the President reiterated his message that “a great deal of political courage” would be needed to solve the Cyprus issue. He concluded: “In my opinion, it is our duty as politicians to show responsibility and not to mislead our citizens on such important issues and, in particular, to resist the temptation to use and abuse such topics during election campaigns.”
