‘Turkey’s fault it is absent from regional collaboration’

Turkey has itself to blame for the fact that it is not invited to participate in regional collaborations, President Nikos Christodoulides said on Tuesday, citing the country’s lack of respect towards other states by trying to impose itself on them.

“I returned from Israel last night, from a successful trilateral summit [Cyprus-Greece-Israel], the tenth in a row, and this in itself indicates the resilience of this cooperation, in difficult times amid developments and quite a few challenges in the region,” he said.

Speaking to the press on Tuesday, Christodoulides said that what he took from the meeting was “the strengthening of our cooperation, particularly in three sectors: energy, defence and security, and issues of civil protection”.

We are proceeding with the immediate implementation of everything that was decided on yesterday [Monday], the president added.

Commenting on press reports that the summit was anti-Turkish, Christodoulides said that “we are always working – and we have said it many times – on the basis of a positive agenda.

“From these regional collaborations indeed one country is absent. Turkey is absent and this is simply its own responsibility, due to the fact that it does not respect good neighbourly relations, it does not respect cooperation, it attempts to promote an approach where it prioritises or imposes itself on other states, and this cannot be accepted,” Christodoulides said.

“We hope the conditions will prevail soon regarding the Cyprus problem and other matters so that Turkey can participate,” he pointed out.

To a comment that the point of Monday’s joint declaration regarding the establishment of an excellency centre for cybersecurity in Cyprus had been presented in Turkish press as the setting up of an Israeli base in Cyprus, Christodoulides said only Turkey has such approaches regarding Cyprus.

“Cybersecurity issues are very important, they affect all countries of the region and this centre will operate in such a way so that we can address all cybersecurity challenges,” he said.