Cyprus, 2008

I wish first to extend

sincere congratulations to Mr. D’Escoto Brockmann on

his election as President of the General Assembly at its

sixty-third session and to express my appreciation for

the work done by his predecessor, Mr. Srgjan Kerim. I

would also like to thank the Secretary-General for his

report (A/63/1) on the work of the Organization, and I

welcome his comprehensive approach to threats and his

focus on recently emerged challenges.

It is an honour for me to address the General

Assembly for the first time as President of the Republic

of Cyprus. Maintaining the effectiveness of multilateral

diplomacy and strengthening the relevance of the

United Nations has been one of the cornerstones of the

foreign policy of the Republic of Cyprus since it won

its independence in 1960.

The United Nations is important to the

international community and particularly important to

Cyprus. It is an essential institution for our global

survival and for the further development of humankind

in a balanced and fair way in increasingly difficult

conditions. Our peoples look to the United Nations as

the best forum for addressing such global problems as

poverty, climate change, rising energy and food prices,

diseases, natural disasters, human rights abuses and

many other pressing global problems. Either we do

things together in a collective, coordinated way or the

problems will persist and become even less

manageable.

This week, two important issues are being given

particular attention — the achievement of the

Millennium Development Goals and the special needs

of Africa. I applaud the focus being given to both,

highlighting the imperative need for collective action

by the international community. However, we must

match our words with deeds.

Cyprus emerged from colonialism as an

impoverished independent State in 1960. Despite the

fact that Cyprus has suffered greatly, we have managed

to improve our economy. Today, Cyprus is firmly

committed to the achievement of the Millennium

Development Goals and maintains an emphasis on

Africa in its overseas development assistance projects.

Our approach is to focus on a small number of

countries, concentrating our efforts on infrastructural

development in the health and education sectors.

Cyprus is gradually intensifying its efforts by

increasing the level of assistance to additional

countries.

Small States have higher stakes in multilateral

diplomacy and in a fair and functional system of

collective security, based on the principles of sovereign

equality and respect for territorial integrity.

There is no clearer example of that than Cyprus

itself. From the earliest days of its independence,

Cyprus was forced to appeal to the world community

for support in defending and preserving its

independence, its sovereignty and its territorial

integrity. It became a victim of foreign interference,

which sowed the seeds of domestic problems for the

new State. Those difficulties were exploited in the

service of strategic interests alien to our independence

and our territorial integrity. The culmination was the

military coup instigated by the military junta of Athens

and the Turkish military invasion of July and August

1974.

However, Cyprus survived. The will of the

international community for Cyprus to survive is found

in the plethora of Security Council and General

Assembly resolutions — most of them, regrettably, not

implemented. However, the moral support and resolute

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stance provided Cyprus with a sword and shield that

have ensured that it has remained and will continue to

remain an undivided independent country with a single

sovereignty, single citizenship and single international

personality.

In addition, the resolutions of the United Nations

on Cyprus contain two other important elements. They

provide for a process of negotiations in the form of a

good offices mission of the Secretary-General and,

very importantly, they define the legal and political

framework on which the discussions for the federal

architecture of the Cypriot State will be built. Both of

those elements are crucial. I firmly believe that our

success in the new effort that is now beginning will

depend upon respecting those essential conditions.

The President returned to the Chair.

With regard to the process of the Secretary-

General’s good offices mission, it entails negotiations

with the Cypriots themselves in which they are the

principal players. They are the owners of the process.

The Cypriots themselves must build the State they

envision for their society. The role of the Secretary-

General and of the international community is to assist

and to support. We are grateful for that. Good offices

are not arbitration; they are not mediation. Recent

experience has shown that any attempt to impose —

and even to import — non-Cypriot-inspired and

improvised models will meet with rejection by the

Cypriot people.

The relevant Security Council resolutions are also

important for the new effort because they provide the

legal political framework within which the effort must

take place. That framework prescribes a bizonal and

bicommunal federation with a single international

personality, single indivisible sovereignty and single

citizenship. The federal institutions will embody the

principle of political equality as defined by the relevant

Security Council resolutions, in terms not of numerical

equality but of effective participation by the Greek

Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities in all organs

of the federal State.

It is important to remind ourselves that a bizonal

and bicommunal federation has been the only mutually

agreed basis since 1977. It was reaffirmed as recently

as a few weeks ago. It represents a compromise, and

indeed the only possible compromise, on which a

political arrangement can be built. The relevant

resolutions of the Security Council and the

Constitution of Cyprus exclude partition, secession or

union with any other country.

The kind of solution we agree to must take into

account not only our history and international legality,

but also the kind of society we are and the kind of

society we want to bequeath to our children. In that

society, all Cypriot children must be born free and

equal. Human rights and the fair satisfaction of human

needs must take precedence over strategic

considerations dictated by political expedience.

A new intensive effort started on 3 September

with the aim of overcoming the impasses of the past

and achieving progress that will lead to the

reunification of Cyprus under mutually agreed terms

and the withdrawal of foreign troops after 34 years of

division and foreign occupation. If that effort is to

succeed, there is a need for political will on the part of

Cypriots, as well as the positive engagement of other

important players, which for historical reasons have

been part of the problem and need to become part of

the solution.

For my part, I want to assure the General

Assembly from this rostrum that my political will to do

what is necessary to solve the problem is firm and

deep-rooted. My origins are in the Progressive Party of

Working People of Cyprus and in the popular

movement of the island, which prides itself on a long

history of struggles, and indeed sacrifices, in defence

of friendship, cooperation and peaceful coexistence

between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots. On the

other hand, I am one of those Cypriots who was deeply

and directly affected by the foreign military invasion of

1974, because I myself and my family are internally

displaced persons — refugees in our own country. The

role of Cypriots is to agree on what they want. We

must try to achieve that with the leader of the Turkish

Cypriot community, Mehmet Ali Talat. I believe that

we can achieve it.

But that is not enough to achieve a solution.

Turkey should contribute to the process in a positive

way. Turkey still maintains over 40,000 troops and tens

of thousands of settlers in Cyprus and can, without a

doubt, determine the outcome of the issues under

discussion. We believe that the solution should benefit

everybody and will benefit everybody. It would allow

Cypriots — Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots

alike — to live together and work together in an

independent, prosperous country within the family of

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the European Union, without the presence of foreign

armies and illegal colonists and under conditions of

security and respect for their identity and their rights.

Our world faces many problems, which are

becoming increasingly complex. It is our conviction

that those problems can be solved and that new threats

can be prevented only through effective multilateral

collective action. Peace must prevail — a true peace

based on respect for international law and not the right

of might. A response to the problem of international

terrorism will be effective only if our world becomes

less unjust. If hunger and poverty are not tackled, if

regional disputes are not resolved on the basis of

international legitimacy, and if global wealth is not

distributed more fairly, peace cannot grow strong roots.

The United Nations is an achievement of our

fathers and a necessary tool for ensuring a more stable,

fair and prosperous world. Ultimately, the United

Nations is only as successful as we, the Member States,

allow it to be. I wish our community of nations a

successful sixty-third session of the General Assembly.