The President of the Republic Mr Demetris Christofias had a meeting yesterday in Brussels with the President of the European Commission Mr Jose Manuel Barroso. The meeting took place after the European Council in which President Christofias participated.
After his meeting with the Commission President Mr Christofias made the following statement to the press:
“As you see this has been a lengthy meeting. I had the opportunity to analyse thoroughly the latest developments including also the so-called elections in the occupied areas: Mr Talat’s defeat, Mr Eroglu’s win, the difference that this makes, the resumption of the talks and their content, Turkey’s attempts from the beginning to play the blame game, something that she does with consistency, as you know, and which includes her attempt to impose yet again tight timeframes and eventual arbitration.
I tend to inform, from time to time, the President of the Commission, Mr Barroso, and today’s meeting is in line with this tendency. Naturally we talked about the direct trade regulation and we conveyed our view about the lifting of the so-called isolation and the trade that Turkish Cypriots could initiate through the Famagusta port with the return of Varosha.
That is to say, we presented our proposal in a comprehensive manner and I, of course, underlined that if the issue is the Turkish Cypriots’ trade they could do that through the port and airport of Larnaca, whose distance from Nicosia is shorter than that of Nicosia-Famagusta.
We had a very friendly and honest dialogue and we agreed to continue our contacts and meetings and the full briefing on our part of Mr Barroso”.
