NICOSIA, September 30 (Itar-Tass) - Cyprus should overhaul its foreign policy proceeding from the new geostrategic reality, the country’s President, Nicos Anastasiades said Monday in a televised address to the nation on the occasion of the 53rd anniversary since Cyprus’s independence, which is marked here October 1.
It is important to rebuild this country’s foreign policy on the basis of a new strategic reality, with account of its membership of the European Union and by building strategic alliances with influential regional states and trans-Atlantic nations, Anastasiades said.
The overhaul should not spoil relations with traditional friends and allies but it is also essential to conduct a foreign policy in the interests of the homeland and without exceptions, prejudices and fixations, he said.
The suggestion to revamp the foreign policy became one of the four strategic objectives on the plane of renovation of the country, which Anastasiades put forward.
He came to power in March 2013 and almost immediately had to agree to the unprecedented terms of financial aid that were specified by the EU and the International Monetary Fund so as to prevent a collapse of the banking system and the country’s sovereign default.
Anastasiades admitted in Monday’s address that the country was going through the harshest crisis since Turkey’s armed incursion into the island in 1974, which split it into two isolated ethnic halves.
Political feebleness, cheap politicking and ambitions combined with erroneous strategic decisions and prejudices drove the Greek Republic of Cyprus to the brink of destruction, he said.
In this connection, Anastasiades declared the four fundamental objectives that would mean the start of a new era for Cyprus and the end of the time of hardships. Apart from changes in the foreign policy course, he declared an importance of reforming and restructuring the very model of statehood since the model designed in the 1960’s had exhausted its lifecycle.
The other strategic objective is to pull out of the economic crisis through creating conditions for growth so as to be able to break out of recession as soon as possible.
Objective number four is to attend an end of the occupation of the country and reunification in the conditions that would enable all the people of Cyprus without exception to live in peace in a country where there will be no shortage of values or rights compared with all other European nations.
Anastasiades called on the Turkish government to respond to the latest proposals from Cypriot Greeks on trust-building measures. He believes they will give a hope of a possibility of positive results at the peace settlement talks between the Greek and Turkish communities of the island.