Cyprus President Christofias address to UNGA 2009 - 01

64th Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations, New York, 24 September 2009

See Part 2 at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqiflWjDrt4

Extracts from the speech (Part 1):

Mr. President,
Since its independence, the Republic of Cyprus has relied heavily on the principles of the United Nations in maintaining its independence, its sovereignty and its territorial integrity.

After the twin crime of a military coup and foreign invasion of Cyprus in 1974, when military force attempted to obliterate our statehood and violated the integrity of our state, the United Nations responded with a number of important resolutions, expressing the international community's moral and legal support to the Republic of Cyprus.

The plethora of Security Council and General Assembly Resolutions on Cyprus, provided my country with the necessary support to continue its struggle for a solution to its' political problem, on the basis of those resolutions, the principles of the UN Charter and of international law.

Shortly after my election in office, I undertook the initiative to bring the stalemate to an end. As a result of that, we embarked a year ago, on the basis of the UN Security Council resolutions, and under the auspices of the Good Offices Mission of the Secretary-General, on intensive negotiations with the leader of the Turkish Cypriot community, Mr. Mehmet Ali Talat.

Trusting the sincerity of Mr. Talat's intentions, we have engaged in a common effort to bring an end to the division of our country.

We agreed that the process would be in the hands of the Cypriots without arbitration and artificial timetables.

There has been some progress achieved in the negotiations.

But not such as to make us confident that we are close to a final solution to the Cyprus problem.

Our goal is the restoration of the sovereignty, territorial integrity, independence and unity of the Republic of Cyprus, the common homeland of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots.

It is also our goal to restore the human rights and basic freedoms of all citizens of the Republic of Cyprus regardless of their ethnic background.

We are committed to the evolution of the unitary state into a federal state consisting of two largely autonomous regions. One region will be administered by the Greek-Cypriot community and the other by the Turkish-Cypriot community.

Given the fact that in Cyprus the population lived intermingled throughout the island, this constituted for us a great historical concession made by the late President Makarios to our Turkish Cypriot compatriots.

We remain true to this commitment. The United Federal Republic of Cyprus must safeguard the unity of the state and its institutions, as well as of the economy and the people.

See Part 2 at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqiflWjDrt4

See full text of this speech at:
http://www.un.org/ga/64/generaldebate/CY.shtml

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• occupation
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• settlers
• negotiations
• comprehensive settlement
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