The
whole international community appreciates the President of the
Republic’s personal efforts towards finding a solution to the
Cyprus problem, said the Prime Minister of Denmark, Mrs Helle
Thorning-Schmidt, who visited Cyprus today and held a meeting with
the President of the Republic, Mr Nicos Anastasiades.
The
meeting took place on board the Danish frigate HDMS Esbern Snare,
which leads the Danish-Norwegian-British task force involved in the
removal of Syria’s chemical weapons under the OPCW-UN Joint
Mission.
Following
the meeting, in her remarks to the press, the Danish Prime Minister
said: “We just had an excellent meeting; I congratulated the
President for the joint declaration that was agreed last week.
It
is a spectacular and perhaps historic time that I am here today in
Cyprus, and I really wished
the
President well in his endeavours to make this reunification happen.
It is a special time in history, and I told him how much I and the
whole international community appreciate his personal efforts to make
this change in Cyprus that has been divided too long.”
On
his part, the President said: “I expressed our warmest thanks for
their help during 1964-1992 in the United Nations peacekeeping force.
It was a very interesting meeting, and I would like to thank
(Denmark) for what they have done until now and what they intend to
do in order to help us in finding a peaceful solution to the Cyprus
question.”
He
then told the Prime Minister that “we look forward to seeing you
back in Cyprus.”
To
a journalist’s observation that in parallel with the peace talks
there is also the Turkish accession to the EU and a lot of EU
partners have been talking about opening chapters 23 and 24 that are
currently frozen unilaterally by Cyprus, and his question about
Denmark’s position on this issue, the Danish Prime Minister said:
“We are hoping that we can open those two chapters and that is one
of the reasons that we are so interested in what is happening here.
Of course, a reunification will be a tremendous advantage for the
Cypriot people and that’s the most important, but we are also
hoping that it can create a new situation in terms of those two
chapters and other chapters in the negotiations between the EU and
Turkey.”
Asked
about the cost of Denmark’s operation with regard to the Syrian
chemical weapons in view of a delay in Syria, the Prime Minister
said: “I am still cautiously optimistic in terms of keeping the
timeframe that we have adopted, but it is important that we put some
pressure on the Syrians to live up to their part of the bargain, and
we are here to fulfill the task.
We
have a mandate, we have the ship, we have the operational tools to
fulfill this task and this is why we are here. It is very important.
We talk about chemical weapons that were used to kill a thousand
people, and that is why this task is very, very important.
I
used the opportunity in the conversation we had (with the President)
to thank the Cypriots for helping this task. It shouldn’t be
underestimated that by helping with this task and being so welcoming
it is a tremendous help for fulfilling this Danish task to get the
chemical weapons out of Syria.”
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