Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova referred on Wednesday to the 65th anniversary of the Zurich-London Agreements and criticised Britain while expressing Moscow\u2019s readiness to contribute to the process of inter-communal talks and the settlement of the Cyprus issue based on the relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council.The Russian Federation, she said, being a responsible part of the international community and a permanent member of the UN Security Council, is firmly guided by the principles according to which the compromise for the settlement of the Cyprus issue must be reached, as provided for in the relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council, through voluntary talks of the Cypriot communities with mandatory, careful consideration of their valid concerns and interests, and of course without outside pressure, without using this \u201cendless weaving of time frames and of some external recipes\u201d she said.\u201cOur side is ready honestly and in principle to help in this project\u201d, she said during her weekly briefing.Noting that the signing of the Zurich-London agreements took place on the 11th and 19th of February, 1959, she described the independence of Cyprus as \u201cseverely limited\u201d from the start, since \u201cLondon, Athens and Ankara received the status of guarantor of the new state and the possibility for intervention in its internal affairs.\u201dShe said that Greek and Turkish military forces were stationed on the island, Britain retained two areas of the island with a total area of 99 square miles, i.e. 256 square kilometers, as sovereign bases, a number of other installations and a whole package of privileges.She expressed the view that the agreements, which were based on the Constitution of Cyprus, \u201ccontained from their inception a dangerous conflict dynamic, which manifested itself in the most dramatic way in the bloody conflicts between the communities in December 1963 and the subsequent period, in 1974, that led to the tragic division of the island.\u201dShe pointed out that the \u201catavism of the colonial times has not been overcome even to our time\u201d adding that this \u201callows the British to behave aggressively in the region today, to ignore international law, to apply military force without the approval of the UN Security Treaty. All this undoubtedly undermines regional stability, fosters tension on the island and around it and does not contribute to the settlement of the extremely protracted Cyprus problem.\u201dThe Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman added that the Soviet Union during the entire decolonization process \u201csupported the fair demands of the Cypriots for independence\u201d, but also \u201crepeatedly indicated that the British Government, by imposing a plan to resolve the Cyprus issue, was in fact seeking not to help, but to consolidate its state in the new, already historical conditions and to sow seeds of discord between the communities of the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriots\u201d.(Cyprus News Agency)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova criticized Britain on the 65th anniversary of the Zurich-London Agreements and expressed Moscow’s readiness to contribute to the Cyprus issue’s settlement based on UN Security Council resolutions. She emphasized that a compromise should be reached through voluntary talks of the Cypriot communities without outside pressure. Zakharova noted that the independence of Cyprus was “severely limited” by the Zurich-London agreements, which allowed London, Athens, and Ankara to intervene in Cyprus’s internal affairs and led to the stationing of Greek and Turkish military forces on the island. Britain retained two areas totaling 256 square kilometers as sovereign bases. She described the agreements as having a “dangerous conflict dynamic” that led to bloody conflicts and the island’s division. Zakharova criticized Britain’s current aggressive behavior in the region, which undermines regional stability and the settlement of the Cyprus issue. She also mentioned the Soviet Union’s support for Cypriot independence during the decolonization process and its criticism of the British Government’s intentions to consolidate its state and sow discord between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":3426,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[460,195,461,3,413,679,415,187,148,450,19,827,114,649,494,414],"class_list":["post-3425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cyprus","tag-bases","tag-britain","tag-british","tag-cyprus","tag-cyprus-problem","tag-cyprus-talks","tag-government","tag-international","tag-local","tag-london","tag-russia","tag-security","tag-top-news","tag-turkish-cypriots","tag-uk","tag-un"],"acf":{"keyphrase":"","keywords":"","sourceimg":"","country-category":""},"yoast_head":"\n