The Republic of Cyprus, as long as the Turkish provocations continue, strengthening and utilizing the strong web of alliances and partnerships it has developed both regionally and internationally, will strengthen and upgrade the deterrent capabilities of the National Guard, Director General of the Ministry of Defence, Andreas P. Louca, in his memorial speech at the National Memorial of the Fallen of Lakatamia, held on Sunday at the St. Nicholas Church in Lakatamia, according to a statement issued today by the Ministry of Defence.
"This is what we have the responsibility and duty to do as long as this unacceptable anachronism continues to exist," he added.
He also said that Lakatamia "paid a heavy blood toll in the struggles of our homeland."
"Forty-one of our compatriots fell fighting for faith and country or in the line of duty in peacetime. During the liberation struggle of EOKA 1955 - 59 three Levants offered their bodies as a sacrifice for the liberation from the English yoke. Three years after the independence of Cyprus, in Abeliko, Agios Sozomenos, Trachona, Tripimeni and Tylliria, five heroes were sacrificed in the battles fought during the intercommunal riots and confrontations of 1963-64," he added.
He also said that during the brutal Turkish invasion of 1974, thirty heroes and heroines gave their blood on the altar of freedom, "while the fate of 23 of our brothers and sisters has not yet been determined and they continue to be on the list of the missing".
"Reflecting on the greatness of the sacrifice of the fallen of Lakatamia, the people we commemorate, we are called upon to understand our own debt to our homeland. We have a historical duty and responsibility towards our heroes and our dead to fight for what our country truly deserves. We have an obligation to do our utmost to make our country a state of freedom and peace, which will guarantee the human rights of all its people, in conditions of cooperation, mutual understanding, mutual respect and solidarity", he added.
As he said, "we are determined to participate in a dialogue for the resolution of the Cyprus problem, based on basic and commonly accepted conditions. Based on the agreed solution framework and the UN Security Council resolutions and not on Turkey's unthinkable demands for a two-state solution as a precondition for resuming the dialogue."
Only under these conditions, the Defence Ministry Director General continued, will the dialogue process not be doomed to deadlock from the outset.
He noted that the escalating Turkish provocations combined with the actions of violation of our sovereign rights, the unacceptable Turkish ambitions in the EEZ of Cyprus and Greece and in the Aegean Sea, as well as the complete disregard of International Law cannot be accepted.
Source: KYPE
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