It is with great pleasure that today I inaugurate the new building of the Association "Dikephalos Geriou".
An Association that is a symbol for Geri, which with its action preserves the cultural and national identity of our country.
I must therefore congratulate you for your tireless efforts. I note the tremendous and difficult effort to reactivate sports activities in volleyball for junior girls, girls and senior girls, but also in football for young children and basketball for men.
In this way you are contributing to the healthy occupation of our youth, at a time when society needs to keep our children away from social challenges and problems.
Congratulations are also due to you for your initiative to move the roof of the house to the central square of the Municipality of Gerion, demonstrating through this action your desire to give a new breath and vitality both to the Association itself and to the centre of the Municipality.
The building, which we are inaugurating today, I am sure that it will become a meeting place for the young people and families of the Municipality, as well as the members and friends of the Bicephalos. It will become a pole for the development of social and cultural life, but also for the preservation of our national cultural element and identity.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Particularly in this period, when efforts to find a solution to the Cyprus problem are creating a strong feeling of futility, national consciousness and the recall of historical memory are important enemies of forgetfulness.
In a few days the black memories of 1974, the shameful invasion of "Attila", will awaken. Memories that were not submerged in the sea of oblivion.
Our immutable goal, ladies and gentlemen, was and remains the finding of a viable and functional solution, in which the Republic of Cyprus will evolve into a state with full respect for the human rights of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots.
Unfortunately, Turkish intransigence and aggression, Ankara's unstated ambitions and the unrealistic Turkish demand for a two-state solution do not allow for much optimism.
Despite the President's efforts for progress on the Cyprus problem and a return to talks, Turkey persists in escalating its provocative and aggressive behaviour, brazenly violating international law and the law of the sea, with its illegal actions directed against the sovereignty and sovereign rights of the Republic of Cyprus.
Turkey, in addition to its systematic policy of colonization of the occupied part of Cyprus, in recent years has been engaging in an "alien type of colonization" of the free areas through illegal immigrants, thousands of whom are being pushed from Turkey across the Green Line to the areas controlled by the Republic of Cyprus, making clear its aims for demographic alteration of the country, but also for causing economic, social and political problems on our side.
In the face of these threats, the Government continues unceasingly to condemn in every direction the illegal actions, which are contrary to international law and Security Council resolutions, stressing the need to reverse the Turkish actions, including the acts they are attempting in the closed town of Varosha and the instrumentalization of migrants.
Dear Ones,
Continue to play the role of a nucleus of national rallying for the youth and residents of the region. I hope that this new building will enable the development of even more activities.
Our government and the Ministry of Interior actively support the Associations and all organized groups that contribute to the formation of a better and more resilient society.
With this I would like to wish you from the bottom of my heart good luck, many successes and distinctions in your sporting activity.
(EF/NG)
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