Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure of welcoming His Excellency, Mr. Andreas Jacovides, the High Commissioner of the Republic of Cyprus, to our country and to our capital city.
I take this opportunity on behalf of 200,000 Cypriots who to this day find themselves refugees in their own country and on behalf of 1,619 persons who to this day are still missing and unaccounted for to denounce the July 1974 brutal invasion of Cyprus by Turkish forces.
Twenty-one years later and despite various resolutions from the United Nations, the Commonwealth heads of governments and the European community condemning this brutal invasion, the Turkish regime refuses to come to the table and negotiate a peaceful and just solution for the island of Cyprus. Why? Because no solution is the solution for the Turkish regime.
Cyprus is not looking for pity. Cyprus wants what we all want as civilized human beings. Cyprus wants what all progressive institutions are advocating, justice.