PM's pandering to Turkey's illegal occupation risks damaging UK-Cyprus
relations, says Conservative MEP
NEWS DESK
Britain's relations with fellow EU and Commonwealth country Cyprus may
suffer serious damage after Gordon Brown agreed a deal over the
Turkish-occupied north of the island with his Turkish counterpart Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, London Conservative MEP Dr Charles Tannock said today.
Dr Tannock, a long-standing critic of Turkey's ongoing violations of UN
Security Council resolutions 541 and 550, said Mr Brown's strategic
agreement with Ankara over northern Cyprus came perilously close to
recognising the occupied north as a de facto state.
The agreement also explicitly recognises the right of Turkish Cypriots to
be
represented in the European Parliament - without making the reunification
of
the island a precondition.
Dr Tannock said:
"Prime Minister Brown would have been better off demanding that Turkey
observes UN resolutions, recognises the sovereignty and independence of
the
Republic of Cyprus as an EU member state and observes its Council of
Europe
obligations of freedom of expression by repealing Article 301 of the
Turkish
Penal Code, which criminalises any criticism of the Turkish invasion of
Cyprus or recognition of the 1915 Armenian genocide.
"Although I sup****t EU funds being used for infrastructure projects in the
north of Cyprus to help the Turkish Cypriot community - provided they do
not
violate owner****p rights of displaced Greek Cypriots - I also think Gordon
Brown should have raised an issue dear to my heart, namely the wanton
destruction and neglect of Greek Orthodox Christian heritage in the
occupied
territory."
Charles Tannock MEP
Un the European Parliament Tannock is Foreign Affairs Spokesman for the UK
Conservative delegation and is Vice-President of the Parliament's Human
Rights subcommittee. He was elected to the UK Conservative delegation
Bureau
in December 2005. He is a full member of the Foreign Affairs, Common
Security, Defence and Human Rights Committee - where he is also the EPP-ED
Group Deputy Co-ordinator (Spokesman)- and he is also a substitute member
of
the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee. From 2000-2004 he served in
the
UK Conservative delegation Whips Office rising to Deputy Chief Whip. He
was
between 1999-2001 the Conservative Party Spokesman on Financial Services.
He
attended in April 2001 the Joint EP-Latin American Parliament 2 yearly
Conference in Valparaiso, Chile as a delegate.
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