By Jean Christou
SPARKS flew between Nicosia and Beirut yesterday as top officials pitched in in the escalating diplomatic row over Lebanon’s refusal to take back a boatload of immigrants who washed up in Cyprus on Wednesday.
Foreign Minister Yiannakis Cassoulides said the incident – in which a Lebanese navy vessel had prevented the landing of a Cyprus police launch returning the boat people – was “very serious”, adding that consultations were continuing with the Lebanese authorities over the fate of the migrants.
In Beirut meanwhile, Lebanese Prime Minister Selim Hoss said his government had been justified in ordering the “expulsion” of the boat from Lebanese territorial waters.
The 29 immigrants, mostly Iraqis, were dumped near Cape Greco on Wednesday night after having sailed from the Lebanese port of Tripoli.
On Friday, a Cyprus police launch set sail for Beirut to return them, but was barred from approaching by a Lebanese navy vessel sent to prevent its entry into Beirut port.
Cassoulides said yesterday the Lebanese authorities had been told the migrants would be returned, citing an understanding that illegal immigrants setting out from Lebanon could be sent straight back.
But Hoss told reporters in Beirut that the immigrants had not come from Lebanon in the first place, “so we consider ourselves absolved from any responsibility for them and have expelled them from Lebanese territorial waters.”
Diplomats from the Lebanese embassy will be summoned to the Foreign Ministry tomorrow morning to protest their government’s treatment of Cypriot police.
Foreign Ministry Permanent Secretary Alecos Shambos said yesterday the way the Lebanese authorities had acted towards Cyprus police was unacceptable.
“There is going to be a protest because it wasn’t the proper way to meet a police patrol ship in Beirut. There was a lack of willingness to co-operate and we didn’t like that at all,” Shambos told the Sunday Mail.
“On Monday, we will summon whoever is in charge at the embassy and lodge a strong protest for the way they behaved.”
The police launch Odysseas with its 16 police officers, returned to Cyprus late on Friday night carrying 23 of the 29 immigrants. Lebanon accepted to take back six Egyptians, who held valid entry papers to the country. Hoss confirmed yesterday that the Egyptians were in the hands of Lebanese police.
The Cyprus police launch was forced to wait off the Lebanese coast all day, waiting for permission to enter the Port of Beirut to unload the immigrants.
Lebanon insisted there was no proof that the immigrants had started out from Tripoli and cut off all contact with the police boat.
Shambos said his Ministry would contact its Lebanese counterpart tomorrow about the worsening situation regarding boats full of immigrants landing in Cyprus.
“We intend to pursue our aim of entering some kind of consultation with them to find a practical solution to the problem, which is getting very serious,” Shambos said.
“We believe the Lebanese government must respond to the situation and to take practical steps to control the situation in their own country.”
Shambos said he did not believe it was a question of the Lebanese government turning a blind eye to the number of illegals leaving its shores, but rather a question of inadequate controls.
“It’s the responsibility of each and every country in the region to co- operate with its neighbours,” Shambos said.
“It’s their problem and its our problem. Each country has to do what is necessary to cope with the situation in an effective way and to co-operate with each other.”
After 113 boat people were rescued last summer off the Cyprus coast – again having sailed out of Tripoli – Interior Minister Dinos Michaelides took a delegation to Beirut to get Lebanon’s co-operation in trying to stem the tide of immigrants to the island.
As in past cases, the new batch of 29 refugees say they paid the captain of their boat between $800 and $2,000 apiece to go to Italy or Rhodes but were, like others before them, dumped in Cyprus.
The immigrants were remanded for eight days by the Larnaca court on Thursday. They are mostly Arab males; 18 were from Iraq, six from Egypt, there were two Somalis, one man from the Palestinian Territory, and one from Burundi. The sole woman among the immigrants was from Sri Lanka.
