Cyprus caught unawares by Kosovo peacekeeping suggestion

By Charlie Charalambous

CYPRUS was caught unawares yesterday after Yugoslavia suggested it could contribute UN peacekeepers in a future Kosovo settlement.

“We don’t have any idea about this, nobody has approached us,” government spokesman Costas Serezis told the Cyprus Mailyesterday.

Belgrade’s proposal – that it would accept a UN civilian force from nonaligned countries – was made by its ambassador to Moscow Borislav Milosevic, brother of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

“Yugoslavia is ready to accept a civilian mission under a United Nations flag, with Yugoslavia to agree on the composition and the number of countries,” Borislav Milosevic told reporters in Moscow.

“It can be countries that did not participate in this (war) and did not support it, let’s say India, Belarus, perhaps Cyprus,” he added.

“At the moment we cannot speak about hypothetical questions,” Serezis said, carefully choosing his words.

Cyprus has been careful not to condemn the Nato bombings outright, but the government has said it disapproves of the killing of innocent civilians.

The island has very strong political, religious and cultural ties with Yugoslavia, which is seen as a friendly country.

Borislav Milosevic made the comments as Russian envoy Victor Chernomyrdin left for Germany as part of Moscow’s diplomatic efforts to broker a peace agreement in Yugoslavia.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.