Kyprianou attends National Council

HIS doctors may be saying little about the state of his health, but ex-President Spyros Kyprianou – diagnosed as suffering from malignant cancer in June – was well enough to turn up for a National Council session yesterday.

The 68-year-old ex-DIKO leader arrived in a wheelchair to attend the morning meeting of President Clerides’ top Cyprus problem advisory body in his capacity as former President.

Doctors treating Kyprianou at the Bank of Cyprus Oncology centre have recently been declining to provide updates on the veteran politician’s progress under radio and chemotherapy.

When the bone and lung cancers were diagnosed in early June, doctors expressed confidence they could control the disease, saying they were heartened by Kyprianou’s “positive” attitude.

When he stepped down as House of Representatives president earlier this year, Kyprianou drew the curtain on a 40-year political career that included a decade as President, between 1978 to 1988, and 12 years as Foreign Minister before that.

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.