A new face for Armenian Cypriots?

DR ANTRANIK Ashdjian, one of the three candidates vying for votes in the October 9 Armenian by-election yesterday pledged to be the representative in the House of all Armenians in Cyprus.

Ashdjian said the election of a younger member of the community who was not involved with the business of previous terms would help change the mentality and the way Armenian issues were approached in parliament.

“This person should have access to the local community, the wider Cypriot society, Armenia and the Armenian diaspora,” he told a news conference in Nicosia.

He said he wanted to function in a way that did not serve self-interest but face the problame of the community concerning education, the youth and politics.

Ashdjian promised to enhance Armenian relations with the Cypriot state and the political world in Cyprus.

‘The Armenian, as an equal citizen of Cyprus should have an opinion in all the events taking place in our homeland of Cyprus,” he said. He said although Cyprus and Armenia already had excellent relations, they could be deepened even further by setting up diplomatic delegations.
Turning to the central election issue of the closing down of the Melkonian secondary school Ashdjian said the American administrators of the school had forced the closure but that he would work with the school’s alumni to campaign for its re-opening.

However he said that if the campaign was successful, the Armenian community would have to ensure that the school was made to function on solid financial grounds to avoid a similar situation in the future.

For the first time since the Cyprus Republic was founded in 1960, the Armenian elections will be a three-man instead of a two-man race. The three men will be fighting it out to win the votes of nearly 2,000 Armenians to replace two-term representative Bedros Kalaydjian who died on September 1.

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.