More cash for Foreign Ministry

CYPRUS’ diplomatic service is in need of further modernisation, Foreign Minister Erato Kazakou-Markoulli yesterday told Parliament.

Speaking to the House Finance Committee during discussions on her ministry’s 2008 budget, Markoulli said a five-year programme had been prepared for the establishment and operation of 15 new diplomatic missions to EU member states, Arabic and Islamic countries, as well as states that would possibly become permanent members of the Security Council.

The programme, she explained, provided the foundation of three diplomatic missions per year and it was set to cost an annual £600,000.

Markoulli said Cyprus would be expanding its presence in Romania, Slovakia, Jordan, Bulgaria, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Lithuania, Latvia, Kazakhstan, Canada, Estonia, Kuwait, Oman and Brazil.

The ministry’s 2008 budget has been set at £47.9 million, 2.5 per cent higher from the year before.

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.