An obligation to remember terrorist attacks of 9/11

 

THE US Embassy yesterday marked the tenth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against America in a sombre ceremony that paid tribute to those killed and renewed a pledge to fight terrorism.

“We all have an obligation to remember and we all have an obligation to remain united against terrorism. This is why I am here and this is why Cyprus, in its new role now as a member of the EU, continues to join efforts until we eradicate the scourge of terrorism,” Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou Markoullis said.

More than 3,000 people died that morning, as terrorists crashed planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. A fourth aircraft crashed in a field in the state of Pennsylvania.

Andrew Schofer , the embassy’s Charge d’ Affaires, said that “for many of us, the events of September 11, 2001, challenged our views of the world, making us think hard about our core values, and how we interact with each other as individuals, as communities, and as nations”.

Schofer said that while the attacks occurred on American soil, the tragic results were felt globally.

“Citizens of some 90 countries perished that morning in the attacks. One of them was Michael Tarrou, a Cypriot-American flight attendant on United Flight 175, the plane that struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center,” he said, thanking Michael’s uncle Achilleas Tarrou for attending the ceremony.

“Also on that plane was Michael’s fiancée, Amy, another flight attendant. Their story was just one of thousands that day, of broken families and unrealised dreams, affecting grieving families around the world – including here in Cyprus,” Schofer said.

In the years that followed, families in London, Madrid, Bali, Oslo, and other communities around the world, similarly suffered at the hands of individuals who wrongly believed that their particular ideological convictions justified the killing of innocents. 

“We gather here today to remember the victims of these tragedies and to ensure that those espousing such hateful ideologies will not triumph,” he said. 

 

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.