Akel says it’s breaking off ties with Israeli and US embassies

Main opposition Akel said on Wednesday it would freeze its relations with the embassies of Israel and the US in Cyprus in protest over what it described as the new cycle of violence against the Palestinians.

The party organised a peaceful rally on Wednesday to the embassy of Israel in Nicosia, with the participation of many Palestinians living on the island, among them the ambassador of Palestine to Cyprus, Jubran Taweel.

Protesters marched from the Pasydy building to the embassy of Israel that was heavily guarded, where a memorandum condemning the new cycle of “murderous violence by the state of Israel against the people of Palestine in Gaza” was read out.

The main speaker of the event, Akel leader Andros Kyprianou, announced that his party has decided, as a minimum sign of protest over what happened in Gaza on Monday, to freeze relations with the Israeli and US embassies in Nicosia.

What sparked the bloodshed in Gaza, he said, is none other than the decision of the US to transfer its embassy to Jerusalem with the aim of recognising the city as the capital of Israel.

“This action is, above all, a challenge to the Palestinians,” Kyprianou said, adding that US President Donald Trump has taken to new levels the standing aggression of the US in the Middle East.

He also attributed “tremendous responsibilities” to the European Union, because, Kyprianou said, amidst bloodshed and killings of children, it insists on equal distance policy and calls on ‘all sides for self-restraint’.

 

 

 

 

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.