Bishop’s pain prompts emergency dental meeting

THE CYPRUS Dentists’ Association is holding an emergency meeting today to review its decision to attend an international dental conference later this month in Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus.

The call for the emergency meeting followed a vocal protest by Bishop Pavlos of Kyrenia against any attendance at the conference by dentists from the Republic.

Association President Lelia Demetriou-Sadja had initially accepted the invitation for the May 27 gathering.

Pavlos yesterday said the local dentists’ acceptance of the invitation was provocative and inexcusable.

He said illegal occupation regimes should not be allowed to invite legal organisations recognised internationally to meetings within territory they control, and that such groups as the Turkish Cypriot Dental Association should not be allowed to communicate with legal organisations.

Pavlos’ fears are founded in part on the fact that dentists from throughout the world are expected to attend the gathering, and the presence of dentists from the Republic might suggest some degree of official ‘state’ recognition of the occupation regime.

Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash has long insisted his breakaway regime is entitled to international recognition as a ‘state’, and has made such recognition a precondition of holding substantive talks on solving the Cyprus problem.

Only Turkey recognises the Denktash regime as a ‘state’.

Pavlos also called on the Cypriot dentists to urge their counterpart associations in other countries to reconsider their decision to attend the conference in the occupied north.

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.