By Jean Christou
PRESIDENT Glafcos Clerides last night boycotted the Queen’s official birthday celebrations at the British bases following a damaging report in London’s Sunday Times on his plans to deploy Russian missiles on the island.
According to a British bases spokesman, President Clerides and Justice Minister Nicos Koshis had been invited to the celebrations at the Western Sovereign Base Area of Episkopi.
But neither Clerides nor Koshis, nor any other Cypriot officials attended, the bases confirmed. It is the first time in recent history that a president of Cyprus has failed to attend the annual party marking the Queen’s official birthday.
The snub was compounded by the fact that Clerides, 79, was an RAF gunner in World War II during which he was shot down over Germany and taken prisoner of war.
“He (Clerides) was invited and chose not to attend,” said bases spokesman Captain Jon Brown, who added that the President had officially declined the invitation on Wednesday.
“The invitations are offered out to individuals so if they are busy or choose not to attend it is obviously their business,” Captain Brown said. “We do not consider it to be a snub”.
Captain Brown conceded that as far as he was aware no Cypriot officials had attended the party.
Earlier yesterday government spokesman Christos Stylianides confirmed that the President’s name would not be appearing on the guest list.
He said Clerides received many invitations from embassies and diplomatic missions on the island “and chooses which ones he wants to go to”.
According to guests, who included British High Commissioner David Madden, the Cypriot invitees missed an excellent rendition of Zorba the Greek by the band of the First Battalion Light Infantry.
The usually good relations between the two countries cooled this week when Cyprus accused Britain’s Defence Department of leaking damaging information in an effort to prevent the deployment of Russian S-300 missiles on the island later this year.
An article in the Sunday Times on May 31 revealed a contingency plan by Britain to evacuate 250,000 tourists from Cyprus, leading the government to warn of a cooling in relations with Britain.
Sources close to the government said last night the snub by the President was directly linked to the Sunday Times report which was “being taken seriously at the highest levels”.
“The government is extremely angry and feels the British Defence Ministry acted deliberately to put pressure on it not to take delivery of the missiles,” the sources said.
The possibility of a contingency plan to evacuate tourists has highlighted fears of a war on the island, which appear to be spreading to other diplomatic missions.
Sigma TV last night said the US embassy had issued letters to its citizens in Cyprus requesting information on the number of Americans living here.
Sigma said the embassy denied any such letters had been sent.
But the US embassy told the Cyprus Mail this week that it does have a contingency plan to evacuate some 2,000 US citizens should the need arise.
An American official said the US fact-sheet on Cyprus was last updated in January this year. It does not mention any threat of war on the island.
“There are no plans to update it further at the moment,” the official said.
