By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, September 22 -- When Cypriot President Demetris Christofias took questions after his speech to the UN General Assembly, Inner City Press asked him not about oil about exploding stored ammunition, and of UN envoy Alexander Downer.
Christofias told Inner City Press, "You mixed the weapons, the explosion with Downer... this is a very dangerous mixture." There was laughter. Video here, from Minute 23:25.
He continued, "We store in Cyprus these materials, trying to be consistent in implementing UN Security Council resolutions of sanctions against Iran. We tried to avoid it. Unfortunately we are forced to take and store it."
Christofias paused and asked, "Why the explosion? It's a matter of investigation. At end of month they are going to have the result. Then we could say more, anyway... Implementation of UN Security Council resolutions is paid by a very high price by the Republic of Cyprus."
Turning philosophic, Christofias posed another question: Why we try to follow UN Security Council? On these resolutions we base our struggle to put an end to occupation."
The Cypriot Permanent Representative and chair of the Host County Committee Minas Hadjimichael whispered, and Christofias said to him, "Human rights, if you want to, we mention, of course."
Then he changed topics: "Alexander Downer is Alexander Downer, we watch, we follow. He control us, we control him." (At this, the moderator looked quizzical.)
Christofias concluded that Cyprus is "in a daily dialogue, we have good relations despite sometimes we don't have the same opinion on some matters. This is democracy. This is life. I'm ready to continue the dialogue, for with Mr. Eroglu, then with with Secretary General, with the presence his special adviser Alexander Downer." So there.
