Filenews 23 February 2022
Cyprus is facing migration as a national issue, Interior Minister Nikos Nouris said on Wednesday in a meeting with Democratic Party President Nikolas Papadopoulos and a party delegation on migration. The meeting, which inaugurates a series of contacts between the Ministry of Interior and the parliamentary parties in order to inform them about the migration issue, took place at the Ministry of Interior.
In his statements after the end of the meeting, the Ministry of Interior said that he informed the DIKO about the current situation regarding migration, infrastructure, the efforts being made to deal with the flows arriving in the Republic of Cyprus, the efforts made on the issue of returns, "which is one of the most important issues on which we now clearly focus our attention".
Mr. Nouris stressed that "migration is not a matter for either the Minister of Interior or the present government. It's a national issue and as such we're dealing with it."
He added that he informed the President of DIKO about the agreements and memoranda that have recently been signed between Cyprus and the EU.
The Minister of Interior noted that the treatment of the migration issue consists of two main pillars. The first is the surveillance of the green line from where the vast majority of the inflows come from, he said, adding that all the inflows without exception come from Turkey "which systematically manipulates the migration issue". The second pillar, he said, is maximizing the number of returns.
In addition, Mr. Nouris stated that since January 1st, the Republic of Cyprus has returned 388 persons in number of countries. Specifically, it has returned, among others, 85 people to India, 43 to Congo, 34 to Bangladesh, among others, 31 to Cameroon, 25 to Nigeria and 21 to Iran.
He went on to say that he asked for the assistance of DIKO and Mr. Papadopoulos personally at a diplomatic level to make combined contacts so as "to open the channels of communication with those third countries that currently do not have this possibility to maximize the number of returns". He also noted that he informed the President of DIKO about the way in which the Ministry intends to proceed with the issue of the best possible management of the very large number of flows from the Green Line.
On his part, Mr. Papadopoulos stated that "we are a country that knows what refugees mean, of course we want to offer support and hospitality to real political asylum seekers".
However, he added, "at the moment Cyprus is facing the biggest problem in the EU in proportion to the population and we know that too many are currently abusing the system in order to serve economic interests".
The DIKO President noted that the Minister of Interior is making huge efforts to address this problem and that his party will continue to assist these efforts.
"A number of other things need to be done so that we can on the one hand offer the services that we must offer to real asylum seekers, so that we can comply with the relevant European directives and the recommendations of the United Nations, but also on the other hand to protect the money of the Cypriot taxpayer from possible abuses", concluded Mr Papadopoulos.
CNA
