Selection: Michalis Katsigeras

PARLIAMENTARY SESSIONS SUSPENDED: The king has signed a royal decree suspending parliamentary sessions for 30 days. The announcement in the Government Gazette was posted in the main hall of Parliament House yesterday. Parliament will reconvene on November 12, when the government will present the action it has taken on the Cyprus issue and raise it as a political issue. The opposition parties, with the exception of the People’s Party, walked out of yesterday’s meeting of the Legislative Committee in protest at the move, stating that they would no longer take part in the committee’s meetings until Parliament reconvenes. The Liberal Party will make a statement to the nation next Tuesday, setting out its views on the national crisis and proposing rallies demanding that the government step down. Leaders of the opposition parties who are in Athens, apart from the co-leader of the People’s Party, Panayiotis Kanellopoulos, who approves of the government’s actions, have called the move a coup d’etat. Meanwhile, the government claims that suspending parliamentary sessions is necessary but also legal as it is the government’s right based on a provision in the Constitution.