‘Cyprus has not asked to join NATO’
Cyprus is to become a new member of the EU. Why not a NATO member as well? They haven’t applied for membership, and they are not a member of the Partnership for Peace, so it’s an academic issue. But I think everyone hopes that it will be a united Cyprus that joins the EU. It seems quite clear that there is strong public opinion in both the north and the south of the island for precisely that objective. That would be the best really, for Cyprus to join the EU. But would you also like to see them in NATO? I don’t talk about preferences; I wait and see. We are going to have 26 members next year; that is quite a lot and three more in the queue. If people want to join, they apply for membership. I know Cyprus quite well, and I hope that we are on the brink of seeing that particular dispute relegated to the past. That will allow us to focus on much more dangerous conflicts in other parts of the world.
