Cypriots clash over secrets
Cypriot government and opposition officials continued to trade charges over the weekend over the recent discovery of top-secret state documents in garbage bags in public areas at the ministries of Health and Education. Defense Minister Koulis Mavronikolas said that under the previous government there had been no procedure for the correct disposal of secret documents but that the present one had taken all the necessary measures. Government members accused their predecessors of not ensuring the safety of the documents while the opposition, which has called for the resignation of the defense minister, laid the blame at the government’s door, saying it was acting like an opposition party. «The tragedy of the governing opposition is that it has still not realized it has to govern,» Democratic Rally leader Nikos Anastassiadis said yesterday. Returning from a visit to Moscow, he said that the issue had received prominent coverage in Russian media, especially with regard to Russian-Cypriot defense cooperation, which some of the stray documents referred to. Foreign Minister George Iacovou offered assurances that his ministry’s secrets were safe.
