50 Years Ago Today
GREECE-BRITAIN: Rome, 28 – Mr Evangelos Averoff, in a change of tactics, yesterday insisted on a meeting with British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden. A meeting was granted for 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, on the condition that there is no mention of the Cyprus issue. Given that Mr Averoff came to Rome from Athens to discuss nothing but Cyprus with Mr Eden, the mission can be considered a failure, since there are no other pending issues to discuss. This unfortunate turn of events on the Cyprus question is due, on the one hand, to the unprecedentedly clumsy handling of the issue by Mr Averoff, who insisted on an invitation from Mr Eden during the very first days (of his visit), as if the British were in a hurry to tell Mr Averoff that they wanted to hand the island over to Greece and were waiting for Mr Averoff’s arrival to do so. On the other hand, there is also the fact that British policy has been rather underhanded on the Cyprus matter. With the passage of time, it has become more and more obvious that those responsible for Britain’s foreign affairs are trying to gain time and are not sincere about making any kind of concession on Cyprus. The crisis in Turkey’s relations with the EU are due to the difficulty of the Turkish political elite to adapt to the new reality. Even the achievement of the final goal, namely, full accession in a community of 28 or 30 members, will not guarantee equality, not only for Turkey, but also for the other candidates.
