Greece on Thursday lodged a strongly worded demarche with the United Kingdom, expressing its strenuous objections to a memorandum signed this week by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan that referred to the Turkish-occupied north of Cyprus as the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus".

The Greek foreign ministry said that it had summoned British Ambassador Simon Gass to the foreign ministry for a meeting lasting 50 minutes, during which ministry general secretary Aristidis Agathoklis outlined Greece's positions and stressed the need to avoid actions of this kind at such a critical stage, when talks on solving the Cyprus issue were soon to resume.

According to ministry officials, the ambassador repeatedly assured Greece that London has not changed its stance on Cyprus and does not recognise any authority other than the legitimate Cyprus government on the island, while noting that the British side is in favour of getting talks for a solution underway as soon as possible.

Cyprus has remained divided since 1974, when Turkish troops occupied the northern third of the island and created a Turkish-Cypriot regime that is not recognised by any other country apart from Turkey.

Source: Athens News Agency

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