HC Deb 10 January 1996 vol 269 c196
10. Mr. O'Hara

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on his policy for the future of Famagusta. [6847]

Mr. David Davis

I refer the hon. Gentleman to the remarks that I made closing the debate on Famagusta in the House on 29 November. He will remember that, at that time, I spoke at some length.

Mr. O'Hara

I thank the Minister for that answer. Will he please take the opportunity to reaffirm that Her Majesty's Government will not allow the negotiations for Cyprus's accession to full European Community membership to depend on a prior solution to the Cyprus problem and, furthermore, that he will not countenance any solution to the problem that is not based on one nation state's undivided sovereignty in the island of Cyprus?

Mr. Davis

What I shall say to the hon. Gentleman is that we will allow no one outside the European Union to veto that process by their actions, but Union accession is designed to help with the solution to the division of Cyprus—the Cyprus problem—rather than to hinder it.

Mr. John Marshall

Does my hon. Friend accept that great concern exists among hon. Members on both sides of the House about Cyprus's continued division? Is not it a gross denial of human rights that ordinary Cypriots can stand outside Famagusta and see their family homes, which have been in their family for many generations but in which they have not been allowed to live for more than 21 years?

Mr. Davis

I hear and understand all too well what my hon. Friend says. The British Government have played, and continue to play, an active role in endeavouring to find a solution to that grievous problem. Famagusta is only too sad a symbol of that problem.

Mr. John D. Taylor

On the assumption that the question refers not to the city of Famagusta but to the empty properties in its suburbs, can the Minister confirm that Her Majesty's Government will bring every pressure to bear upon the Greek Cypriot Administration to accept and bring into operation the recommendations of the United Nations for confidence-building measures to allow people back into the empty suburbs, such measures having already been accepted by the Turkish Cypriots?

Mr. Davis

I do not intend to pick and choose between sides in this issue. Her Majesty's Government will continue, as we have already, to bring every pressure to bear to bring about the development of the confidence-building measures in Varosha or new Famagusta, as the right hon. Gentleman wishes to call it.