The Athienou municipality on Thursday demanded a crossing point be opened in the nearby village of Pyroi, ahead of a planned meeting with President Nikos Christodoulides.
A delegation of seven elected officials from Athienou will visit Christodoulides on November 19, with the municipality saying it will state to Christodoulides “its unwavering position that it will not accept the opening of any crossing points if those openings do not include Pyroi”.
“The opening of the Pyroi crossing point is a humanitarian matter, given that as a result of the Turkish invasion in 1974, the Athienou municipality has been isolated in terms of transportation,” they said.
To this end, they said that were a crossing point to be opened in Pyroi, the time taken to drive between Athienou and Nicosia would be cut from the current 45 to 60 minutes to just 10 minutes.
The current state of affairs, they said, “means more fuel, more vehicle wear, and more time to and from Nicosia”.
They added that this added journey time means that Athienou residents who choose to study in Nicosia “are forced to pay rent and live there, while [if the crossing point were open] they could go to and from their family homes to university, and their families would not be forced to pay unaffordable rents”.
Additionally, they said, the opening of a crossing point in Pyroi would “decongest” traffic heading into Nicosia, “as people living in the south and east of Cyprus would be able to use this road”, while the nearby Turkish Cypriot village of Louroujina “would also be served”.
The delegation will consist of mayor Kyriacos Kareklas, Athienou deputy mayor Antonis Touloupis, Avdellerou deputy mayor Theodoros Demetriades, and representatives of all four political parties represented on the municipal council.
Both Christodoulides and Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar had agreed at last month’s informal dinner with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to hold future meetings to discuss the opening of more crossing points.
Pyroi is one of the locations which has been touted for a new crossing point, as well as the village of Mia Milia on Nicosia’s eastern edge, and Kokkina, the Turkish Cypriot exclave between the villages of Pomos and Kato Pyrgos.
Tatar had said last month he was “ready” to open a new crossing point in Mia Milia, and said he had discussed the matter with the north’s ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel after the informal dinner.
In August this year, Pyroi’s mukhtar-in-exile Georgia Ioannou called for a crossing point to be constructed in her village, and said Christodoulides “promised us that [the crossing point] is the next step, together with one in Mia Milia”.
