The desire to liberate our country remains our top priority, but “in order to achieve it we must put aside any differences”, Disy president and presidential candidate Averof Neophytou said on Sunday.

“We must all try, united with the support of international bodies, to curb Turkish intransigence and reunite our divided homeland,” headded.

“We can talk about our different ideologies, about our different thoughts and tactics. But let’s not forget. Our homeland is one and for the entire Cypriot people, the sufferings of the past and the division must not be repeated,” he said at a memorial service in Liopetri.

He said that we are still experiencing the tragedy of 1974 and black-clad mothers “are of all ideological shades, missing the same, refugees, prisoners”.

He was referring to a country that is “free, peaceful and safe without any division and with full respect for the rights and freedoms of each of its citizens. A modern homeland, an equal member of the EU, with a developed economy and adequate standard of living,” he added.

He said it is time to move forward with unanimity and patriotic responsibility; “whatever our differences, we must move from words to deeds”.

It is our responsibility, he said, to build the future the country deserves, a future of peace and security, to vindicate all of the island’s heroes.