Religious pilgrimages undertaken by Armenian Cypriots, Greek Cypriots, and Maronite Cypriots in northern Cyprus and by Turkish Cypriots in the island’s southern two thirds will be organised by the administrations of the island’s two sides on the basis of six-month programmes, Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman said.
“We presented the following proposal: instead of experiencing problems when holding individual ceremonies, let us create six-month programmes. If there are going to be discussions about those six-month programmes … these issues should be discussed well in advance of the ceremony or pilgrimage, not on the day itself,” he told a press conference.
He added that he had proposed to President Nikos Christodoulides on Friday that “common solutions should be found”, and that as such” the programmes should be scheduled in six-month periods so that the problems do not arise on the day”, and that Christodoulides had accepted the proposal.
He said that “the colleagues we assign will begin their work”, and that for pilgrimages in the north, the matter will fall under the responsibility of the north’s ‘foreign ministry’.
The proposal, he said, comes after “there have been some problems regarding religious ceremonies and worship on both sides”.
“From the perspective of the Turkish Cypriots, there are problems regarding the worship services at the Hala Sultan Tekkesi,and from the perspective of Greek Cypriots, Maronites, and Armenians, there are problems regarding the ceremonies in the north,” he said.
As such, he added, “our perspective is within the scope of freedom of religion and conscience” given that “this problem occurred some time ago in Larnaca regarding the visit to the Hala Sultan Tekkesi” and that “there were misunderstandings regarding the ceremonies at the Sourp Magar monastery”.
The United Nations had announced after Christodoulides and Erhurman had met on Friday that the pair agreed to “work for the preparation of a plan for the conduct of religious services throughout the island”.
Of the cancelled visit to the Sourp Magar monastery, which is located in the Kyrenia district, Christodoulides had earlier said that “I see a tendency on the part of some to create obstacles to this great effort” to produce conditions conducive for progress towards the resumption of formal negotiations on the Cyprus problem.
“So, in this effort, I expect [Erhurman] to face these problems, these challenges, from wherever they come, so as to show both his readiness and the fact that we are moving in the same direction,” he said.
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