EDITORIAL: Aggressive foreign policy is needed now

House President Demetris Christofias is absolutely right in suggesting we leave the passive approach and embark on an aggressive foreign policy agenda as Cyprus counts the falling number of friends and allies.

This is imperative if we are ever to get ourselves out of the political quagmire we find ourselves stuck in. Cyprus needs friends, or at least understanding neighbours, in order to be able to push through a fair solution to the island’s division.

The problem of illegal migrants ending up on our shores as they make their way to continental Europe is another issue that has landed on our doorstep with few, if any, EU member nations bothering to help us out.

Third, but by no means last, is the serious problem of drugs being channeled to third markets either through Cyprus or past our island.

The incumbent minister should not be blamed for the low-key strategy that the present administration has adopted, but it remains a fact nonetheless that the cooling of relations with certain neighbours is the direct result of leaving the engine running on idle at a time when many opportunities were left unutilized.

And this neighbourhood is where the economic migrants and drugs traffickers are coming from. The little understanding and communication with our neighbours has forced Cyprus off the priority list for many Middle Eastern countries we used to rush to through whenever we had a problem with Turkey and Turkish policies. Nowadays, it’s the other way round and Ankara has become the military and trade partner of choice, despite its continued aggressions and war-mongering.

Sure, Cyprus should take credit for providing every possible assistance to Lebanon and the thousands of evacuees who had to abandon the land last summer when Israel and Hezbollah got entangled in war. But, did we follow up on that, apart from the occasional donation of money to help rebuild this or that corner of war-ravaged Lebanon?

Come to think of it, the last time that Cyprus scored any success on the foreign policy front was when current presidential contender Ioannis Kasoulides took the initiative and used diplomatic mediation and secured the safe passage of more than a dozen Palestinian gunmen holed up in the Church of the Nativity, otherwise the Israelis Army would most probably have bombed that as well.

On the other hand, the warm relations with Israel itself, witnessed during the Clerides administration, has also cooled in recent years, leaving us with little, if any, say in what happens in our neighbourhood.

With Cyprus companies gradually breaking into other European and CIS countries, it is a matter of time before Europeans conquer the hearts of Cyprus’ friends and neighbours in the eastern Mediterranean and we find ourselves on the outside unless we change our foreign policy.