By Elias Hazou
CYPRUS police and the security detail of US Vice President Joe Biden are working round the clock ahead of the arrival of the American VP tomorrow evening.
Biden will touch down at Larnaca international airport, where a welcoming ceremony is being organised. Civil aviation and the foreign ministry are in charge of the protocol arrangements at the airport.
Greeting Biden and his wife, Dr Jill Biden at the airport will be Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides. There, the US Vice President is expected to make a short ceremonial statement on the two countries’ bilateral relations and “will emphasise and focus on the strong bilateral partnership between US and Cyprus under the leadership of President Anastasiades,” a senior White House official said yesterday.
Biden will most likely be staying in a hotel in Limassol. He was initially set to lodge in Nicosia, but the venue was changed apparently over security concerns relating to a high-risk football match in the capital tomorrow evening.
He intends to hold separate meetings with the leaders of the two communities – President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu.
His first engagement on Thursday will be a meeting with the island’s religious leaders including Archbishop Chrysostomos II and Turkish Cypriot Mufti Talip Atalay. The heads of the Maronite, Armenian and Latin faiths will also take part in the round-table discussion with Biden at the Archbishopric.
This meeting will be followed by an official welcoming ceremony and a bilateral meeting with Anastasiades at the presidential palace after which Biden will attend an official lunch that will include the cabinet, party leaders, and former presidents and House speakers.
He is then set to meet Eroglu at his residence after which Biden will meet members of the business and civil society communities.
“He’ll be able to discuss with the civic leaders the critical role that they can play in the process of creating a vision for the future of Cyprus,” said the White House official.
Following this event, Biden will have dinner with the two leaders, and afterwards a press statement will be made at the UN-controlled Ledra Palace.
According to the White House official yesterday – although it was not listed on the itinerary released last night – there would also be a brief stop at the US embassy for Biden to lay a wreath in memory of Rodger Davies, the late former US Ambassador to Cyprus, and a local embassy employee Antoinette Varnavas, both of whom were killed by gunmen in August 1974 during a demonstration outside the embassy.
The official 40th anniversary will be commemorated with a memorial service in August to rename the ambassador’s residence ‘Davies House’ and the embassy’s community lounge, the ‘Varnavas Lounge’.
Biden will be accompanied by armed members of his security detail bearing identification badges.
The whole security operation is under the remit of Cyprus police. Hundreds of police officers – led by the elite MMAD riot squad members – will be on red alert during Biden’s stay here.
Sources in the security establishment said operatives of the Anti-Terrorism Unit would be heavily involved. They declined further comment, except to liken the security operation to those undertaken during the visits of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in late 2010 and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in February 2012.
Biden’s visit to Cyprus is the first by an American vice president since Lyndon Johnson came here in 1962 just after independence when Archbishop Makarios was president. The US VP departs on Friday.
Local media reported that traveling with Biden will be an entourage of around 200 bureaucrats, likely including Amos Hochstein, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Diplomacy.
Biden’s wife will at some point on Thursday be given a tour of Nicosia’s old town by First Lady Andry Anastasiades, and a tour of the buffer zone hosted by UN Chief of Mission Lisa Buttenheim. The Cypriot First Lady will also take Dr Biden on a tour of the lace-making village of Lefkara.
Published by: www.cyprusgasnews.com
Please LIKE our Facebook page – it makes us stronger
