Papadopoulos was the last of the veterans of the independence struggle to attain the presidency. Michael Jansen, a friend, reports from Nicosia
FORMER PRESIDENT of Cyprus Tassos Papadopoulos who oversaw the island’s entry into the European Union and adoption of the euro, died yesterday of lung cancer at the age of 74.
A chain smoker, he was hospitalised last month suffering from severe breathing problems. His successor, president Dimitris Christofias, observed that Mr Papadopoulos, an old friend, had struggled long and hard for the Cypriot cause.
Elected to a five-year term in 2003, Mr Papadopoulos took part in UN-brokered negotiations on the reunification of the country, divided after Turkey invaded and occupied the north in 1974.
But he was execrated as a hardliner and rejectionist when he opposed a detailed UN plan presented to Greek and Turkish Cypriots, Greece and Turkey in March 2004.
He argued that the plan perpetuated division and legitimised the presence of Turkish troops and settlers on the island.
His view was adopted by three-quarters of Greek Cypriots voting in a referendum which took place in April of that year. Two-thirds of Turkish Cypriots favoured the plan which was accepted by Ankara. He subsequently refused to revive the plan and, in July 2006, persuaded the UN and the Turkish Cypriots to adopt a fresh step-by-step approach to reunification. But this stalled due to opposition from Ankara.
It was particularly difficult for him to turn down the UN plan because it was based on his own proposal, submitted in 1977, for a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation linking the two communities. However, he argued that the UN plan did not secure this goal.
Born in Nicosia in January 1934, Mr Papadopoulos studied law at King’s College, London, and was called to the bar at Gray’s Inn. He returned to Cyprus in 1955, shortly before the Cypriot movement for self-determination, EOKA, launched its armed struggle against Britain, the colonial power. He joined EOKA and was appointed its operations chief in Nicosia and became a senior member of its political arm. He took part in the 1959 London conference on Cyprus’s post-colonial status, but was one of two Cypriot participants who opposed the London and Zurich agreements which laid down terms for the country’s independence in 1960.
A follower of Archbishop Makarios, Cyprus’s first president, Mr Papadopoulos was appointed minister of labour in the island’s first government and later served as minister of agriculture. Following several terms in parliament, he was elected head of the centre-right Democratic Party in 2000.
He won the 2003 election with the backing of his own party, the communist AKEL, and the social democrats. As president, he visited Dublin on two occasions: the first in May 2004 for EU expansion celebrations; and the second in November 2006 when he opened a Cypriot exhibit at the Irish National Museum.
Ahead of the 2008 presidential poll, AKEL put forward its chairman Mr Christofias as its candidate. He won the presidency in two rounds of voting.
The last of the veterans of the independence struggle to attain the presidency, Mr Papadopoulos conceded gracefully and returned to his law practice.