Christodoulides welcomes Iran war ceasefire

President Nikos Christodoulides on Wednesday said he welcomes the two-week conditional ceasefire announced by US President Donald Trump, which will bring a temporary two-week halt to the country’s ongoing war with Iran.

“I really want to express the hope that all of this is confirmed. De-escalation is the main goal,” he said upon his arrival at an economic forum in Nicosia.

He added that Cyprus has a “particular interest” in the situation as the holder of the Council of the European Union’s rotating presidency, and in light of the fact that an informal European Council summit will be held in Cyprus later this month.

“We are monitoring very carefully what is being made public and we truly hope that it will be confirmed and that it will achieve the goal of de-escalation. This is what the states in our region desire. This is the goal, and I hope it will be confirmed,” he said.

He then added that de-escalation would be “something positive for our country, for its people, for the region, for the world, for the European Union”.

The ceasefire came after an extraordinary day of social media posts from Trump and others, with Trump having threatened that “a whole civilisation will die tonight” on Tuesday afternoon.

Late on Tuesday night, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif publicly urged Trump to reconsider the ultimatum he had given the Iranian government to agree to his terms by 3am, with Trump then having announced the ceasefire in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

The Pakistani government then said that the US and Iran had agreed to a ceasefire “effective immediately”, though both Pakistan and Israel have since stated that the ceasefire does not apply to Lebanon, where the conflict has continued into Wednesday.