Athens yesterday ordered the Greek captain of a Greek-flagged cargo ship thought to have made an unauthorized call at the Turkish-occupied port of Famagusta in Cyprus to depart immediately on pain of imprisonment.
“After we learned that a Greek vessel illegally put in at the occupied port of Famagusta, orders were issued for the most severe penalties to be imposed on the shipowning company and on the captain of the Aegean Sun,” Merchant Marine Minister Manolis Kefaloyiannis said. The vessel, which is understood to have been chartered to a UK firm, was allegedly delivering cars from Britain.
Kefaloyiannis said the captain, who was not named, had received “strict orders” to return to the closest Greek port, or face two years in jail. Furthermore, the master of the roll-on, roll-off ship, which belongs to Greece’s Aegean Cargo, has been stripped of his license pending disciplinary action, under a 1980 ban on putting in at Turkish-Cypriot ports. “Greek ships that do not uphold our national interests cannot fly the Greek flag,” the minister said.
-Kathimerini-
-Isn't it a strange irony that a Greek ship became the first to ignore the embargo on North Cyprus?
