Cyprus has expressed displeasure over a European Council statement about Russia, apparently issued before several countries had time to give thier feedback.

Government spokesman Nicos Christodoulides said proper procedure had not been followed and Cyprus did not even have the chance to comment on the draft before it was issued.

Countries were given a three-hour deadline to comment on the statement, the draft of which was sent only to the director of President Nicos Anastasiades’ diplomatic office. Such statements are usually sent to three recipients to ensure delivery.

Anastasiades was on a flight to Saudi Arabia at the time.

“The deadline had expired when we were informed,” Christodoulides said.

“We expressed concern over the procedure,” he added. “There is displeasure in other countries also.”

Greece has also expressed disagreement.

The new government said the “statement was released without the prescribed procedure to obtain consent by the member states and particularly without ensuring the consent of Greece.”

“In this context, it is stressed that Greece does not consent to this statement.”

The EU statement, published on Tuesday, said all 28 EU leaders had agreed that Russia was responsible for a rocket attack on the city of Mariupol that left 30 people dead on Saturday.

The head of the European Council of EU leaders, Poland’s Donald Tusk, hit out at the weekend at “appeasement” of Russia and said it was “time to step up our policy based on cold facts, not illusions.”

European Union hawks on Russia, including Poland and Lithuania, have called for sanctions on Moscow to be stepped up after a new offensive by pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine, but EU power-broker Germany took a more cautious line.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier suggested Russia had not yet crossed the red line that would trigger more sanctions.

“A lot depends on how the next three days go. After the talks I’ve had in the last days with some European colleagues, nobody is desperately ambitious to meet in Brussels to impose sanctions,” he said.

“But of course, an attack or a broad offensive on Mariupol would be a qualitative change in the situation to which we would have to react,” Steinmeier said.

The EU called an extraordinary meeting of foreign ministers for Thursday.

The Cypriot government spokesman did not expect additional sanctions to be adopted.

Cyprus and other members think the proper way to tackle the crisis was through diplomacy.

“We think sanctions have not yielded the expected results so far,” he said.

EU countries, including Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Luxembourg and Austria, have only reluctantly gone down the sanctions route.





