Nicosia, Cyprus, October 1, 2026 - The Embassy of the Republic of Cuba in this capital remembered this Wednesday, September 30, the official ceremony of awarding the 'Medal of Friendship' to comrade Vera Policarpou, Secretary of International Relations and European Affairs of the AKEL Party and Secretary of the Cyprus-Cuba Friendship Association (AACh-C). She received this important distinction on August 11 in Havana, granted by the President of the Republic of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, at the proposal of the President of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP), in the context of the 1st International Fidel Colloquium: Legacy and Future, held at that time in the Cuban capital.
Since in Latin “to remember” means “to live again,” the Ambassador of the Republic of Cuba in Nicosia, Rubén Pino Martínez, invited his colleagues from the Workers’ Party of the Working People (AKEL), from AACh-C, from the Pancypriot Labor Federation (PEO), members of the United Democratic Youth Organization (EDON), the Women’s Movement (POGO), representatives of that political organization and the Popular Movement of Cyprus, along with family and friends, to “Cuban territory in Nicosia” to recall the well-deserved honor, now from his island in the eastern Mediterranean.
The Friendship Medal, which had been awarded to him in Havana at the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples and presented by Emilio Lozada García, head of the International Relations Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, “gained value and blossomed” this September 30 among his everyday comrades.
A well-deserved tribute that was praised by AKEL Secretary General, Stefanos Stefanou, as a collective recognition of the dedication and unconditional commitment, increasingly necessary and explicit, of AKEL comrades to the so-called “Island of Freedom,” that nation today more attacked, besieged, and threatened than ever, facing an unfair, inhuman, and irrational energy blockade by the world’s greatest economic and military power. In this context, Vera Policarpou spoke of gratitude, of family principles acquired from birth, and also of party principles from her beloved AKEL, which today make her stand—and continue to stand—beside Cuba and in defense of the best human values and for life.
Vera, we share and enjoy your gratitude and knowing you are “genetically” committed to that “Island of Freedom” that Stefano Stefanou spoke of, as a life lesson acquired and given alongside the humble and for the humble… as the heroic Guerrillero would say, “until victory, always.”
Embassy of Cuba in Cyprus