The Organisation of Relatives of Cypriot Missing Persons in the UK has held a meeting with UK member of Parliament Matthew Offord asking Britain to exert more pressure on Turkey as regards the humanitarian issue of the missing people of Cyprus, The President of the Organisation Neoclis Neocleous was informed by the British MP about the meeting he held together with MP David Burrows and British Minister for Europe David Lidington to whom the two MPs conveyed the demand of the relatives of the missing that the British government exerts more pressure on Turkey to comply with the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights regarding the missing persons.
“It is obvious that the pressure on Turkey is not enough. We would like to see the British government – during the next meeting in Strasbourg on the 15th of June – to be more intense as regards its demand for Turkey to comply with the decisions of the Court”, he said.
He also said that Turkey refuses to give information as regards the whereabouts or the burial sites of the missing persons. Offord said he would submit questions at the House of Commons on this issue.
He will also have one more meeting with Burrows and Lidington to discuss this humanitarian issue. They will also examine the possibility of a meeting at the British Parliament to raise the issue again before the Parliament and the government. Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when Turkey invaded and occupied its northern third. Numerous UN-backed negotiations with the aim to reunite the island under a federal roof, have not yet yielded result. As a result of the 1974 invasion, 1,619 Greek Cypriots were listed as missing, most of whom soldiers or reservists, who were captured in the battlefield. Many of those missing were last seen alive in the hands of the Turkish military.
A total of 1073 remains have been exhumed by the Committee of Missing Persons, 546 of which have been identified with the DNA method (421 Greek Cypriots and 125 Turkish Cypriots). Only 27% of all missing persons have been identified so far.