Presidential Commissioner for Humanitarian Issues and Overseas Cypriots Fotis Fotiou has said that the number of remains of Greek Cypriot missing, located in the northern Turkish occupied areas of Cyprus, has been dramatically reduced.
If this tendency continues in 2017, there will be no remains of Greek Cypriots to identify by the anthropological laboratory of the Committee on Missing Persons, he warned, noting that there are still 1.025 Greek Cypriots missing out of the registered 1.508.
Fotiou, who was addressing an event on missing persons organized by a Cypriot and a Greek school, said that despite the efforts of the Government of Cyprus at all international fora, Turkey refuses to cooperate to solve this humanitarian issue, which Ankara itself had created, causing pain and suffering to thousands of families.
Turkey, which occupies 37% of Cyprus` territory since the invasion in 1974, continues to refuse to implement the European Court of Human Rights` rulings and the provisions of the Council of Europe`s resolutions and other international organizations, he stressed.
Fotiou expressed great concern over Turkey`s stance, saying that it can lead to the termination of the CMP program and as a result the families of the Greek Cypriot and Greek missing persons will never be informed about the fate of their loved ones.
The Presidential Commissioner said that Turkey, the occupation force, has the obligation to provide all information it holds in the Turkish army archives on mass graves.
Fotiou pointed out that without this information the CMP program will be faced with a serious problem, with tragic consequences especially for the families of the missing.
Concluding, he assured that the government, despite the difficulties, the obstacles and the intransigent Turkish stance, will continue its efforts in Cyprus and abroad, for the full investigation into the fate of every missing person.
Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkey invaded and occupied its northern third. As a result of the invasion, many Greek Cypriots were listed as missing, most of whom soldiers or reservists, who were captured in the battlefield.
A Committee on Missing Persons (CMP) was established, upon agreement between the leaders of the two communities, with the scope of exhuming, identifying and returning the remains of missing persons to their relatives.