Presidential Commissioner Photis Photiou said that unity and consensus are needed in the struggle to liberate Cyprus from Turkey’s occupying forces and pointed once again to Ankara’s responsibilities.
Delivering a eulogy Saturday in the funeral of soldier Nikolas Nikolaou Chrysanthou who went missing during the 1974 Turkish invasion and his remains were located during exhumations at the Turkish Cypriot village of Templos, the Commissioner said that we need to be united in the struggle to terminate the invasion and reunite our island and safeguard the human rights and freedoms of each one of us.
He underlined once again our duty to work so that the fate of each one of the missing persons is identified adding that Turkey’s responsibilities are huge and are dictated in the decisions by the European Court of Human Rights.
Photiou said that it is not possible for questions to remain unanswered as regards the fate of the missing persons so many years after the invasion, adding at the same time that the efforts to free Turkey from its blames cannot go on.
He criticised Turkey for its position on a two-state solution in Cyprus and its provocations that violate UN Security Council resolutions. He also said that the international Turkey must exert pressure on Turkey in order to have the right conditions for the resumption of the peace talks.
Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkish troops invaded and occupied 37% of its territory. Since then, the fate of hundreds of people remains unknown.
A Committee on Missing Persons has been established, upon agreement between the leaders of the two communities, with the scope of exhuming, identifying and returning to their relatives the remains of 492 Turkish Cypriots and 1,510 Greek Cypriots, who went missing during the inter-communal fighting of 1963-1964 and in 1974.
The last round of UN backed talks to reunite the island under a federal roof took place in the summer of 2017 at the Swiss resort of Crans Montana but ended inconclusively.
Source: Cyprus News Agency