Presidential Commissioner Photis Photiou has said that a meeting will take place in Athens in September during which all parties involved will coordinate actions for an international campaign to exert pressure on Turkey as regards the humanitarian issue of missing persons.
Photiou, who held a meeting on Wednesday with delegations of relatives of Greek Cypriot and Greek missing persons, said that the passing of time is the greatest enemy in the issue of missing persons and that 48 years after the Turkish invasion against Cyprus we are still looking for 870 missing persons, Greek Cypriots and Greeks.
“Parents pass away, siblings pass away, children die. Efforts must be intensified, the occupying power must be convinced and pressure must be exerted on Ankara, because the key to solving this humanitarian problem that causes so much pain to the relatives of the missing is the occupying power”, he underlined.
The international community must finally demonstrate more sensitivity for our missing persons, like it is showing now in the war in Ukraine, he stressed.
Photiou said they discussed a series of actions that will be carried out in coordination with the governments of Cyprus and Greece and the two organisations of the relatives of the missing persons. The first one will be a broad meeting in Athens in September, in the presence of all the parties involved, for coordination and decisions as regards the involvement of the international community on the issue of missing persons.
He added that more actions will follow in the UK and the US and said that they want a greater involvement of the Greeks of the diaspora to support these actions.
President of the Panhellenic Committee of Parents and Relatives of Undeclared Prisoners and Missing Persons of the Cyprus Tragedy Maria Kalmpourtzi said that there are still 52 missing persons from Greece whose whereabouts are not known.
She said that relatives feel great injustice noting that they demand to know the fate of their beloved ones.
President of the Pancyprian Organisation of the Relatives of Undeclared Prisoners and Missing Persons Nikos Sergides said that the work conducted by the Committee on Missing Persons (CMP) so far is not satisfactory explaining that “the results and the delays cause great concern”.
He said that at the meeting they decided a series of more practical ways for a better coordination so that international organisations and the United Nations are finally obliged to take measures and actions regarding the CMP’s work.
Source: Cyprus News Agency