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The Political Affairs Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has discussed the report prepared by the Cyprus Rapporteur Joachim Horster.

Turkish Cypriot MPs, who are in Strasbourg for the meetings of the PACE – said, in spite of some deficiencies, the report is balanced.

Speaking to BRT after the submission of the Report to the Committee by Mr Horster yesterday, Turkish Cypriot deputy Mehmet Caglar said that the Repporteur provided information to the Committee on his findings in Cyprus.

Mr Caglar said the TRNC delegation told Mr Hoster that the Report includes some articles which are not pleasing the Turkish Cypriot Side and that these articles could be discussed and changed.

He listed the failure to include Turkish Cypriot universities into the Bologna Process and the Greek Cypriot Side’s failure to change history textbooks as the issues that could be discussed and reminded that history textbooks were changed in the Turkish Cypriot Side.

Noting that a claim included in the Report is saddening for the Turkish Cypriot Side, he said `what’s saddening is the claim raised by some Greek Cypriot civil community organizations that some missing persons are in Turkey. These claims are baseless. Such issues should not be included in the Report. We stressed this as well`.

He said that the Council’s decision, 1376, which calls for the lifting of the international isolation of the Turkish Cypriot people, should also be reminded in the Report, adding that they stressed the need to remove the isolation during the discussions at the Committee.

Mr Caglar noted that Mr Horster told the Committee after Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot deputies’ speeches, that he was planning to invite him and Greek Cypriot Parliamentarian to Strasbourg, possibly in August, before the Report is to be discussed by the Council of Europe.

He also added that the Commissioner and the Secretariat for the Human Rights Committee of the Council of Europe will be having discussion on human rights issues in both sides of the island in the first half of July.