The Turkish Cypriot member of the Committee on Missing Persons Gülden Plümer Küçük has announced that the remains of 450 missing persons have been unearthed so far.
Mrs Kucuk said the excavations are continuing in North and South Cyprus.
The excavations in the North are being carried out in Guzelyurt and Gungor, and in the South, in Petrofan.
Mrs Kucuk explained that members of the committee had inspections in Bosnia-Hercegovina which has been experiencing tragic problems about missing persons and mass graves.
She pointed out that 30-thousand people were reported missing in Bosnia and that DNA tests have been carried out there since 1998.
`We are in a better position in terms of infrastructure and human resources` she noted.
Providing information about the work being carried out by the Committee in both sides of the island, Mrs Kucuk said the remains of 450 of 1970 missing persons have been found.
The remains of 107 – 31 of them Turkish Cypriots, have been handed over to their families until now.
4 to 5 million dollars are being spent annually for exhumation and identification of the remains and some 1-million dollars of this amount are being provided by North Cyprus and some 2 million dollars by South Cyprus.
The rest is being covered by donations from foreign countries, which include Turkey and Greece.
The missing persons issue is expected to be solved with the help of the international communities by 2010.