Cyprus-Forum.com

[Lit]

Barnet MP calls for action on missing Cypriots

10:53am Thursday 9th April 2009

http://www.times-series.co.uk/news/4279 ... _Cypriots/

By Rebecca Lowe »


CHIPPING Barnet MP Theresa Villiers has pledged her support for the relatives of people who went missing during the 1974 invasion of Cyprus.

Ms Villiers wrote to Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs David Milliband at the beginning of March on behalf of constituents belonging to the Organisation of Relatives of Missing Cypriots.

She urged the Government to make progress on discovering what happened to the 1532 people still unaccounted for since the Turkish invasion.

Replying as Minister for Europe, Caroline Flint MP wrote that progress was being made by the UN Committee for Missing Persons.

She said that Britain, as party to the European Convention on Human Rights, was working to urge all parties, especially Turkey, to work in partnership to resolve the issue.

Ms Villiers said: “The relatives of the missing desperately want to hear the truth about what happened to their loved ones.

“It is vital the British Government continues to put pressure on Turkey to fulfil its obligations, as outlined by the European Court of Human Rights, and that effective measures are taken to ensure that information is finally revealed about what really happened to Cyprus’ missing persons.

“I will continue to campaign for justice for Cyprus, and for a balanced, lasting and peaceful settlement to reunite the island and enable its different communities to live together harmoniously.”

[Lit]

Some of the missing have been identified:

G/C FAMILY – MISSING – FUNERAL

http://www.cna.org.cy/website/english/a ... 2.asp?id=4

“Never again”, is what Costas and Petros Souppouris wish for, as they prepare to bury five members of their family. The two brothers are survivors of a massacre during the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus, in the village of Palekythro.

The Souppouris brothers were speaking to CNA only a few days before the funeral on Sunday of five out of six members of their family, who were murdered during the hostilities and said that one must look to the future for the sake of the generations to come.

The remains of the five were recently located in a mass grave in the island’s northern Turkish occupied areas, exhumed and identified through the DNA method, as part of an ongoing process to alleviate the suffering of relatives of missing persons in Cyprus.

“We hope that what we have been through does not happen again, so that our children do not experience anything like that”, Costas said, having narrated the tragic story of the killings by young Turkish Cypriots of five members of his family on August 17th, 1974.

[bill cobbett]

And from the same source, the last paragraph reads...

"Turkey has so far refused to provide information about the fate of Greek Cypriot missing persons, who were last seen alive in the hands of the Turkish military during the 1974 Turkish invasion."

Isn't it outrageous that Turkey still refuses to comply with demands, repeated time and time again over the past thirty-five years to give an account of what happened to those poor souls who were last seen to be alive when they were taken to Jurkey.

Aren't these repeated Jurkish refusals to give an explanation, in the absolute deepest pits of the cess-pit of human behaviour?