Cyprus-Forum.com

[Sotos]

DESPITE desperate Turkish efforts to prevent it, the the Council of Europe’s Congress of Local and Regional Authorities this week approved a report rejecting membership to representatives from the occupied areas of Cyprus.

Turkey made repeated attempts to remove references to ECHR judgements in the resolution, but failed to do so.

The report underlined that the European Charter of Local Self-Government cannot be enforced in the area under Turkish occupation.

It insisted that Turkey was responsible as the occupying power for what went on in the north.

The report by Maltese and British rapporteurs said that local and regional representatives could not be accepted to the Congress because the institutions of the so-called TRNC were not internationally recognised.

Furthermore the presence in the north of Cyprus of Turkish settlers who acted as local representatives raised another matter of legality, as the settlers are considered illegal from the viewpoint of international law.