Cyprus-Forum.com

[kookookaachoo]

Jesus, am I missing something did any Turk at any point 'own' any part of Cyprus or was it all just Greek? I mean Greek after it changed hands over the thousands of years.

[Piratis]

Jesus, am I missing something did any Turk at any point 'own' any part of Cyprus or was it all just Greek? I mean Greek after it changed hands over the thousands of years.

TCs currently illegally occupy more than twice as much than what they legally own. Also unfortunately Greek Cypriot land was illegally given to Turkish settlers and foreigners.

Here we are talking only about those that occupy property that does not belong to them, not about the rest (since there is no problem with the rest)

[Viewpoint]

Piratis its not as simple as you think and there will cases where it is even more complicated and eg the daughter has sold on to someone else, the TC has partially developed land sold it to another TC. Some TCs have developed their land and sold to Brits. The whole things is a mess and will be very difficult to deal with a case by case basis.

The clean and direct way is for the original owner to get fair compensation for land equivalent so that he may go ahead and purchase in the same location or elsewhere if he is thinking developing as you say.

I know of one family, who has built on disputed land by the sea 4 villas, his daughter lives in 1, he uses one as a holiday home and he has sold 2 to foreigners. How do you solve that?

Another example if we put the shoe on the other foot is a TC who's land in Limasol has been used for refugee housing and partial private sales. Do they kick around 100 homes off the land to give it back to the TC? I don't thinks is right to disrupt so many lives and cause upheaval to so many people. Whats done is done we have to find practical solutions and move on.

In both cases I feel compensation is the only uncomplicated answer, this will allow people to do what they wish with the money.

[/quote]

[reportfromcyprus]

Jesus, am I missing something did any Turk at any point 'own' any part of Cyprus or was it all just Greek? I mean Greek after it changed hands over the thousands of years.

TCs currently illegally occupy more than twice as much than what they legally own. Also unfortunately Greek Cypriot land was illegally given to Turkish settlers and foreigners.

Here we are talking only about those that occupy property that does not belong to them, not about the rest (since there is no problem with the rest)

How do you establish how much the TC owned?

My understanding is that at last count, they were 18% of the population but that doesn't necessarily relate to how much land they actually own.

Do you have independent figures on this?

[Alexis]

How do you establish how much the TC owned?

My understanding is that at last count, they were 18% of the population but that doesn't necessarily relate to how much land they actually own.

Do you have independent figures on this?

I believe that figures compiled in 1960 at independence do exist. Not sure quite how independednt these figures are and I do not have them on me now (although I am sure they have been quoted on other past threads on this forum). Some points worth making:

1) Much of the land in Cyprus was state owned, so even though not much land was TC privately owned we must also include their fair share of state owned land in making calculations.

2) TC Organisations (is that the correct term?) such as Evkaf, owned a lot of land back in the 19th Century and it is argued that a lot of their land was confiscated by the British and turned into state land. We need to be careful here and not mix this land with land that was owned privately by TCs and sold off between around 1878 and 1915 at a time when the TC population on the island dropped form around 25% to only 19% due to emigration to Turkey.

I don't have the figures but I believe on previous threads it was determined that even when you include Evkaf and state owned land the total land held by TCs did not amount to more than 20% of Cyprus based on 1960 figures. Given that there was so much state land this is hardly surprising, provided you split the state land based on population, something not everyone agrees is correct. From what I understand the system of title deeds in Cyprus was actually very well maintained and certainly in the figures in 1960 are probably very accurate.

[reportfromcyprus]

It would be interesting to know how the figures stood in 1974, when the two communities were separated.

[Alexis]

It would be interesting to know how the figures stood in 1974, when the two communities were separated.

That would certainly be interesting, but we need to realise that at that time many TCs were still living in enclaves and as such much of their land lied derelict. Many figures for the amount of land the enclaves took up are bandied about, usually for political gain. In my opinion the figures for land prior to 1964 (when the first displacement of people's occured), will give a much clearer indication of the land ownership in Cyprus and which can form the basis for reaching a settlement on property.

[Piratis]

Here are the figures of the legal land ownership:



Even if you divide 26.3% of state land between 18% of TCs and 82% of GCs that would mean 21.5 for GCs and 4.7 for TCs. So for GCs 61% (Private) + 21.5% (State) = 82.5% and for TCs 12.23% (Private) + 4.7 (State) = almost 17%.

This figures are not much different from when the British "left" from Cyprus.

Now of course he heard a lot of ridiculous things in the Forum. Who knows, the next joke might be that TCs were the rich land lords of Cyprus each one of them owing twice as much as each GCs.

*I divided the state land just for the sake of argument, since state land belongs to the state and can not be divided.

Piratis its not as simple as you think and there will cases where it is even more complicated

Obviously this problem is not going to be solved with two paragraphs of text. However here we are talking about the spirit of the solution: That the legal owner should have priority and some exceptions should be done for Turkish Cypriots. Which exactly those exceptions will be can be agreed in detail. However it should be made clear that those will be the exceptions to the rule, and not the rule.

[Viewpoint]

But Piratis the details are important because people need to know the parameters of how this will work, if they are not certain they will reject it.

[Piratis]

Yes, the details are important. But do you agree on the main principle that the legal owner should have priority over his own land?

Or is your approach more like "We will give back to the legal owner what we don't need, and for the rest we will just compensate him with whatever we decide is fair"?