Efforts are ceaseless to keep the issue of Missing people in Cyprus open on a Council of Europe level, along with the question of territory, as part of Cyprus’ fourth interstate application against Turkey, Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos said on Tuesday.
Kombos was speaking at the House refugee committee, which was discussing Missing people in a teleconference with Cypriot MEPs Loucas Fourlas, Giorgos Georgiou and Costas Mavrides.
The minister said Turkey has tried to shake off monitoring of its compliance with the fourth interstate application of 2001 at the European Court of Human Rights, regarding territory and the Missing.
He said that during the last meeting in March, 26 members of the Council of Europe intervened in favour of Cyprus.
Discussions, he added, would continue in March 2025.
Kombos also said Turkey was “selectively cooperating” with the Committee on Missing Persons (CMP).
Cyprus’ contribution had been increased from €175,000 to €300,000, Kombos said.
He added that Cyprus was in contact with the European Parliament’s new rapporteur on the Missing François-Xavier Bellamy and meetings have already been scheduled.
The issue of Missing people is “the most tragic aspect” of the 1974 Turkish invasion and “the less we say, the better”, he said.
Kombos said the issue of the Missing would be raised in Wednesday’s Cyprus-Greece intergovernmental summit in Nicosia and that the two countries were working together as it concerned both.
The minister referred to a “completely negative stance on behalf of Turkey” and that efforts were being made in cooperation with countries which could influence Ankara.
MPs said the issue of missing people was an “open wound” that demanded Cyprus to be on alert, as Turkey was working in the background and it was important that the country did not manage to lift European Court of Human Rights surveillance.
They added that a breakthrough was necessary with the opening of Turkish army archives on missing people, since more than half of the Missing have not yet been located.
The CMP has been established, upon agreement between the leaders of the two communities, with the scope of exhuming, identifying and returning to their relatives the remains of 492 Turkish Cypriots and 1,510 Greek Cypriots, who went missing during the inter-communal fighting of 1963-1964 and in 1974.
According to statistical data published on the CMP website, by August 1, 2022, out of 2,002 missing persons 1,185 were exhumed and 1,027 were identified.
