Cyprus protests over new Varosha threats

By Jean Christou

CYPRUS yesterday protested to the UN over new Turkish threats to settle the ghost town of Varosha.

The protest, delivered to the ambassadors of the five Permanent representatives of the UN Security Council, was in response to comments by Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash that he could do whatever he wanted with Varosha.

The Greek Cypriot suburb of the occupied town of Famagusta was a popular tourist resort before the Turkish invasion in 1974, when its inhabitants fled. It has remained abandoned ever since.

A UN resolution passed in 1984 said no one but the legal inhabitants of Varosha should reside there.

The resolution considers any attempt to settle any part of Varosha by people other than its inhabitants as inadmissible and calls for the transfer of the area to the administration of the UN.

The area is already patrolled by the UN, even though it is not part of the buffer zone which divides the island in two.

Earlier this week Denktash, said that, although the Varosha issue was not on the agenda, “Varosha is one of our towns. We will do what we want there when we want.”

Press reports in Turkey have said the Turkish Cypriot side was preparing to settle Varosha in retaliation for the Ocalan affair.

Turkey accuses Greece and the Greek Cypriots of giving active support to Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, whom they seized in Nairobi last month.

Foreign Ministry Permanent Secretary Alecos Shambos yesterday lodged the government’s official protest with the five embassies.

Similar representations have been made with the UN in New York and in the capitals of the ‘Big Five’.

The Turkish Cypriot side has repeatedly threatened to settle Varosha over the years.

The last spate of threats came in 1997 from Serdar Denktash, the son of Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash.

He said the Turkish Cypriot side would open it to tourism in retaliation for the now-cancelled Russian missile deal.

There are 14,000 tourist beds in Varosha’s 45 hotels and 60 tourist apartment blocks.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.