TURKEY cannot avoid executing judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), the Council of Europe’s (CoE) Secretary-general Walter Schwimmer said in Strasbourg yesterday.
Commenting on Tuesday’s third interim resolution by the CoE Committee of Ministers warning Ankara it should pay up in the Titina Loizidou case, Schwimmer said that a case of human rights violations in Cyprus was not political but legal, and there was no way a member state of the Council of Europe could avoid execution of the judgments of the Court.
In a landmark 1995 decision, the European Court of Human Rights ordered Turkey to pay Loizidou, a Greek Cypriot refugee, $900,000 in compensation for denying her access to her land in occupied Kyrenia since 1974.
Turkey has yet to comply with the decision, despite two subsequent resolutions from the CoE demanding that it do so. In its third resolution passed on Tuesday in Strasbourg, the CoE said Ankara’s refusal to execute the judgment of the Court demonstrated a manifest disregard for its international obligations.
And in an implicit threat of expulsion from the CoE, the resolution warned Turkey that implementation of ECHR decisions was a requirement for membership of the organisation.
Ankara earlier this year submitted a proposal to the CoE that suggested she only pay up on the Loizidou settlement after a Cyprus settlement.
But Schwimmer told a news conference yesterday that the execution of the judgment should not wait for a settlement of the Cyprus question. He described the third resolution as “a step to put pressure on a member country to comply with the judgment”.
The resolution stresses the Committee’s resolve to ensure by all means available to the organisation Turkey’s compliance with its obligations under this judgment, and calls upon the authorities of member states to “take such actions as they deem appropriate to this end”.
“If a country refuses to execute a judgment, this could lead to political tensions”, Schwimmer said.
“The judgment is a purely legal question and not a political matter and has to be executed and not wait for the solution of the Cyprus problem.” The Court does not deal with political issues, he added.
Schwimmer said he had discussed this issue during a recent meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Ismail Cem, in which he made it clear that Turkey had to comply with the judgment.
The government said yesterday it was satisfied with the decision and that the latest resolution was stronger than the previous two. Government spokesman Michalis Papapetrou said it was obvious Turkey’s isolation on the issue was growing bigger.
Attorney-general Alecos Markides said Turkey was now in a difficult position and added that it was important that all CoE member countries had been asked to take any action they deemed fit to put pressure on Ankara.
“This is first time such a stipulation was made in a resolution by the Committee of Ministers and this is why it is so important,” Markides said.
He admitted, however, that the stipulation was rather general and abstract. ‘You could say it is a bit of a riddle,” he said. “But on the other hand with a good strategy someone can build on this paragraph, which creates a kind of road for us, and it’s up to us to turn this into an avenue.”
Markides said it would not be fair to speculate on what one country or another could do to put pressure on Turkey.
“The essence is that all members have been urged to take such measures as they deem fit to force Turkey to pay the compensation,” he said. “There is no issue of us taking a whip and starting to lash people. We have a resolution, which confirms the difficult position Turkey is in. She is alone with 42 countries insisting that she has to enforce a basic obligation she had assumed as a member of the CoE.”
Diplomatic sources said yesterday they were studying the context and implications of the resolution. “But they have definitely upped the ante and for the first time there is a hint of a suspension,” the source said.
Turkish Cypriot papers yesterday reported “indignation” over the resolution in the north.
The Turkish Cypriot ‘Foreign Ministry’ said the breakaway regime was not under Turkey’s control and was a sovereign state in its own right.
An announcement said Cyprus was not a regular member of the CoE as it was a “fake government” and that the EHCR had lost its credibility when it viewed the Loizidou case “as if Loizidou lived in a regular country”.
“It is impossible to separate the human rights issues from the political dimension in the Cyprus problem,” the announcement said. “The Turkish Cypriot people are indignant at the CoE for continuing to view Turkey as its interlocutor in the Loizidou case, even though it knows that Turkey cannot abide by the ruling.”
The Turkish Foreign Ministry also rejected the latest resolution, saying the decision ignored the exceptional characteristics of the case. “We hope the committee would prefer to try in the future to make a positive contribution to efforts to find a solution by taking into consideration the issue’s exceptional dimensions,” a statement said. It added that Turkey was determined to protect the main principles of the CoE and to prevent these principles from being a tool for political goals.
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.
